Telstra to axe up to 2800 jobs

Telstra has flagged it will cut up to 2800 jobs, or about 9 per cent of its 31,000-strong workforce, announcing a series of steps to help the telco giant save $350m by the end of the 2025 financial year.

The update was shared in an ASX announcement posted at 8.20am on Tuesday, and said the majority of the roles would be scrapped by the end of 2024.

Chief executive officer Vicki Brady said this was a result of Telstra resetting its Enterprise business.

She defended the move as “necessary” so telco giant could “make the investments needed” to support ever-increasing growth in data volumes on its networks and deliver improved connectivity for customers across the country”.

It comes as the company scales up AI adoption.

In February this year, Telstra announced it was expanding two in-house developed generative AI solutions following “promising pilots with frontline team members, enabling faster and more successful interactions with customers”.

“I appreciate the uncertainty proposed changes like this can create for our people and we will support them through this change with care and transparency,” Ms Brady said.

“As we proposed specific changes, we will talk them through with our teams and union representatives first.”

Consultation on 377 of the 2800 jobs would “begin immediately,” with the roles from areas “supporting the products and services to be exited in Enterprise.

The directive also flagged a number of other changes, like deploying its Global Business Service function to other parts of the business, and other actions to “reduce its non-labour and indirect labour costs”.

The initiatives would save the company $350m by the end of June 2025, with the company forecasting a one-off restructuring cost between $200m to $250m across the 2024 and 2025 financial years.

In the same directive Ms Brady also announced it would remove annual inflation-linked price increases for its postpaid mobile plans.

This means eligible Telstra customers will not be hit with a price change in July this year.

“This approach reflects there are a range of factors that go into any pricing decision, and will provide greater flexibility to adjust prices at different times and across different plans based on their value propositions and customer needs,” she said.