Now Reading: Visa lays off 1,400 in Bengaluru in AI-driven job cut
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Visa lays off 1,400 in Bengaluru in AI-driven job cut
Visa has laid off about 1,400 employees at its Bengaluru technology centre, nearly 40 per cent of its Indian workforce, as part of the global payments company's plan to cut 2,600 jobs…
The Story in Brief
Visa has laid off about 1,400 employees at its Bengaluru technology centre, nearly 40 per cent of its Indian workforce, as part of the global payments company's plan to cut 2,600 jobs worldwide. The layoffs, the company's largest retrenchment in India since 2015, mostly hit product and technology teams. Visa CEO Ryan McInerney said the cuts were needed to embrace AI and drive efficiency. Employees received termination emails between 4 am and 5 am on 29 July. Severance packages offered 15 to 30 days of notice, and the Bengaluru office emptied within days. A Nomura report released Friday, however, found that across Asia, AI-related hiring (130,758 jobs) has outpaced AI-related layoffs (60,654), with India recording 83,100 AI hires against 31,921 job losses and attrition.
The Indian Opinion
Two big narratives compete here: AI destroying Indian jobs versus AI creating more than it kills. The layoffs at Visa's Bengaluru hub are real and painful, 1,400 people, whole teams gutted, empty desks. But Nomura's data shows that across Asia, AI-related hiring (83,100 in India alone) still outpaces layoffs. The uncomfortable truth: those who lose routine back-office roles rarely become AI engineers. The real test is whether India's IT services sector can retrain displaced workers fast enough, watch September quarter hiring numbers from TCS and Infosys.
Sources (3): livemint.com, rediff.com, timesofindia.indiatimes.com
This story was synthesised by AI from the 3 sources linked above.
Updated: this story now draws on 3 sources.
