NBN Co restarts recruitment machine

NBN Co has sprung back into action after its election hiatus by employing three new staff and posting 35 job advertisements since the formation of government on Tuesday.

Two of the new hires came from Telstra Wholesale and a third from Broadcast Australia, according to publicly available LinkedIn updates.

The network builder picked up where it left off on the recruitment front with a number of roles listed in the past days focused around the construction, engineering and fitout of its data centres.

Construction work was also continuing in four of the five first release sites on the mainland.

Digging work had commenced in Armidale with vision of the project screened briefly on the ABC's 7:30 Report on August 30.

Installations at Kiama Downs/Minnamurra, Willunga and Townsville were in various stages of "early work" through to "digging holes", an NBN Co spokesman said.

Calls by iTnews to the contractors for status updates were referred back to NBN Co. An NBN Co spokesman said that construction work in the first release sites had "continued throughout the caretaker period".

The company said in late August that it would limit discretionary expenditure, extend some tender deadlines and put others on hold until an election result was announced.

Its future had been under a cloud following last month's election with the Coalition promising to scrap the project if it gained power.

But the project was credited by key independents as a reason behind their decision to form a minority government with Labor, granting the NBN a stay of execution.

NBN Co now faced the challenge of reworking its rollout strategy to prioritise deployment in regional Australia under a deal Labor cut with key independents Tony Windsor and Rob Oakeshott in return for power.

Windsor and Oakeshott's electorates were not specifically earmarked for prioritisation in the rollout schedule, Communications Minister Stephen Conroy said last night.