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South Africa recently avoided a country-wide banking sector labour strike [1]. The reason for the strike would have been to protest against retrenchments in the

South Africa recently avoided a country-wide banking sector labour strike [1]. The reason for the strike would have been to protest against retrenchments in the industry [2]. I suspect that we'll see an increase in white-collar workers striking in the future. [1] https://www.timeslive.co.za/news/south-africa/2019-09-26-protests-wont-solve-issues-banks-say-as-they-welcome-order-banning-strike/ https://www.timeslive.co.za/news/south-africa/2019-09-26-pro... [2] https://ewn.co.za/2019/09/25/busa-banking-sector-mass-action-a-protest-and-not-a-strike https://ewn.co.za/2019/09/25/busa-banking-sector-mass-action...

Mengkudulangsat 7y ago
Financial instruments (including money) is fundamentally just data. There is no reason to keep maintaining a large labor force in the sector. The first wave of labor downsizing in banking came from the closure of retail branches. The second wave of downsizing, I suspect will come projects like Libra or CBDCs [1] where issuers bypass banks (now reduced to a redundant middleman) and reach users themselves. [1] https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2019-09-10/why-china-s-rushing-to-mint-its-own-digital-currency-quicktake https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2019-09-10/why-china...