Telstra to offshore 671 jobs

Telstra will oustource almost 700 jobs to India over the next year in an effort to boost its presence in the region by increasing resources in its global delivery centres.

The telco will outsource the functions of 463 internal Telstra positions and 208 contractor roles to the Indian centres in order to meet growing demand for local services, the telco revealed today.

It said "around 100" major customers were currently being serviced through the delivery centres since the initiative was announced last year, creating a need for the company to grow its skills and resources in the region "rapidly" to meet demand.

"We need to have appropriately skilled people in the geographies where our customers are, in order to build relationships and provide the level of service needed to win and retain international business," Telstra's group managing director of global services David Burns said in a statement.

"These are not decisions we take lightly and we will consult and work closely with our people on this proposal."

Burns said Telstra will offer to redeploy as many affected employees to India as possible.

Telstra said it also expects to generate an undisclosed number of new roles in the Australian global services division over the next 12 months. 

A Telstra spokesperson said the telco is continuing to invest in onshore skills as well as offshore, pointing to the hiring of around 700 new workers to the division in the current financial year.

But the division has also lost workers in Telstra's ongoing cost reduction drive - global services farewelled 170 workers in June last year. Over 2000 positions were cut across the company last year.

"We take our responsibility to support employees through this period very seriously and we absolutely understand the impact announcements like this can have on our staf," Burns said.

The offshoring initiative is expected to commence in September and be completed by July next year.

Telstra currently employs more than 10,000 overseas contractors - representing around 26 percent of its full-time workforce of 37,721.

The majority of Telstra's global delivery centres are located in India, with several also located in the Phillipines, Hong Kong, Singapore, London and New York.