Klarna has claimed that AI-related savings have allowed the buy now, pay later company to increase staff salaries by nearly 60%, but hinted it could slash more jobs after nearly halving its workforce over the past three years.
Chief executive Sebastian Siemiatkowski said headcount had dropped from 5,527 to 2,907 since 2022, mostly as a result of natural attrition, with departing staff replaced by technology rather than by new staff members.
The figures add to the impact of an internal artificial intelligence programme, which had steadily reduced its use of outsourced workers including those in customer service, with technology now carrying out the work of 853 full-time staff, up from 700 earlier this year.
It meant the company, which was founded in Sweden in 2005, had managed to increase revenues by 108% while keeping operating costs flat. Siemiatkowski told analysts on an earnings call on Tuesday that it was “pretty remarkable, and unheard of as a number, among businesses”.
He explained that Klarna has not hired “for a few years”. However, some of the resulting cost-savings had been used to increase pay for remaining staff, with average compensation – including employee-related taxes and pension contributions – rising by 60% over the past three years.
“We have made a commitment to our employees that all of these efficiency gains, and especially the applications of AI, should also, to some degree, come back in their pay cheques so that they are fully … incentivised [and] aligned with the investors, to drive these changes through the company.”
Average compensation for each employee has jumped from $126,000 (£96,000) in 2022 to $203,000 today, Klarna said.
Siemiatkowski, who is a shareholder in a number of AI firms including OpenAI and Perplexity through his family investment firm Flat Capital, said he hoped to continue increasing a metric measuring revenue per employee, suggesting a further reduction in staff numbers in the years ahead.
“We’re now at $1.1m per employee, and we hope to continue to do that acceleration.”
skip past newsletter promotion
Sign up to Business Today
Get set for the working day – we’ll point you to all the business news and analysis you need every morning
Privacy Notice: Newsletters may contain information about charities, online ads, and content funded by outside parties. If you do not have an account, we will create a guest account for you on theguardian.com to send you this newsletter. You can complete full registration at any time. For more information about how we use your data see our Privacy Policy. We use Google reCaptcha to protect our website and the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply.
after newsletter promotion
Siemiatkowski warned this week against costly investments in datacentres to power AI, telling the Financial Times that he expected the technology would become more efficient over time.
The comments came as Klarna reported a 26% jump in revenues in the three months to the end of September to $903m, beating analysts’ expectations of $882m.
But the Swedish business reported a $95m loss over the period, significantly higher than the $4m loss last year. Klarna said this was primarily driven by changes to accounting standards that it had to follow in the US, after its decision to list its shares on the New York stock exchange in September.
