UBS May Cut 10,000 Jobs by 2027, Swiss Paper Says

UBS is facing the prospect of substantial further downsizing as it continues to integrate Credit Suisse, SonntagsBlick reported on Sunday. The Swiss newspaper said the bank may eliminate up to 10,000 roles by 2027, a figure UBS did not confirm. If implemented, the cuts would equal roughly 9 percent of UBS’s roughly 110,000 employees at the end of 2024.

UBS said it would keep job reductions "as low as possible" and that any role reductions would be phased over several years, relying mainly on natural attrition, early retirements, redeployment inside the group and insourcing previously outsourced functions. Reuters has reported that UBS has already trimmed staff materially since the 2023 takeover and that more waves of restructuring may be announced depending on integration progress and cost saving targets.

The size and timing of the potential reductions matter for multiple reasons. From a cost perspective, 10,000 fewer roles could meaningfully lower operating expenses for a bank that has said integration is central to achieving synergies after the emergency purchase of a rival in 2023. From a labor market perspective, cuts concentrated in Switzerland would have outsized local effects because UBS is one of the country’s largest private sector employers. For the Swiss economy, where finance accounts for a sizable share of corporate payrolls and tax revenues, large workforce moves by a single bank raise political and policy stakes.

Policy makers who steered the rescue and supported the takeover of Credit Suisse have emphasized financial stability and continuity. That political backdrop complicates the optics of large job reductions. Regulators and the Swiss federal government will likely monitor both the pace of layoffs and the bank’s use of voluntary measures such as early retirement and redeployment to reduce compulsory redundancies.

For investors and analysts the calculation balances cost savings against integration risk. Earlier statements from UBS outlined significant targeted synergies from the merger, but integration retains execution challenges including systems rationalization, client retention and cultural alignment. Markets typically reward credible and rapid cost reduction when paired with stable revenues, yet aggressive cuts can provoke client concern or regulatory scrutiny that undermines longer term returns.

Longer term trends reinforce the context. The banking sector has been reshaped by consolidation, technology driven automation and a shift toward cheaper centralized operations. Insourcing some external roles may reflect a strategy to standardize core functions and reduce vendor costs, even as automation compresses headcount needs. How UBS executes cuts during a multiyear integration will influence not just its own competitiveness but also broader sector expectations for cost structures and employment in global banking.