Telco defends record on jobs

TELSTRA sacked about 2000 call centre workers, but the telco says it’s committed to generating jobs in Australia.

Telstra told shareholders at its annual general meeting that while about 2000 call centre jobs had been lost, it had created the same number of jobs in other fields.

Chairman Catherine Livingstone said it still employed about 40,000 Australians.

‘‘During a year in which call centre staff numbers fell, our employee numbers stayed almost exactly the same,’’ Ms Livingstone said in Melbourne yesterday.

‘‘We created around 2000 new jobs in fiscal 2012, including jobs for Australians in Asia, and in fields as varied as web design, IT, network design and social media.’’

She also defended Telstra’s move to outsource some call centre operations to the Philippines, saying it provided the flexibility to manage call volumes. But not all shareholders agreed. ‘‘Telecom and Telstra are Australian icons and I believe that icons start with a sense of belonging and that’s put at risk by oversees call centres that sometimes fix the problem and sometimes don’t,’’ one shareholder said.

But chief executive David Thodey said the need for call centres was diminishing as more Australians used the internet to interact with Telstra.

‘‘Interestingly, more than 30 per cent of all interactions we have with customers are now online and that figure will be closer to 50 per cent by the end of this financial year,’’ Mr Thodey said.

He said Telstra remained committed to improving customer service and during fiscal 2012 complaints to the ombudsman were down 26 per cent and call centre complaints down 21 per cent.

Shareholders overwhelmingly voted in favour of increasing the directors’ fee pool and granting Mr Thodey’s 1,391,076 performance rights in fiscal 2013, on top of his $2,650,000 fixed salary, if he met longterm performance targets.

Telstra also confirmed the board’s intention to pay a fully franked dividend of 28c a share in 2012-13.

However, in fiscal 2014 Telstra would also return to its usual practice of considering dividends on a six-month basis.

The company said it was well positioned to post incomes and earnings in the low single-digit percentages for fiscal 2013.

It also expects free cashflow for the coming year t o be between $4.75 billion and $5.25 billion.

Morningstar analyst Peter Warnes said Telstra’s strong cash flow and its extensive network meant it was well placed to take advantage of growing mobile network traffic.

Telstra shares closed flat at $3.94.