Klarna has claimed that AI-related savings have allowed the buy now, pay later company to increase staff salaries by almost 60%, but has hinted that it may cut more jobs after almost halving its workforce over the past three years.
Chief executive Sebastian Siemiatkowski said the number of employees has dropped from 5,527 to 2,907 since 2022, mostly as a result of natural layoffs, with technology replacing departing employees rather than new staff members.
The figures add to the impact of an internal artificial intelligence programme, which has steadily reduced the use of outsourced staff, including customer service, with the technology now employing 853 full-time staff, up from 700 at the start of the year.
This means that the company, which was founded in Sweden in 2005, managed to grow revenue by 108% while keeping operating costs stable. Siemiatkowski told analysts on an earnings call Tuesday that it was “quite remarkable, and unheard of as a number among businesses.”
He said Klarna had not hired for “a few years.” However, some of the resulting cost-savings were used to increase pay for the remaining employees, with average compensation – including employee-related taxes and pension contributions – increasing by 60% over the past three years.
“We have made a commitment to our employees that all these efficiency gains, and especially the applications of AI, should, to some extent, come back into their pay checks so that they are fully incentivized. [and] “We are aligned with investors to drive these changes through the company.”
Klarna said average compensation for each employee is set to rise from $126,000 (£96,000) in 2022 to $203,000 today.
Siemiatkowski, who is a shareholder in several AI firms including OpenAI and Perplexity through his family investment firm Flat Capital, said he expects revenue per employee to continue to grow, a metric that suggests further reductions in headcount in the coming years.
“We’re now at $1.1 million per employee, and we expect that upward trend to continue.”
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Siemiatkowski this week warned against expensive investments in datacenters to power AI and told the Financial Times he expects the technology to become more efficient over time.
The comments came as Klarna reported a 26% rise in revenue to $903 million in the three months to the end of September, beating analysts’ expectations of $882 million.
But the Swedish business posted a loss of $95 million in the period, widening from a $4 million loss the previous year. Klarna said this was mainly due to changes in accounting standards it had to follow in the US following its decision to list its shares on the New York Stock Exchange in September.