March 15, 2009
The ANZ bank says it does not expect to make any "material" cuts to jobs in 2009, including jobs in Australia, and will not be shifting 500 jobs to India.
"Despite the economic slowdown, ANZ's business is continuing to grow, and the bank does not expect material reductions in employment in 2009," ANZ said in a statement on Sunday.
An ANZ spokeswoman said this applied to ANZ's overall employment levels and to levels specifically within Australia.
ANZ was responding to media speculation that it would send 500 Australian jobs offshore, to Bangalore in India.
The bank said on Sunday that it had not announced job losses in Australia related to "offshoring". Nor, said the spokeswoman, was the bank expecting to do so in future.
The spokeswoman said the nature of some people's jobs may change but they were mostly expected to be redeployed within the group.
ANZ has a technology centre in Bangalore that employs 3,000 people.
The bank said the growth of the Bangalore facility had not meant fewer overall jobs in Australia.
Asked if the bank could categorically say that 500 jobs in Australia will not be shifted to India, the spokeswoman said: "Categorically, yes".
ANZ chief executive officer, Australia, Brian Hartzer said the bank understood that people were concerned about the effect of the economic slowdown on jobs and expected that banks would play their role in maintaining lending and supporting people facing hardship.
"While in these times, the difficult reality for all businesses is that there will be change to adapt to the current economic climate," he said.
"ANZ is committed to being transparent about change programs and to making any changes responsibly and with care to ensure the impact on staff is minimised."
No comments:
Post a Comment