Last week Westpac announced a full year nett profit of $5.5 billion. At the same time, the bank confirmed its ongoing commitment to reducing costs – and this means further job cuts to come.
Instead of rewarding the employees who made this result possible, Westpac have doubled down on their aggressive ‘fix, simplify, and perform’ agenda:
“We expect our costs to begin reducing in the year ahead from our simplification and the completion of key programs in our Fix priority,” Mr King said.
This will see operating costs reduced to $8 billion by 2024, with staff and communities inevitably being left behind.
Westpac is a highly profitable bank; they can afford to invest in reskilling their workforce to ensure our jobs remain secure. As the industry changes Westpac have an obligation to support their workforce into the jobs of the future.
We call on Westpac to meet with an FSU delegation to explore opportunities for bringing the reskilling of Westpac workers to life.
Westpac staff and local communities will pay the price
Thanks to this cost-cutting agenda, the bank has already slashed 874 jobs since June this year.
There is no case for such aggressive job cuts. Staff have worked hard in difficult circumstances to provide exceptional customer service and contribute to this year’s profit results. The most basic recognition for such hard work would be job security.
Westpac have also gutted their retail branch network – closing a total of 87 branches so far this year!
Cutting services to local communities and pushing loyal customers to digital platforms is not the path to reducing costs.