Telstra lay off 650 jobs as customers stop calling.
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The telco is to let go 422 Telstra full-timers and 229 agency staff from service call centres around the country.
Some of the jobs are also to be sent offshore to “partner contact centres” it said today.
Most of the job casualties will be in NSW, Victoria and one call centre in Townsville.
The locations affected include two customer contact centres, Lismore, NSW and Townsville, Qld, where a total of 242 jobs will be axed.
180 Telstra roles will be made redundant in Melbourne and Sydney service centres.
These ops performing back of house voice and broadband testing, will be moved to Townsville and Perth.
The calls will be absorbed by other Telstra and Foxtel operations.
The redundancies are in a bid to “keep pace with this changing environment and remain competitive” Australia’s biggest telco said today.
But the cuts are also a sign of the times as Telstra $1bn investment in becoming “Telstra New” – a customer friendly telco has paid off.
Call volumes to centres have dropped 20% over the last year and are expected to decline further as more customers move to online self service options, the company said in a statement.
“We’re constantly reviewing the way we work to identify opportunities to improve customer service and simplify our business.”
“These are hard decisions and our focus at the moment is working through the changes with our staff.”
All staff will be invited to apply for roles in other centres or parts of Telstra.
Telstra said it would work closely with staff on redeployment, along with helping with CV writing and interview training, financial advice and generous redundancy provisions.
