24 August 2011

By the ASU, the airlines industry union

Today's announcement by Qantas is the 18th consecutive year that the airline has announced a profit since the merger of Australian Airlines and Qantas and makes it one of the most profitable airlines in the world and yet the company is about to embark upon a strategy of offshoring and outsourcing jobs to new offshoots based outside Australia.  

Today, CEO Alan Joyce has again foreshadowed more announcements which the ASU believes will result in more jobs being offshored.

"It is time for Qantas to come clean on how many jobs in the Qantas group will be offshored - currently Qantas says that 92% of the staff are Australian based but what will be the situation after the next announcement?" ASU Assistant Secretary Linda White said.

"What percentage of the jobs in the Qantas Group will be in Australia - is it 80%, 60% or 50% - they are not saying and it is time the company did," Linda White said.  

Over recent years the Qantas group has offshored jobs in IT, load control, call centres, operations, administration and a range of other areas and this has seen the number of Australian based staff decrease.  

"A key reason that Qantas has been one of the most profitable and successful airlines in the world is its Australian staff - the customers recognise this, it is time that Qantas management did too," Linda White said.  

"It is all very well for Qantas to trade on the "Australian Spirit" but there won't be too much of that left if more jobs are offshore," she said.