ANZ to hire more indigenous Australians

ANZ Banking Group Ltd (ANZ) will hire more indigenous Australians in branch network entry-level roles as the bank continues to shed over 1,200 Australasian-based management and front line roles and hire cheaper workers in Asia.
ANZ said it would fill up to 10 per cent of entry-level roles in its branch network
with indigenous Australians by the end of 2011, with its current target of five per
cent to be filled by 180 trainees recruited in 2009.
The move is part of Fortescue Metals Group's chief executive Andrew Forrest's
Australian Employment Covenant to support indigenous employment, and comes as ANZ
continues a group-wide restructure set to make over 1,200 employees redundant.
ANZ has said 800 management level jobs would be cut from the One ANZ program aimed
at creating a super-regional organisational structure to boost growth in Asia.
But the term "management" is being applied to a wide range of roles across most
business units from senior managers to team leaders and employees at clerical grade,
Financial Services Union spokesman Rod Masson said.
"They still have ongoing reviews, including offshoring jobs, that are separate to
the One ANZ program," he said.
Around 240 jobs of the 800 targeted in Australia went in the first wave discussed
with the FSU, and another 260 jobs in the second wave, with the remaining 300 to be
finalised, he said.
"We're not convinced redeployment options have been exhausted."
Around 8,000 of ANZ's 36,925 permanent staff are FSU members.
The bank also employs around 8,000 contractors.
Some employees were being given 48 hours to consider their positions compared to the
two-week window agreed between the bank and the FSU, Mr Masson said.
In New Zealand, another 200 management roles will go, with final decisions on
specific roles affected to be made over the next two weeks, ANZ spokeswoman Virginia
Stracey-Clitherow told AAP.
Another 200 front line roles will be cut in New Zealand from a separate review
conducted earlier this year, she said.
ANZ National Bank will also redeploy 500 back office jobs to India by the end of
2009, adding to the 4,000 employees across the bank's operations in Asia.
One thousand staff were added to the Asia headcount in 2007/08, chief financial
officer Peter Marriott told analysts after the bank reported a 24 per cent drop in
cash earnings to $3.029 billion for fiscal 2008.
ANZ spokeswoman Mairi Barton said management level job cuts would be minor for its
Asia division since it was engaged in ongoing growth.
Analysts including KPMG's head of banking Andrew Dickinson, have estimated each of
Australia's big banks will need to shed around 2,000 jobs to reduce costs as the
credit cycle deteriorates, with Westpac and ANZ likely to be the most affected.
ANZ is likely to cut between 2,000 and 3,000 jobs, after putting on 6,000 staff
after it acquired National Bank of New Zealand in 2002/03, according to Austock
Securities' banking analyst John Buonaccorsi.
"You'd think they'd probably cut around half of that over the next few years.
"And they're expanding in Asia - but they're not huge numbers compared to the
overall group," he said.
"They've transferred a lot of IT functions to India - they probably put on two or
three staff there for every one retrenched here.
"But because the wages are five or 10 per cent of what they are here they make a big
saving."
National Australia Bank has probably less pressure to cut due to heavy cuts a few
years ago, he added.