Amex Beats Earnings and Cuts 3,500 Jobs in One Morning
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American Express will cut about 5% of its global workforce, roughly 3,500 jobs, Bloomberg reported today. CEO Steve Squeri told Bloomberg TV the company has 78,000 employees. Three thousand five hundred is closer to 4.5% of 78,000, so treat both numbers as approximate.
The cuts came the same day Amex reported a strong quarter. Adjusted earnings per share were $4.68, beating the $4.49 analysts expected, and net income rose 28% to $3.71 billion. Amex raised the low end of its adjusted 2026 forecast to $17.60 to $17.90 per share, up from $17.30 to $17.90. Its reported forecast, which includes a one-time gain from selling its stake in Global Business Travel Group, is $18.30 to $18.60.
Squeri told analysts the goal is to make Amex more agile and efficient, trim layers of management, and speed up decisions. Expenses rose about 9% to $14.5 billion in the quarter. Amex also booked a $253 million after-tax restructuring charge tied to efficiency efforts, offset in part by a $751 million after-tax gain from the Global Business Travel Group sale.
The picture was not all positive. Billed business, a measure of card spending, was $454 billion, a little below the $456.9 billion analysts expected. Amex also faces a $350 million fine from federal regulators over anti-money-laundering lapses, and the company says the fine won’t change its 2026 guidance.
Amex beat earnings, raised its forecast, and cut 3,500 jobs on the same morning. Profitable companies are trimming headcount while business is good, and they’re telling Wall Street exactly why. Notice the size of the raise, too. The like-for-like adjusted forecast moved up only at the low end, and the larger $18.30 figure in some headlines includes the one-time gain.
Barclays announced 5,000 cuts yesterday, and now Amex adds 3,500. The reporting doesn’t have Amex citing AI, so I’m not calling this an AI story. Even so, banks and card companies keep cutting managers and support roles while profits rise.
If you work in financial services and your job mostly coordinates other people’s work, I’d start building skills that tie you directly to revenue or customers. If you’re an employer planning your own restructure, talk to us about hiring before you finalize the plan. And if you’re affected, see what’s open right now.
Nearly 90% of CEOs Say Employees Trust Them, and Employees Put It at 46%
Boston Consulting Group asked 645 CEOs of companies with at least $100 million in revenue, and 500 nonexecutive employees, how much workers trust their bosses, especially on AI. The second edition of BCG’s CEO Insomnia Index came out October 14, and the answers were far apart. Nearly 90% of CEOs said they’re confident employees trust their leadership, while only 46% of employees said they’re confident in their CEO’s leadership, judgment, and vision.
The gap repeats on AI. Only 15% of CEOs worry their AI approach could hurt employee trust, but 40% of employees say their CEO hasn’t been transparent enough about how AI will affect their jobs and careers. In BCG’s full report, just 8% of employees call their CEO extremely transparent on the subject. Well-being shows the same split: nearly 70% of CEOs think employees trust them to weigh well-being when deciding where money goes, and 36% of employees agree.
Trust changes how hard people work. Among employees whose trust in their CEO grew because of how AI was handled, half say they’re more willing to go above and beyond. Among those whose trust fell, fewer than 10% say the same, and BCG’s full report puts the share who say they’re less willing at 66%.
Most CEOs aren’t worried. 58% aren’t concerned about rising employee disgruntlement, and BCG’s full report shows CEOs ranking AI-driven job changes last among 5 threats to employee trust at 13%, behind cost cuts like layoffs at 31%. Pressure at the top is also shifting. Nearly 60% of CEOs plan to replace a member of their senior team in the next 6 months, with the CFO topping the list at 16%. 63% are confident their senior team can deliver their vision over the next 2 to 4 quarters, 34% have considered stepping down in the past 6 months, and the CEO stress score fell to 64.2 out of 100 from 66.7.
BCG’s Julie Bedard said, “Historically, there’s always been this perception gap,” and that leadership teams “sometimes overestimate this type of trust.” Matthias Tauber of BCG said, “CEOs must be realistic in their words and consistent in their actions.”
The 87% versus 46% gap gets the headline, but the effort numbers matter more. When trust goes up, half of employees say they’ll do more. When it goes down, two-thirds say they’ll do less, and every company counting on AI to raise productivity needs those people to pick up the tools and use them.
The 40% who say their CEO hasn’t been clear about what AI means for their jobs is the number I’d act on first. When leaders say nothing, employees fill the gap with their own assumptions. A CEO doesn’t need a finished plan to fix this. Tell people what you know and when you expect to know more, then give them the tools and the time to learn them. Gallup’s job quality study, which I covered yesterday, tied workplace culture to who plans to leave.
Monster’s survey found that 90% of workers say employers expect more loyalty than they give back, which fits the BCG gap. If you’re rolling out AI and want help backfilling roles if people leave, explore our staffing services.
Staffing your team doesn’t have to be hard.
Reach out and see how we can help.
HR Leaders Think Young Workers Want Remote Work and Perks, but Job Security Tops Their List
SHRM and Fidelity Investments surveyed 1,005 younger U.S. workers (ages 18 to 26), 505 older workers, and 1,010 HR leaders. The report’s main finding is that HR leaders have the wrong picture of what young workers want.
Job security is the clearest miss. 85% of younger workers say job security is very or extremely important, but only 27% of HR leaders think young workers care about it that much. HR leaders also guessed wrong on office time. 70% of HR leaders think remote work matters to young workers, but only 42% of young workers say so. 59% of young workers say in-person work opportunities are important, and only 17% say they’d prefer fully remote work. Retirement benefits matter to 69% of young workers, while only 17% of HR leaders think they do.
Money is the biggest pressure. Cost of living is the top challenge for young workers (70%), and 4 of their 5 biggest challenges are financial. Only 45% say their pay meets their needs, compared with 53% of older workers, and pay is the top reason young workers change jobs. HR leaders read that differently: 84% say “unrealistic expectations” drive young workers to want more money, and 67% blame “a sense of entitlement.” Young workers point to cost of living (75%) and rent or housing (71%).
AI is the surprise. HR leaders call tech agility (66%) and digital fluency (76%) strengths of young workers, yet 61% of young workers describe themselves as AI avoiders (31%) or light users (30%). Only 49% say they’re willing to use AI tools at work, compared with 68% of older workers, and just 4% of HR leaders link AI resistance with Gen Z. Meanwhile, 48% of HR leaders say AI is most likely to replace entry-level roles, and 45% expect it to cut entry-level roles at their own company. 53% of younger women are skeptical about using AI at work, compared with 32% of younger men, and younger deskless workers are less willing to use AI than desk workers (39% versus 62%).
Younger workers report lower job satisfaction than older workers (60% versus 70%) and lower commitment to their employer (59% versus 73%), and 39% plan to leave within 6 months, compared with 30% of older workers. Their top priorities are a fair and respectful environment (86%), job security (85%), work/life balance (80%), a good manager relationship (80%), and a clear job description (77%).
The job security number is the one I’d put in front of every hiring manager. 85% of young workers rank it near the top, and only 27% of HR leaders think it matters to them. HR leaders think young workers want remote work and perks, while the workers want to know the job will still be there next year.
The pay gap tells the same story. 84% of HR leaders call young workers’ pay demands unrealistic, while the workers are pointing at their rent. You can argue about whether a 23-year-old’s number is fair, but calling it entitlement won’t help you hire them or keep them.
The AI finding worries me most. HR leaders expect entry-level jobs to shrink because of AI, and the youngest workers are the group least willing to learn the tools. Employers who want to keep their young talent should train them on AI on the clock and show them what the job looks like once AI is part of it.
