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Klarna is reducing its white-collar headcount as it leans further into AI-powered customer service tools, with CEO Sebastian Siemiatkowski sounding a warning that the shift could spark a recession.
Speaking on the Times Tech Podcast, the executive warned of an economic downturn risks as companies rapidly scale automation.
“My suspicion…is that there will be an implication for white-collar jobs. And when that happens, that usually leads to at least a recession in the short term. And I think, unfortunately, I don’t see how we could avoid that with what’s happening from a technology perspective,” he said.
AI takes on 700 support roles
The Swedish fintech’s workforce has shrunk from 5,500 to 3,000 over two years, a trend Siemiatkowski has previously said could continue through natural attrition to around 2,000. The reduction follows Klarna’s decision in February last year to replace the work of 700 customer service staff with an AI chatbot. Those roles had been filled by staff at the French agency Teleperformance.
“Many people in the tech industry, especially CEOs, tend to downplay the consequences of AI on jobs, white-collar jobs in particular. I don’t want to be one of them,” he said.
Siemiatkowski said he had fielded calls from other executives asking how to make “efficiencies” of their own. “If you added up the number of employees of the CEOs who had called me,” he suggested, the result could be “a seismic economic event.”
Customer support gets more complex
Despite predictions of a leaner future workforce, Klarna has also needed to recruit. The CEO told The Times that although AI had automated many basic tasks, more complex customer queries still required a human touch.
“When we started applying AI in our customer service, we realized that there will be a higher value to human connection,” he said.
The comments follow Klarna’s disclosure that its credit losses rose by 17% last year to $136 million. Siemiatkowski explained the increase as a function of the company onboarding more users, which led to a proportional rise in defaults. He said the losses were relatively small compared to the volume of new customers.
“We are very unsensitive to macroeconomic shifts. We can still see them, but they’re much less profound than if you’re a big bank, you have tons of mortgages. And for people to really increase losses, credit losses, what has to happen is people have to lose jobs,” he said.
The average indebtedness of Klarna users stands at £100, he noted, compared to average credit card debts of approximately $6,300 in the US. That distinction, he argued, makes Klarna's borrowers more likely to repay what they owe.
Cautious tone despite no clear downturn
Siemiatkowski conceded that “making future statements about macroeconomics is like horoscopes” but emphasized falling consumer sentiment as a potential warning sign.
While there is no current evidence of a recession, the combination of job cuts, AI displacement, and reduced spending could shift the economic picture, raising questions not only about talent management but also about long-term workforce design in increasingly automated industries.
