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

“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?

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