Nearly 100 employees of the Kraków branch of Aldi Nord were laid off overnight. One reason is said to be the replacement of workers with artificial intelligence, according to “Gazeta Wyborcza,” which was informed about the situation at the company by one of the laid-off employees.
Aldi Nord is an international grocery chain with a finance and technology division in Kraków. The layoffs will affect 96 employees at the Aldi Financial Hub , approximately one-third of the entire team in the capital of Małopolska. The employment changes were decided by representatives of the company's German headquarters and announced on the last day of July.
Will AI replace workers?
The sudden reduction in headcount surprised the company's employees. According to one of them, the reason for this situation is changes in the financial market, and primarily artificial intelligence , which is rapidly taking over more and more tasks previously performed by employees.
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None of us expected this news. We were called into the office and found out. I'd been working here for less than a year. The financial settlement market is becoming shallow, AI is starting to replace us, and it's happening rapidly,” says a 32-year-old Aldi Nord employee, quoted by Krakow's “Gazeta Wyborcza.”
Meanwhile, Aldi Polska plans to open 60 stores this year. It currently has 370 stores nationwide.
More layoffs than last year
These aren't the only mass layoffs in Krakow this year. According to the Municipal Labor Office, 27 companies announced their intention to lay off employees between the beginning of January and the end of July. The planned number of layoffs is 3,666 . This means there are more layoffs than in all of 2024, when 24 companies announced mass layoffs, planning to lay off approximately 2,700 employees.
KW
