Standard Chartered on Tuesday announced it would cut more than 15% of its corporate functions roles by 2030, while setting higher medium-term profitability targets.

The workforce reduction is part of the lender’s efforts to raise income per employee by around 20% by 2028, StanChart said.

According to its 2025 annual report, corporate function roles include employees in human resources, corporate affairs and supply chain management. Of its roughly 82,000 employees, about 52,000 work in support roles, while the remainder are classified as part of its business workforce.

The lender also aimed for a 15% return on tangible equity in 2028, up more than three percentage points from ​2025, and targeted about 18% in 2030.

“We are investing in the capabilities that will compound our competitive advantages and drive sustainable growth and higher quality returns over time, with clear targets in place,” StanChart CEO Bill Winters said in the statement outlining the bank’s medium-term targets.

Jefferies analyst Joseph Dickerson described the new targets as “conservatively struck,” which he said would deliver mid-teens earnings-per-share growth and a path that could exceed guidance.

“The bigger picture is that the company can clearly commit to a 5-7% revenue growth range given the opportunities in its foot print against a matrix of unknowns in the broader geopolitical/macro environment,” Dickerson said in a note.

Jefferies maintained its buy rating and a 2,250 price target on StanChart‘s London-listed shares, which last closed at 1,921.50. Its Hong Kong-listed shares were up more than 2% in afternoon trade.

The news comes after the bank late last month reported a better-than-expected profit gain of 17%, helped by stronger contributions from its Wealth Solutions, Global Banking, and Global Markets flow income segments. However, the lender also logged a $190 million charge to cover expected losses linked to the Middle East conflict.

StanChart has been betting on the Middle East’s growing trade with Asia and other markets to drive growth. Most of its revenue came from Asia, Africa and the Middle East, with around 6% generated from the Middle East.

Last month, Standard Chartered and the International Finance Corporation, the World Bank Group’s private-sector arm, announced a new risk-sharing facility to strengthen supply chains and support business growth in Africa.

The facility, which will cover up to $300 million in supply chain and trade finance assets originated by Standard Chartered, will roll out supply chain finance solutions in eight markets, including Ghana and Kenya.

Meta plans to lay off 10% of its workforce, equaling about 8,000 jobs, as it continues ramping up investments in artificial intelligence.

The cuts will begin on May 20, and the company is scrapping plans to hire people for 6,000 open roles, according to a Thursday memo to employees. Bloomberg was first to report on the layoffs.

Meta’s latest round of cuts follows several smaller job reductions that the company said was necessary to to improve efficiency while focusing its efforts on generative AI, where it’s lagged OpenAI, Google and Anthropic.

CNBC reported in January that Meta fired roughly 10% of employees who were working on metaverse-related projects. Roughly 1,000 people in the company’s Reality Labs unit were let go at that time.

Another round of layoffs commenced in March and affected hundreds of employees working in a variety of units, including Facebook, Reality Labs, global operations and sales. Meta also said last month that it would shift away from third-party vendors and contractors, which have historically handled content moderation tasks, in favor of relying on various AI technologies.

Job cuts are picking up across the tech sector as companies reckon with the AI boom. Microsoft confirmed on Thursday that it will offer voluntary buyouts to some U.S. employees, a first for the 51-year-old software giant. About 7% of U.S. employees are eligible, according to a person familiar with the plans who asked not to be named because the number isn’t being made public. 

In January, Amazon announced plans to eliminate about 16,000 corporate jobs, marking its second round of mass job cuts since last October.

Meta said in its latest annual report in January that it had a global workforce of 78,865 employees as of Dec. 31, down from 86,482 in late 2022 coming off a wave of hiring throughout the tech industry in the aftermath of the Covid pandemic. The company said in a 2021 annual report that its global workforce reached 58,604 employees as of December 31, 2020.

Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg’s top effort is to bolster his company’s position in AI. Earlier this month, Meta debuted its first major artificial intelligence model since the costly hiring of Scale AI’s Alexandr Wang in June.

This week Meta revealed to staff that it’s using a new employee tracking tool called the Model Capability Initiative (MCI), intended to capture data from staff members using their work computers. The data, which includes employee keystrokes and mouse clicks, is needed to train AI agents, a Meta spokesperson said in a statement.

Meta is scheduled to report first-quarter earnings on Wednesday, along with fellow tech giants Alphabet, Amazon and Microsoft.

Meta shares fell 2.4% on Thursday and are now about flat for the year.

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As grocery chains face mounting pressure from inflation-weary shoppers and growing competition, some in the industry are starting to rely on artificial intelligence to protect margins without losing customers.

Traditional levers to protect profits or drive sales, like raising prices or running blanket promotions, are becoming less effective as shoppers split trips across multiple retailers in search of value. That dynamic has helped drive market share gains for discounters like Dollar General and warehouse clubs like Costco, forcing traditional grocers to rethink how they compete.

Many are turning to more targeted, tech-enabled strategies to balance affordability with profitability. One emerging approach is using data and AI to adjust pricing on perishable inventory, especially items nearing their “best-by” dates. Historically, about 30% of food in American grocery stores is thrown away each year, and some experts estimate that translates to nearly $18.2 billion in lost value.

Now with years of high inflation and a recent spike in gas prices making it harder for households to afford food, companies are trying to assume less of that loss, otherwise referred to as “shrink.”

“We see AI as a meaningful opportunity to both improve the customer experience and drive productivity across our business,” said Kroger Chairman Ronald Sargent on the company’s most recent quarterly earnings call. “We’re already seeing results from more competitive pricing.”

