Westpac announces 132 job cuts, positions to be moved offshore

Banking behemoth Westpac will cut 132 job cuts from its risk-management, operations and sales divisions, with some of the positions expected to shift offshore to India and South-east Asia.

The Financial Services Union confirmed the cuts this week and said 62 would go from the risk division, while 50 positions from operations would be offshored to contract companies Genpact, TATA Consulting Services and Concentrix.

It’s understood a further 20 cuts from sales were announced to the FSU in January.

FSU national secretary Julia Angrisano said Westpac’s offshoring move would hammer staff morale.

“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,” she 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.”

The cuts are small matched to the overall size of the company, which boasts a $91bn market capitalisation and more than 30,000 employees across Australia.

But they follow sharp cuts across 2023 in which the financial services firm slashed hundreds of jobs.

A Westpac spokesman told NCA NewsWire the bank would provide “tailored support and assistance with career transition” for affected employees.

“We try to keep as many employees in the Westpac Group as we can through retraining and redeployment,” the spokesman said.

“These changes are in head office and operational functions and represent less than half a per cent of our workforce.”