Yahoo Finance Westpac slammed over 132 job cuts, roles offshored: ‘Forget loyalty’
The Finance Sector Union has criticised the bank over the cuts, particularly when scams are running rampant.
Westpac is slashing 132 jobs from its risk management, operations and sales divisions, with some of the roles set to be sent offshore to companies in India and the Philippines.
The major bank advised the Finance Sector Union (FSU) that 62 roles were being axed from the risk division, along with 50 positions from operations. A further 20 cuts from sales were announced in January.
The job cuts to the risk division come at a time when bank customers are facing an unprecedented level of scams, FSU noted, with customers fleeced of more than $600 million over the last year.
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FSU national secretary Julia Angrisano said they were notified about the job cuts on the same day CEO Peter King told the ASX that risk management remained “a priority”.
“Risk management is hardly a priority at Westpac when it is making new job cuts on top of almost 100 other risk jobs being slashed in 2023,” Angrisano said.
Westpac said the risk changes are unrelated to its scams, fraud and financial crimes division.
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The 50 operations positions will be offshored to contract companies Genpact, TATA Consulting Services and Concentrix, while the 20 sales jobs have been outsourced to Concentrix.
“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,” Angrisano said.
“Forget loyalty and hard work from its employees. Westpac isn’t interested in building an effective corporate culture that delivers for customers and staff. It’s only interested in generating even greater profits.”
Westpac responds
A Westpac spokesperson noted the business employed more than 30,000 workers across the country.
“From time to time, we change the way we operate and this can impact some roles and responsibilities,” the spokesperson said.
“When this happens, we work closely with employees to provide tailored support and assistance with career transition.”
Westpac said it tried to “keep as many employees in the Westpac Group as we can, through retraining and redeployment”.
The spokesperson noted the changes represented “less than half a per cent” of Westpac’s workforce and were in head office and operational functions.
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