Brisbane VHA staff face redundancy or relocation

Around 125 call centre staff at Vodafone Hutchison Australia's (VHA's) Brisbane facility will be made redundant or offered the opportunity to relocate to Tasmania as part of the mobile carrier's plan to consolidate its customer facing operations to a facility in Tasmania.

A spokesperson for the company also confirmed that a number of employees at its Brisbane facility would be made redundant by default - without the option of a relocation.

"Yes, there will be redundancies, but there will also be opportunities available in other areas of the company," Greg Spears, Head of Public Relations at Vodafone Australia told iTnews.

iTnews was also told that only "some of the staff" would be able to apply for those "opportunities" within the company.

"The long and the short of it is that there will be absolutely no changes until June 2010," Spears said. "We will be actively encouraging staff to move, but we won't be forcing them".

As well as relocating its call centre staff from Brisbane to Tasmania, VHA's financial department in Sydney is to relocate to its Brisbane facility to fill the 125 call centre seats made vacant.

The Tasmanian and Queensland State Government's were in negotiations with VHA over a possible financial assistance package to fund the relocation and re-training of employees.

The Tasmanian Premier, David Bartlett, said "successful negotiations with Vodafone have seen that company choose Tasmania over other states to continue their expansion".

"There were a lot of factors as to where to house the core facilities," VHA's Spears told iTnews. "It came down to expertise, resources and scale".

iTnews requested a comment from the Queensland Premier's office but has not yet received a reply.