By Chris Zappone
National Australia Bank has again denied claims by the Financial Services Union that it intends to send large numbers of jobs overseas.
The Finance Sector Union has claimed that NAB is reviewing 628 positions for off-shoring. The bank, however, has rejected the figure, saying there is no group of local jobs being under consideration.
"We do not have a target," a spokesman for the bank said. "We do not have a number. The numbers that the union produces are wrong. We've told them they're wrong."
NAB has said previously it has no plans for any "wholesale" redundancies but it would increase efficiencies and remove duplications when and where possible. The bank has refused to quantify the scale of any such reductions to the local work force.
The union, however, says the 628 jobs figure was arrived at by compiling the tallies of weekly briefings given by the bank to the union about small-scale job cuts.
FSU national secretary Leon Carter said that while NAB dismisses the number, "there is no alternative figure coming from the bank."
The bank and the union will meet this week for further discussions on the subject of out-sourcing, NAB said.
As job security has emerged as a domestic concern, unions and politicians have focused on the issues of off-shoring. Banks in turn have grown circumspect about releasing details on their plans to relocate positions overseas.
The Big Four banks' "latest tactic" is to give no number of lay-offs "and hope the story will go away," said FSU national director for campaigns Wendy Streets.
Since the economy began to weaken late last year, the Big Four banks have diverged in their use of the cost-cutting measure.
Last week Westpac chief Gail Kelly said the bank would stop shifting jobs overseas until the economy improved. Commonwealth Bank promised last month to refrain from off-shoring for the next three years because of the sagging job market.
ANZ Bank has been expanding its Indian operations for years as part of a broader refocus on the Asian market. In December the company said it had added 500 jobs in India in 2008. The bank later confirmed that 1000 jobs would be shifted away from Australia by the end of 2009.
Although the jobless rate eased to 5.4% in April from 5.7% in March, economists and the Government still expect it to rise to at least 8% by next year, making the subject of off-shoring jobs especially delicate for the Big Bank's now enjoying a government guarantee on customer deposits.
Ms Streets said banks have grown wary of disclosing job cuts after the FSU waged a successful campaign to stop Westpac from off-shoring about 500 jobs at its call centre in Concord West, New South Wales in 2006.
"What we find now is most banks will make announcements in dribs and drabs so it doesn't attract large media attention."
czappone@fairfax.com.au
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