Capita replacing 2,000 staff with robots

The age of automation is coming early at Capita: with shares at a ten-year low, forcing the firm to issue a second profit warning in three months, 2,000 jobs will be cut and the money saved will be go into investment in automated technology company-wide.

The company expects pre-tax profits for this year to be £515million, down from the prediction of between £535million and £555million three months ago.

Capita’s CEO, Andy Parker, said the “headwind” of corporate clients decreasing their spending had hit them.

He added: “There’s been a fall away in what we would call discretionary spend, like training and employee benefits. People are delaying making decisions on implementing technology, so there is a whole host of things going on.”