Amex to cut about 3,500 jobs as it strips out management layers

American Express plans to eliminate about 5% of its positions worldwide, roughly 3,500 jobs, and its finance chief has been unusually plain about where the cuts are aimed. The company will "reduce layers and increase spans of controls, so that we can automate and take advantage of AI in the coming quarters and the coming years," Chief Financial Officer Christophe Le Caillec told CNBC. "You don't want to automate processes that are not optimally structured."

In other words, the reorganization comes first and the automation follows. The first round of cuts targets the structure of the company, its management tiers and reporting lines, rather than the work the automation is ultimately meant to absorb.

Chief Executive Stephen Squeri told Bloomberg TV the company has 78,000 employees. A spokesperson gave the same figures to Payments Dive. By Payments Dive's arithmetic, the reduction comes to nearly 4.5% of staff. The 78,000 figure is higher than the 76,800 employees Amex reported at the end of last year in its annual report, according to Payments Dive, so the company had added staff since year-end even as it prepared to cut.

Squeri tied the cuts to an exercise he started earlier in the year. "I asked the senior leadership team to identify ways to streamline their organizations, align their teams on the most critical deliverables, and reduce layers to speed decision-making," he told analysts, according to a transcript excerpt published by TheFly. He also signaled that this was not routine housekeeping: "Because this quarter's charge is somewhat larger than what we typically do, I'll take a moment to provide a bit more context."

The restructuring charge was $336 million before tax, according to Stocktwits, or $253 million after tax, according to Bloomberg. Amex is paying for it largely with money it had not earned from cards. The sale of its equity interest in Global Business Travel Group produced a $751 million after-tax gain, and the company used part of that gain to fund the restructuring, Bloomberg reported. The gain, net of the restructuring charge, is excluded from adjusted results. Le Caillec told CNBC that the travel-stake proceeds also helped the raised earnings outlook.

The cuts arrive in a strong quarter, not a weak one. Net income rose 28% to $3.71 billion. Adjusted earnings of $4.68 a share beat the $4.49 average analyst estimate in a Bloomberg survey, and Amex raised its full-year guidance to $18.30 to $18.60 a share, up from $17.30 to $17.90. Revenue grew 9% to $20.06 billion, slightly short of the $20.12 billion LSEG forecast, CNBC reported.

The pressure is on the cost side. Expenses climbed about 9% to $14.5 billion, though that was below the $14.8 billion analysts expected, Bloomberg reported. Member rewards costs rose 10% and marketing 11%, as Amex keeps adding perks to hold on to premium cardholders. That fight is not expected to ease. "It's been highly competitive," Squeri said on the call. "And our assumption is that it will remain highly competitive."

Transaction growth has softened at the margin. Billed business, the measure of spending on Amex cards and other products, rose 8% on a foreign-exchange-adjusted basis to $454 billion, down from 9% growth in the first half, according to the company's earnings presentation as reported by Payments Dive. That fell short of the $456.9 billion average estimate in a Bloomberg survey, and the company pointed to its exit from some small-business co-brand deals. Truist Securities analysts called the slower growth likely a slight disappointment. "The details are more mixed," they wrote. Le Caillec, for his part, described customer demand as "strong and consistent." Amex shares fell roughly 4% in afternoon trading, CNBC reported.

On the commercial side, Squeri named newer rivals. Brex and Ramp are competing for corporate customers with automation and AI agents. "What they unlocked in this segment was sort of the automation and the expense management," Squeri said, according to Payments Dive. "What you'll see from us as we move forward, you will see the introduction into this platform of more agents."

Amex is also absorbing a $350 million penalty after the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency and the Federal Reserve brought enforcement actions this month over alleged deficiencies in its anti-money-laundering systems, Bloomberg reported. The company has said the fine will not affect its 2026 guidance or any 2027 outlook.

The announcement capped a week of cuts. Barclays confirmed plans on Oct. 22 to eliminate 5,000 jobs, also about 5% of its staff, in a cost drive it linked to AI, according to CNBC. Bloomberg News has reported that HSBC is planning reductions in its UK wealth-management business, and Bloomberg also reported that Citigroup has been lowering headcount. Outside finance, eBay said it would cut 9% of its employees and Volvo another 2,500 jobs, The Wall Street Journal reported.