Jobs cut as ANZ CEO attends job summit - union

LATEST: Even as the ANZ National Bank is cutting 100 jobs to outsource work to India, its chief executive is to attend a job summit on how to keep New Zealanders in work, the union for financial workers says.

Finsec said today the bank announced 100 job cuts this week in its latest move to cut costs and send work offshore to Bangalore in India. ANZ said the job losses were not new and were part of a strategy announced last April.

Finsec campaigns director Andrew Campbell said the bank had also backed away from public commitments to provide all affected staff other work.

"These staff face an uncertain future in a shrinking job market. In the middle of a recession, our most profitable company is pulling the rug out from dozens more Kiwi workers.

"ANZ National is displaying zero social responsibility in pursuit of maximum profits."

Mr Campbell said ANZ National chief executive Graham Hodges would be attending the Government's upcoming Jobs Summit and should use the opportunity to commit to protecting New Zealand jobs in his own bank.

"The best thing that Graham Hodges can do to support New Zealand jobs is to keep his current staff in work." ANZ said it employs 9500 people in New Zealand. It was doing all it could to redeploy affected staff but when the changes were announced there were higher levels of voluntary turnover of staff, which created redeployment opportunities.

"They are scaremongering by repeating an announcement made in April last year as if it is a new one," ANZ National said in response to the union statement.

Mr Campbell said Mr Hodges should pledge to offer an alternative job to all staff affected by outsourcing.

Ninety jobs in institutional operations, retail payments and credit card operations were being outsourced to Bangalore, India.

In April last year, ANZ National announced the jobs of around 5 percent of its workforce would be sent offshore.

ANZ said today it could not give figure but the job losses would be less than the 500 figure used by the union last year.

Mr Campbell said that in Australia only 38 percent of 538 ANZ employees who lost their jobs were redeployed back within the bank despite assurances about redeployment.

- NZPA