According to a Deloitte study, 89% of people are shopping for discounts and deals. Numerator data shows that shoppers are visiting 23% more retailers to purchase their groceries.

That makes setting the right prices at the right time more crucial than ever.

Still, making the right real-time pricing decision requires a break from traditional playbooks. Platforms like Flashfood are helping grocers reduce prices on items as they near the end of their shelf life, which could aid them in limiting losses from food waste.

“Not only is everyone now a value shopper, but shoppers have the information and resources available to find the best deal,” said Flashfood CEO Jordan Schenck. “This raises the stakes in terms of competition between grocers, because they’re now competing with value-specific retailers.”

This has created a unique paradigm shift for grocers who have seen increased competition from other retailers, Schenck said, and pressure to figure out how to create value without eroding their brands through yellow sticker markdowns and discounting.

Flashfood connects shoppers with local grocery stores to purchase food nearing its best-by date at a discount. Users browse, purchase and pay for items directly through the app, then pick up orders from a designated “Flashfood zone” fridge in store.

Flashfood says it helps grocers to sell fresh food by converting what would have been shrink into incremental revenue. The company is expanding to more than 100 additional Kroger stores this month, building on a footprint that already spans over 2,000 locations across North America.

The pitch is that retailers don’t have to choose between offering affordability to shoppers and boosting their margins. By using AI to target discounts precisely, rather than marking down an entire category, Flashfood says stores can improve sell-through while reducing waste. The end goal is more sales of perishable food and less product ending up in landfills.

Flashfood says its partners, which include Kroger but also regional chains like Piggly Wiggly, Loblaws and Gelson’s, and have reduced shrink by an average of 27% while also driving incremental traffic. Shoppers using the app make nearly four additional trips per month on average and spend about $28 more per visit on full-priced items beyond their discounted purchases, according to the company.

At the same time, the data generated from these systems is giving retailers deeper insight into consumer behavior by identifying what products will sell, at what price and at what point in their shelf lives. That’s especially important in categories like fresh foods and bakery, where margins are tighter and spoilage risk is higher.

“Grocery stores have some of the best personalized data, but not all grocery stores know what to do with the data,” said Roth Capital Partners analyst Bill Kirk. “Kroger has been at the forefront of recognizing the importance of their data and the insights that can be derived.”

Kirk has a buy rating on the stock and $78 price target, higher than its Thursday closing price of $67.77.

Bridging that gap between surplus inventory and value-seeking shoppers is emerging as one of the clearest opportunities grocers are trying to cash in on to improve profitability.

Federal Reserve officials at their March meeting still expected to lower interest rates this year, even with a high level of uncertainty from the Iran war and tariffs, according to minutes released Wednesday.

Most of the participants said the war could result in the need for easier monetary policy if rising gas prices hit the labor market and consumer wallets.

Policymakers said they would need to remain “nimble” as they weighed the impact the war had on inflation, which continued to hold above the Fed’s target, and hiring, which has been mostly flat over the past year.

“Many participants judged that, in time, it would likely become appropriate to lower the target range for the federal funds rate if inflation were to decline in line with their expectations,” the minutes said.

The consensus anticipated one cut this year, unchanged from the last update in December.

The summary then noted caution over “a further softening in labor market conditions, which could warrant additional rate cuts, as substantially higher oil prices could reduce households’ purchasing power, tighten financial conditions, and reduce growth abroad.”

Ultimately, the rate-setting Federal Open Market Committee voted 11-1 to keep the benchmark overnight borrowing rate targeted in a range between 3.5%-3.75%.

The Federal Reserve is still expecting to cut interest rates once this year in spite of a spike in oil prices from the Iran war.

The central bank’s so-called dot plot, which shows the anonymous expectations of the 19 individual members, showed a median estimate of 3.4% for the federal funds rate at the end of 2026, the same as what it had projected at the end of last year.

However, a closer look at the overall dot plot showed the balance of projections moved toward fewer reductions, meaning more members are forecasting one reduction from two previously.

“If you notice, the median didn’t change, but there was actually some movement toward — a meaningful amount of movement — toward fewer cuts by people,” Fed Chair Jerome Powell said in his post-meeting remarks. “So four or five people went from two to one, let’s say, two cuts to one cut.”

The Fed kept rates unchanged on Wednesday, voting 11-1 to keep the benchmark federal funds rate anchored in a range between 3.5%-3.75%.

Traders had come into the year hopeful for two interest rate cuts. However, that expectation has been getting pushed out in recent weeks because of data showing hotter inflation that could put the central bank on hold.

In particular, it complicates the job of former Fed Governor Kevin Warsh, who is set to succeed current Chair Powell when his term ends in May. Warsh, who was handpicked by President Donald Trump, has expressed his support for lower rates.

The Fed’s Summary of Economic Projections showed higher inflation projections for the year, as well as a somewhat faster pace of growth.

The forecast for personal consumption expenditures inflation climbed to 2.7% for 2026, up from 2.4% in December. The projection for core inflation, which excludes volatile food and energy prices and is more closely watched by the Fed, also rose to 2.7% from 2.5%.

However, the change in real GDP rose to 2.4% from 2.3% in December.

Fed funds futures were last pricing in just one rate cut in 2026, as well as the greater likelihood that the central bank may remain on hold, according to the CME FedWatch Tool.

— CNBC’s Gabriel Cortes and Jeff Cox contributed to this report.