The boss of one of the UK’s largest online retailers has predicted automation and artificial intelligence (AI) will slash his workforce by two-thirds within the next three years.
Nick Glynne, the boss of Buy It Direct which owns Appliances Direct, told BBC 5 Live’s Wake Up To Money that future prospects for hiring people in the UK was “very bleak” for his business.
The company employs more than 800 staff and more than 500 jobs were estimated to go. This was not a “fixed plan”, though the process was being sped up by extra costs placed on the firm by the government, Mr Glynne said.
HM Treasury said higher taxes on employers had allowed it to “deliver on the priorities of the British people”.
Buy It Direct, which is based in Huddersfield, operates a number of online retail brands including Furniture 123.
It is a global company, employing another 150 staff overseas, with a customer service operation in the Philippines.
Mr Glynne said increases in the national living wage and national insurance contributions, which came into effect in April, were among the government’s “tax decisions [which] have accelerated the direction of travel”.
“So much so that our forecast is to have two-thirds less people, with the same revenue, same activity; two-thirds less people in an office environment within three years, and two-thirds less in our warehouse environment through investment in automation.
“A mixture of AI on the office side, and technology involving robots and automation and mechanisation in the warehouse, means that the future for employing UK people is very bleak for someone like us.”
A HM Treasury spokesperson defended the government as “pro-business”.
It pointed to a corporation tax capped at 25%, and said the government was reforming business rates and had secured trade deals with the US, EU and India.
“The tax decisions we took at the Budget last year mean that we have been able to deliver on the priorities of the British people, from investing in the NHS to cutting waiting lists and putting more money in their pockets with a wage boost for millions,” the spokesperson said.
The retail chief executive’s comments come at a time of increasing concern about jobs – especially entry level positions – being lost to AI.
Graduates in graphics design and computer science are among those who have said they find themselves competing against technology for roles.
At the end of last month, Amazon announced it was axing 14,000 jobs, saying it needed to be “organised more leanly” to seize the opportunity provided by AI.
Mr Glynne said higher taxes on the business also meant the company had changed how it outsourced roles, recruiting more senior positions outside of the UK.
“It was an experiment which we wouldn’t otherwise have done, and mostly it’s been successful,” he said.
“So we’ve now got accountants, managers, traders, buyers, senior IT managers all working abroad.
“You look at many of the roles overseas, just as qualified, more motivated in some ways than UK workers because there’s less protection for people often in those countries [from] where we buy in cheaper labour.”
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