As NAB Outsources, Union Warns Of Offshore Jobs Flood

EIGHTY-FIVE National Australia Bank jobs will go to India in what the Finance Sector Union warns could be the beginning of a "flood" of jobs overseas.

NAB said the jobs, from its international trade and payments business, would be sent to ABN Amros "global processing hub" outsourcing centre in Chennai by October.

The move will send the divisions entire back office abroad, but the bank said about 100 customer-service jobs in the division, which includes NABs currency booking desk, its international payments service centre and its trade contact centre, would remain in Australia.

Most of the jobs are in Melbourne, but some are in Sydney. Under the plan, all the jobs will be moved to Rhodes, NSW.

A bank spokeswoman said the jobs to be shipped overseas were "truly back-office functions". "In the same way that NAB might outsource work locally that lends itself to outsourcing, here its the same arrangement," the spokeswoman said. "On this occasion it happens to be an international supplier."

In a statement, the bank said it would try to "redeploy" those whose jobs were lost. It said NAB created 700 jobs in Australia last year.

Finance Sector Union national secretary Paul Schroder said the new jobs tended to be retail focused, and banks risked undermining Australias capacity to perform the more technical tasks if it sent its back offices overseas.

"It is very important that theyre investing in their retail sales force," Mr Schroder said. "Its equally important that they invest in the skills that underpin and drive this whole finance industry. We could run the risk of having simply the distribution channels in Australia and none of the important infrastructure back office skilled jobs run out of here."

He said the jobs were among 424 NAB positions the union had identified as likely to be moved overseas. NAB disputes the figure, but the spokeswoman said the bank was always looking for ways to become more efficient.

NAB has previously sent 175 jobs to India and plans to send 70 more. ANZ has 1300 people in Bengaluru (formerly Bangalore) and St George has exported about 80 jobs.

"We are obviously very distressed by it," Mr Schroder said. "The trickle of offshoring at NAB could well become the flood that we feared."

Mr Schroder said he was in contact with his counterpart in India immediately to learn more about the working conditions and union presence at the ABN Amro site. Earlier this month, the FSU hosted union representatives from Asian and Pacific countries including India, where they pledged to work together against the practice of cutting jobs in one market to move them to another.

"Theyve got an interest in us not losing jobs domestically and weve got an interest in helping them unionise that work that ends up going over there," Mr Schroder said.

Tag Cloud

External Information

Additional Information

Where Am I?