Westpac cuts dozens of jobs across divisions
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The news: Westpac is reportedly cutting dozens of roles across divisions.
The numbers: Citing the Finance Sector Union (FSU), Reuters reported that Westpac has cut around 132 jobs.
The big four bank is expected to move some of the roles to companies in India and the Philippines.
The FSU said in a statement that the bank's risk division will remove 62 roles, at a time when Australia faces an "unprecedented level" of scams and cybersecurity threats.
Elsewhere, about 50 roles from Westpac's operations unit will be moved to IT companies such as Genpact, TATA Consulting Services and Concentrix.
Westpac told the Australian Financial Review the changes "represent less than half a per cent of our workforce”.
The context: The job cuts across the risk and operations divisions compound the 20 layoffs at the bank's mortgage services division last month, which were also outsourced to Concentrix.
The news comes a few days after Westpac reported a dip in December quarter profit amid deposit and lending headwinds.
What they said: FSU national secretary Julia Angrisano said: "Westpac's strategy of continually outsourcing jobs to external service providers does nothing for staff morale and sends the message that staff need to toe the line or their jobs could be offshored".
"Instead of running an integrated banking operation, Westpac now looks more like a patchwork of third-party providers," she added.
