ELEANOR HALL: Two of Australia's biggest banks have angered unions by confirming that they plan to send more jobs overseas.
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In a return to what's become known as offshoring, Westpac and the ANZ say they will send as many as 250 positions to India and the Philippines.
Unions say Australian jobs are being sacrificed for cheap labour, but the banks say it's just part of the globalised finance world.
Joining me now in the studio now is our business editor Peter Ryan.
So Peter, just how many jobs in this industry have been sent off-shore in recent years?
PETER RYAN: Well Eleanor this is an established practice for banks and in recent years around 5,000 jobs have gone overseas, known as offshoring.
In this case though, Westpac will move about 100 jobs to India and the ANZ has signalled that an initial 20 jobs will go to Bangalore, although unions says up to 150 jobs could go offshore eventually, possibly to the Philippines as well.
But you'd have to say that the unions are more cynical than angry at the moment, given Westpac's decision at the height of the global financial crisis to suspend outsourcing altogether.
But just over the last week, Westpac's CEO Gail Kelly began the softening up and last week said she was thinking about lifting the outsourcing freeze and today it's been confirmed.
Well Gail Kelly wasn't around today but Westpac's head of media relations, Paul Marriage, was left to explain the decision. He says despite the uncertainty we're seeing in Europe at the moment, times have changed and the global outlook is strong enough for outsourcing to make a comeback.
PAUL MARRIAGE: We took a decision back in late 2009 because of uncertainty immediately following the GFC and at that time it seemed as if employment could rise significantly. So we took a decision that time to suspend our offshoring operations.
Now we believe that the employment situation certainly has been stabilised at relatively low levels and it is the right time to recommence our outsourcing operations.
ELEANOR HALL: That's Paul Marriage from Westpac.
So Peter, what is the finance sector union saying it will do about this latest offshoring move?
PETER RYAN: Well not surprisingly, the FSU is pretty angry, they've condemned the return of outsourcing, especially in light of the combined $20 billion profit from the big four banks.
But Leon Carter, who is national secretary of the FSU, worries that bank workers are being squeezed by the demands of shareholders and that many are living under the shadow of job insecurity.
LEON CARTER: In an incredibly arrogant and thumb-in-the-nose action, Westpac has decided to recommence the offshoring of Australian jobs. This is a company that makes a multi-billion dollar profit every single year from the Australia community and what is its response? It's to say we want to save a bit more money, and the best way that we can do that is send hard working Australian jobs overseas.
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