Another 400 Jobs Lost as Westpac Moves Tasks to India

Job security in bank posts continue to be placed on the line as Westpac announced the axing of up to 400 positions. Most of those who would be laid off are engaged in back office and IT roles, of which 150 would be outsourced to India.

The news of the second wave of job cuts in Westpac came just a week after major Australian firms such as BHP Billiton, Holden, Manildra and Reckitt Benckiser announced hundreds of layoffs due to the strong Australian dollar and weak retail market.

"We expect to be able to redeploy about a third of the people that have been affected by these announcements if there's a right role for them and if they want to pursue that role," AAP quoted Westpac spokesman Paul Marriage.

Mr Marriage confirmed that 100 jobs will be outsourced to third party providers, part of which would be sent offshore to Bangalore, India.

Finance Sector Union National Secretary Leon Carter warned of a decline in Westpac's overall standard of customer services because of the massive layoffs.

"Westpac continues to make a multi-billion dollar profit and has the capacity, and we say the obligation to invest in and protect Australian jobs not continue to sacrifice them on the altar of profit," Mr Carter told AAP.

While Westpac assured employees that this will be the most significant job loss announcement the bank will make in 2012, there is no guarantee it would be the last one, Mr Carter warned.

Mr Marriage admitted the announcement pertains only to Westpac's retail banking in Australia and excludes its international banking division where the bank moved 28 IT roles in BT Financial Group and Westpac Institutional Bank to Bangalore in January. He did not rule out lay off also in the international banking division.

"What we have here is that we deal with a number of outsource partners and we're looking for particular skills in areas like software application processing and also in advanced processed re-engineering. And in some of these areas, the skills don't exist in Australia; we go to outsources partners, some based in Australia, some overseas, speak to them about where the skills are best placed and some of their employees work overseas," Westpac Chief Executive for Australian Financial Services Peter Hanlon told ABC.

"It's not like a factory that's got to lose jobs to keep their doors open. Westpac can afford to keep every single one of these workers in their jobs and continue to make a multi-billion dollar profit," Mr Carter insisted.

Australian companies offshore some tasks to developing nations such as India where employees are paid only about one third to one half of the wages paid to Aussie workers performing comparable jobs.

In response to Westpac announcement, Prime Minister Julia Gillard insisted that the country's financial services will have better days ahead because of the growing middle class in China, India and other emerging economies.

If it is any consolation to workers from Westpac and other employees about to lose their jobs, the ANZ job advertisements survey showed that job ads on the Internet and major metropolitan newspapers in Australia went up by 6 per cent in January. Compared to a year ago, the increase was by 0.7 per cent.

Ivan Colhoun, ANZ head of Australian Economics and Property Research, explained the rise in employment opportunities to fast pace development in Queensland's and Northern Territory's mining regions.

Treasurer Wayne Swan said the ANZ report is a reminder that Australia's economic fundamentals are strong as well as its underlying resiliency.

"Despite the uncertain global outlook, we have solid growth, low unemployment, contained inflation and a huge pipeline of business investment," Mr Swan said in a brief note.