Insurance giant QBE is refusing to rule out job cuts as the company looks set to reduce operating costs by more than $200 million.
The Australian Financial Review has reported the company is planning to employ 700 staff at a Manila-based shared services centre.
“The Finance Sector Union (FSU) believes that QBE’s decision to withhold [information] from its workforce that they have been working on a plan to send 700 hard-working Australians’ jobs overseas is a complete and utter disgrace,” FSU national secretary Leon Carter said.
Mr. Carter said the FSU was in possession of documents that showed that QBE had plans to send Australian jobs offshore, yet the company had refused to say anything about the issue to either the FSU or the media.
QBE declined to comment on the matter.
But it repeated a statement made in January that chief executive John Neal had previously indicated that QBE was looking to reduce annual operating costs by more than $200 million in coming years.
The company had said in January that it was unable to respond in detail to reports about staff changes.
Mr. Carter said if QBE wished to retain the faith of its workforce, it should say that it would be keeping the 700 jobs in question in Australia. He said “offshoring” jobs was unnecessary and wrong.
Mr. Carter also took a swipe at politicians, saying workers in the financial sector were “fed up” with them saying they were worried about jobs, but did nothing about it. “Protecting jobs is not a spectator sport,” Carter said.
“If you (politicians) want to do something that would save Australian jobs, come out today, like you do for manufacturing workers; like you do for farmers; like you do for everybody else; and say we are not going to tolerate highly successful, highly profitable companies sending Australian jobs overseas just so you can make more money.”
It is the latest company to spark fears of sending jobs overseas after Telsta revealed it would look at replacing 648 Australian jobs with Filipino or Indian call centre workers. (Source: 9News)