Westpac is preparing for its biggest redundancy round in a decade, with more than 1,500 jobs expected to be axed.
The major bank’s redundancy round is part of new boss Anthony Miller’s overhaul to simplify processes and cut costs.
The Australian Financial Review reported that Miller asked bank managers to consider how they would reduce workers by 5% in the coming months, amid weak first-half results that caused share prices to sink.
A 5% decrease in employees would lead to 1,700 staff departures on top of the 900 full-time role cuts in the last financial year.
A spokesperson told the Financial Review that the final number of staff exits had not been decided, with some redundancies still under consideration.
“While we continue to invest in extra bankers and customer-facing roles, other programs and initiatives may need fewer resources,” the spokesperson said.
“This means, from time to time, we make changes that may impact some roles and responsibilities.”
The spokesperson said the company’s workforce will continue to evolve alongside banking skills and capabilities.
“We try to keep as many employees as we can, through retraining and redeployment.”
At the same time, the company plans mass redundancies. Miller told investors he wanted to hire 180 more home finance managers while increasing pay for mortgage bankers.
Following the Reserve Bank of Australia’s (RBA) rate cut decision to decrease the cash rate by 0.25% to 3.85%, Westpac announced it would cut interest rates for home loan and deposit customers.
Another major bank that has reduced its workforce recently is Commonwealth Bank (CBA). CommBank has recently moved to axe another 163 jobs across its customer service roles, amounting to 800 job cuts over the past year.
The cut will affect around 58 tiles at Bankwest and 105 across CBA as the bank transitions to become a “digital-only” bank.
At the time of writing, Westpac Banking Corp's (ASX: WBC) stock price was $31.33, down 24 cents (0.76%) today. Its market cap was around $107.25 billion.
