Telstra Moving 400 Call Center Jobs Offshore

By Michael Guta
TMCnet Contributing Writer

Australia was untouched by the economic crisis for a very long time, but the interconnected nature of the global economy was bound to affect its economy sooner or later. The downturn in India and to some degree China has meant less mineral exports, which in turn affects the overall economy of the country. Telstra (News - Alert), the country’s largest telecom, is cutting and exporting some of its jobs to India and the Philippines. The 400 jobs the company will be exporting to these destinations are call center positions. India and the Philippines have been investing heavily on the latest call center technology, making it almost impossible for other countries to compete with them.

According to some reports when Telstra announced service offered by the offshore call centers in Asia, union members were upset at the statement. This also comes on top of another cut earlier this week of 698 jobs from a subsidiary of Telstra, Sensis. They will also be exporting 391 of the 698 jobs to offshore call centers.

As the technology gets more complex more call centers will be required, and one of the reasons Telstra is moving these positions is because they are able to provide 24/7 customer care.  

''The vendors that we are considering provide services for customers that go beyond our service today, such as 24/7 operations and unique technologies that assist in processing efficiencies, which they do for many directory businesses around the world,” said managing director of Telstra's Sensis directories business, John Allan to Business Day.

Australia, like other developed countries, faces competition from outside the country that can greatly improve the bottom line. While in the past this was purely a financial decision without much thought to quality of work, it is no longer the case. The call centers and other types of services countries like India and the Philippines provide are second to none. Their services are used by enterprises from around the world 24/7 year round.