Brisbane blow as CBA sheds 150 jobs

ABOUT 150 people will be sacked from Brisbane operations of Australia’s biggest lender Commonwealth Bank of Australia.

The job losses are hitting a back-office division working in home-loan processing.

“It’s huge,” Finance Sector Union state secretary Wendy Streets said.

“For these people, there is almost no chance of redeployment.”

The Brisbane site was one of the last main back-office divisions for major banks in the state, she said.

CBA, whose chief executive Ian Narev’s remuneration in 2016 was $8.8 million, said it understood “this is a difficult time for impacted people and this decision has not been taken lightly”.

“To ensure a smooth transition, we will provide impacted people with at least two months’ notice and personalised support to help them identify other roles. This support includes developing a compelling resume, networking and interview coaching,” a bank spokeswoman said.

Their workload will be handled via offices in Perth and Sydney as part of a “‘follow the sun’ service offering to customers”. This relates to centres being able to work longer hours, in theory, because of different time zones.

But CBA is not hiring additional staff to pick up the Brisbane-based efforts.

The initial cuts to 66 roles are scheduled to be made by September. Then the remaining 84 staff will leave between February and June next year.