Swiss perspectives in 10 languages

UBS job cuts in Switzerland to be based on ‘meritocracy’

UBS CEO Sergio Ermotti
“The most difficult part of this work will consist of dismissing people who are in no way responsible for what happened," says UBS CEO Sergio Ermotti. © Keystone / Salvatore Di Nolfi

The 3,000 job cuts UBS plans to make in Switzerland as it integrates Credit Suisse will be partly based on meritocracy, according to UBS Chief Executive Officer Sergio Ermotti.

In an interview in Le Matin Dimanche on Sunday, Ermotti said: “We are going to try our best on the principle of meritocracy, and use retirements, early retirements and natural departures. It’s not 3,000 people at Credit Suisse who made mistakes, probably much fewer.”

The UBS CEO, who was named “Swiss of the year” by Le Matin Dimanche, says the job-cutting exercise is delicate: “The most difficult part of this work will consist of dismissing people who are in no way responsible for what happened.”

+ UBS cut around 4,000 jobs globally in third quarter

UBS wants to have completed the takeover and integration of Credit Suisse by the end of 2026. In this context, UBS is targeting total cost reductions of around $10 billion (CHF8.8 billion).

Ermotti tries to put criticism of the takeover and job losses into perspective. He said: “The vast majority of affected jobs would have been lost even if UBS had not taken control because Credit Suisse was losing billions and planned to continue losing billions. They would therefore have had to make a drastic cost reduction which would have cost a lot of jobs. And if Credit Suisse had been bought by a foreign bank, it would probably have lost even more.

+ UBS to cut 3,000 staff in Switzerland as it integrates rival

Scenarios other than UBS taking over Credit Suisse would have been possible, but it should have been done earlier, Ermotti says. “Unfortunately, we had allowed the situation at Credit Suisse to deteriorate for too long,” he declared, until it became “uncontrollable”.

+ Where did it all go wrong for Credit Suisse?

This news story has been written and carefully fact-checked by an external editorial team. At SWI swissinfo.ch we select the most relevant news for an international audience and use automatic translation tools such as DeepL to translate it into English. Providing you with automatically translated news gives us the time to write more in-depth articles. You can find them here

If you want to know more about how we work, have a look here, and if you have feedback on this news story please write to english@swissinfo.ch.

External Content
Your subscription could not be saved. Please try again.
Almost finished… We need to confirm your email address. To complete the subscription process, please click the link in the email we just sent you.
Daily news

Get the most important news from Switzerland in your inbox.

Daily

The SBC Privacy Policy provides additional information on how your data is processed.

Popular Stories

Most Discussed

News

No Swiss bank in phase with environmental objectives

More

Swiss banks failing environment, says WWF

This content was published on None of the 15 major Swiss retail banks is meeting international climate and biodiversity targets, according to a ranking by WWF Switzerland.

Read more: Swiss banks failing environment, says WWF
UNRWA provides emergency assistance to just over one million Palestine refugees, or about 75 per cent of all Palestine refugees in Gaza, who lack the financial means to cover their basic food.

More

Lazzarini: no alternative to UNRWA in Gaza

This content was published on The only alternative to the UN Palestinian agency’s work in Gaza is to allow Israel to run services there, Philippe Lazzarini, UNRWA Commissioner-General, told reporters in Geneva on Monday.

Read more: Lazzarini: no alternative to UNRWA in Gaza

In compliance with the JTI standards

More: SWI swissinfo.ch certified by the Journalism Trust Initiative

You can find an overview of ongoing debates with our journalists here . Please join us!

If you want to start a conversation about a topic raised in this article or want to report factual errors, email us at english@swissinfo.ch.

SWI swissinfo.ch - a branch of Swiss Broadcasting Corporation SRG SSR

SWI swissinfo.ch - a branch of Swiss Broadcasting Corporation SRG SSR