Visa to Lay Off 1,400 as It Streamlines International Business | PYMNTS.com

Visa will reportedly lay off 1,400 employees and contractors, including about 1,000 in technology positions, by the end of the year.

The company aims to streamline its international business with these cuts, The Wall Street Journal (WSJ) reported Tuesday (Oct. 29).

Together with the 1,000 cuts in technology positions, the remainder of the layoffs will impact merchant sales and global digital partnership roles, which are positions that deal with FinTech and tech companies, according to the report.

A Visa spokesperson said in the report that the company continually evolves to serve clients and support growth, “which can lead to the elimination of some roles,” and that it expects to employ more people each year in the coming years.

The company made some layoffs last week and told employees in an internal announcement that it planned to cut jobs, though it didn’t provide details, per the report.

Visa has over 30,000 employees worldwide, according to the report.

This report came on the same day that the company is set to hold its fourth-quarter and full-year 2024 earnings call.

It was reported in December that the world’s largest banks slashed more than 60,000 jobs in 2023, in part because investment banks suffered their second year in a row of declining fees amid a downturn in dealmaking and companies going public.

The year’s total made for one of the worst years for job cuts at banks since the 2007-2008 financial crisis, when banks eliminated 140,000 positions.

The largest numbers of job cuts in 2023 included 13,000 at the combined bank created by UBS’ takeover of Credit Suisse and 12,000 at Wells Fargo.

This year, the tech space has seen job cuts.

Layoffs.fyi, a tracker that monitors job cuts in the tech sector, reported in August that the industry had cut more than 132,000 jobs at 404 companies.

As of Tuesday, those numbers rose to 141,467 jobs at 479 tech companies.

The Department of Labor reported Thursday (Oct. 24) that insured unemployment reached its highest level in about three years during the week ended Oct. 12. At 1,869,000, that figure was the highest seen since the 1,974,000 recorded on Nov. 13, 2021.