Klarna CEO Sebastian Siemiatkowski talked about AI and the workforce. Siemiatkowski said AI “can already do all the jobs” that humans do. He said Klarna stopped hiring a year ago, despite the company advertising jobs online.
Klarna CEO Sebastian Siemiatkowski is all about artificial intelligence at the fintech company.
“I think AI can do all the jobs that humans are already doing,” Simiatkowski said in an interview with Bloomberg TV.
“The only question is how to apply it and take advantage of it,” he says.
Klarna is a payment service that offers consumers the option to ‘buy now, pay later’. According to its website, the company connects with more than 575,000 retailers.
The increased focus on AI has raised concerns about how it will impact careers and the workplace. A 2023 report from McKinsey & Company estimates that 12 million U.S. workers will have to change jobs by 2030 as AI technology develops.
During the interview, Siemiatkowski said Klarna stopped hiring last year.
“I don’t think what we’ve done internally has been as widely publicized. We stopped hiring about a year ago, so we went from 4,500 employees to 3,500 now,” Siemiatkou said. Mr. Ski said. “Like any technology company, we have attrition. Employees stay for about five years, so 20% leave every year. By not hiring, we are simply shrinking. That’s all, right?”
Siemiatkowski said Klarna stopped hiring a year ago. Nikos Pekiaridis/Getty Images
Siemiatkowski said his company has told employees that “what’s going to happen is that Klarna’s total payroll costs will shrink, but some of that benefit will be seen in payroll.” said.
As of press time, Klarna’s website has open positions listed, but a spokesperson told Business Insider that the company is not “actively hiring” to expand its workforce. Rather, the spokesperson said Klarna is backfilling “a number of key roles”, primarily in engineering.
