American Express to Cut 5% of Global Workforce, Take $336 Million Charge, CEO Squeri Tells Analysts

American Express CEO Stephen Squeri said Friday the card company is eliminating 5% of its global workforce, disclosing the move to analysts the same day Amex reported third-quarter results, according to CNBC. The company is taking a $336 million restructuring charge tied to the reduction in the third quarter, Squeri told analysts on the earnings call, per the same CNBC report.

What Squeri Told Analysts

Squeri framed the cuts as a strategic repositioning rather than a reaction to underperformance. "We've got good momentum, but to accelerate innovation and win over the next few years, we needed to become [a] more agile and efficient organization," he said, according to CNBC's account of the call. He added that the company expects the exercise to improve execution and create room for future investment: "We believe this exercise will help us operate and execute more effectively and give us greater capacity to invest in our business priorities."

CNBC marked its report as a developing story and did not specify which business units, functions, or geographies would see headcount reductions, nor did it detail any expense-savings target, a timeline for savings to show up in operating costs, or how the $336 million charge was treated within reported third-quarter earnings per share or the company's full-year guidance. Those specifics were not available in the reporting reviewed for this story.

Sizing the Reduction

Amex has not disclosed a current headcount figure in the materials reviewed here, so the number of jobs represented by a 5% cut cannot be confirmed from official company data. For context only, independent data provider Revelio Labs estimated Amex's global workforce at 78,840 employees as of March 2026, up from a low of 70,829 in the first quarter of 2024 — a third-party estimate rather than a company-confirmed headcount, according to Revelio Labs. Applying 5% to that estimate (78,840 x 0.05) would equal roughly 3,942 positions, an illustrative calculation against an outside estimate and not a figure Amex itself has confirmed.

Revelio Labs also estimated that Amex's workforce is most concentrated in South Asia (35.4%) and North America (35.1%), with smaller shares in Northern Europe (5.8%), Southeast Asia (5.3%) and other regions. By function, Revelio estimated Finance and Operations as the largest group at 45.8% of staff, ahead of Engineering at 35.5% and Sales and Marketing at 18.7%, with Sales and Marketing cited as the fastest-growing function. None of this regional or functional breakdown was tied by Revelio Labs, or by CNBC's reporting on the layoffs, to the specific areas affected by this week's reduction, and no such mapping should be inferred.

Open Questions on Savings, Earnings Treatment and Market Reaction

Several details that would normally accompany a restructuring announcement of this size were not present in the sourcing available: there is no disclosed savings target or run-rate efficiency goal attached to the 5% cut, no stated timeline over which any savings would flow through operating expenses, and no confirmation of whether the $336 million charge was included in or excluded from the third-quarter EPS figure Amex reported earlier the same day, or how it factored into any updated full-year guidance. The reporting reviewed also contains no analyst commentary characterizing the cuts relative to the quarter's results.

Context: A Broad Year for Layoffs, Without an AI Link Cited Here

The Amex disclosure lands amid a year of heavy corporate workforce reductions. More than 40 companies had announced layoffs in 2026 as of late October, according to a Business Insider tracking report, with firms including Block, Coinbase and Standard Chartered citing artificial intelligence as a key driver. Notably, the CNBC report on Amex's cuts did not cite AI as a reason for the reduction; Squeri's cited rationale, per CNBC, centered on organizational agility and freeing capacity for business priorities rather than any specific technology deployment. Readers should treat the absence of an AI rationale in this instance as reported, not as evidence the technology played no role, since the sourcing reviewed does not address the question either way.

Bottom Line

American Express confirmed, through CEO Stephen Squeri's remarks to analysts as reported by CNBC, a 5% global workforce reduction and a $336 million third-quarter restructuring charge, framed as a move to boost agility and free up investment capacity rather than a response to weak results. The precise number of roles affected, the functions and regions involved, any savings targets or timelines, and the charge's treatment in reported EPS and guidance remain undisclosed in the reporting available, and this account will be updated if those details are confirmed through further disclosures.