Aussie banks square off over job exports

Whilst the National Australia Bank is accused of looking at offshoring 628 jobs, Westpac chief Gail Kelly says she will not send jobs overseas while the economy remains tough.

Commonwealth Bank, on the other hand, said it would refrain from offshoring for the next three years because of the current state of the job market. Meanwhile, ANZ Bank said in December it had added 500 jobs in India as part of its Indian operations expansion and further confirmed that 1000 jobs would be shifted away from Australia by the end of this year.

According to a report by The Age, the subject of off-shoring jobs is delicate for the big banks as the Government expects the jobless rate to rise to at least 8 percent by 2010. Economists have the same projection although the jobless rate eased from 5.7 percent in March to 5.4 percent in April.