Qantas, the Australian airline is planning to outsource 850 jobs from its head office to Accenture under a multi-year agreement. Most of these jobs are set to be assigned to Accenture's employees in India, BBC reported on Tuesday.
Vanessa Hudson, the CEO of Qantas, made this announcement in an internal email to the company's staff today, wherein she said, "this is hard news for some and I'm sorry for the uncertainty it brings".
The company, which is Australia's national airline, is planning this outsourcing in order to modernise its technology systems as well as prepare the business so that it is ready to adapt to the growing importance of AI in the aviation and travel industries.
The implementation of these changes will begin by the middle of next year, and the initial phase is likely to cover finance, procurement, people and marketing functions.
Hudson addressed these changes in her email, writing, “They are about modernising the technology behind our business and becoming more efficient, so we can keep investing in our customers, our people and our future,” while acknowleding that the "scale and speed of change in technology and AI is something none of us has seen in our lifetime".
She however added that outcomes to individuals because of this direction the company is taking has not been analysed completely, and that the management would consult the employee unions in the coming months.
She said, “The first phase will start with finance, procurement, people and marketing, with some of the services in these areas moving to Accenture, delivered mostly by its teams in India and some in Australia”.
How Qantas plans to redeploy as many employees as possible
Qantas is also planning to redeploy a number of its employees by reskilling and retraining them, and also giving them opportunities in other roles within the organisation.
The technology overhaul comes at a time when the company is trying to address the complexity of its legal systems. Hudson mentioned in her email that the company operates more than 1,000 legacy applications that were not designed to work together.
“Modernising these systems and connecting the data across them is the critical next step,” she said.
What union leaders are saying
Union leaders are ringing the alarm bells, claiming that they were told Australian jobs would not be moved overseas.
“This should be chilling to not only those workers, but all Australians, because no Australian benefits from this. This is jobs offshore, and this is skills offshore at our national airline,” ASU NSW Secretary Angus McFarland said, as per 9News Australia.
ASU Assistant National Secretary Scott Cowen said workers had been told in August that there was no plan to move Australian jobs overseas.
“Earlier this year, Qantas told us directly there was no plan to offshore any jobs. Today, they’ve come out and told hundreds of staff members that their work will now be delivered mostly from people overseas,” Cowen said.
The union is reportedly seeking more details on the number and types of jobs being affected as well the retraining support the company will provide for its employees.
With agency inputs