Telstra Axe Falls Again: 244 Jobs Go

The Age

Friday June 15, 2007

Garry Barker

TELSTRA is to shed 244 staff jobs in Melbourne, Ballarat and Brisbane.

Executive director of customer sales and service John Rolland said the redundancies were part of the 12,000 job cuts Telstra chief executive Sol Trujillo announced in November 2005. The process was about half-completed.

The latest job losses are in support and administrative data entry. Mr Rolland said the development of electronic systems had led to the cuts and more would be made later. But in the present round, some work had been transferred to "an industry partner within Australia".

"All our call centres remain in Australia so that our customers can be sure that when they call us they will be talking to an Australian in Australia, not someone offshore," he said.

Redundant staff were being encouraged to apply for other Telstra jobs and 20 in Ballarat had been found work in the BigPond call centre there.

Employees were also being helped find work outside Telstra, he said.

Last week, Telstra said 500 jobs would go as it closed 13 call centres in Wollongong, Canberra, Launceston and Newcastle over the year. -- GARRY BARKER