Commonwealth Bank is poised to cut nearly 200 jobs this month, bringing the total job losses at the company to over a thousand in just one year.
The Financial Sector Union (FSU) has confirmed that 192 jobs will be lost from back office operations in Sydney, Melbourne and Perth due to an “automation initiative”.
The union says that 87 jobs will be lost in Commonwealth Bank’s (CBA) home buying operations division, 47 jobs in consumer finance, and 21 jobs in the everyday banking team.
CBA owned BankWest will lose nine staff in its lending arm.
The latest round of cuts has occurred due to a downturn in retail banking in the past 12 months impacting the everyday banking and home buying operations teams.
The bank also told FSU that “automation initiatives” in the two parts ofthe company have allowed for a “simplified process” that requires less workers.
CBA has now cut 1085 jobs in the past 12 months, according to the union.
The bank has said it will focus on redeploying workers affected by the changes, adding that it has recruited “more than 10,000 people” since 2021, adding to its 50,000 strong workforce.
“As part of our focus on constant business improvement, we regularly review the skills we need and how we organised. That means from time to time some roles and work will change or no longer be required,” a CBA spokesperson said.
“These decisions are never easy nor are they taken lightly. Our priority is to treat every individual with respect and care, taking time to talk with each employee impacted to understand individual circumstances and work with them on finding opportunities and building skills to support them for another role in or outside the bank.”
FSU National Secretary Julia Angrisano slammed the decision to make more staff redundant after CBA posted a full-year profit of $10.18 billion.
“It is clear that the CBA has no hesitation throwing workers onto the unemployment queue in its relentless campaign to cut costs and boost profits,” Ms Angrisano said.
“Workers in the financial services sector should be enormously concerned that Australia’s largest bank is now making workers redundant because of automation.”
Ms Angrisano said that the majority of job losses are for experienced staff.
“CBA has a huge problem with staff shortages and excessive workloads and cutting staff does nothing to reduce that concern for workers.”
“The jobs being lost are specialists across a range of areas and it is hard to believe that the bank can afford to lose so many experienced staff at the same time that it has a significant overwork problem across the organisation.”
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