Australian telecommunications company AAPT confirmed today the migration of 80 call centre jobs in Glebe, Australia to an offshore customer call centre in Manila, Philippines.

“This will impact approximately 80 people over the next four months. Our aim was to be as up-front with our people as early as possible,” AAPT said in an emailed company statement.

CRN reported the story first, and mentioned the call centre will be shut down on October 31 this year and AAPT staff were informed of the call centre closure on via an email yesterday.

“This week we let our people know that Level 1 and Level 2 support functions in our Glebe centre would be now be gradually migrated to our Manila centre over the next four months; affected people will be offered alternative opportunities in other parts of the company wherever possible,” AAPT’s statement said.

After the recent layoffs, AAPT only has one third of its call centres remaining in Australia.

“Over the past four quarters, our CEO Paul Broad has been clear about our strategic drive to reduce costs. At Telecom NZ’s annual investor briefing in May, Paul signalled AAPT’s intent to move further contact centre functions off-shore – this was reported on at the time,” wrote the spokesperson, “This decision follows the relocation of other similar roles over the past 18 months.”

In April this year AAPT let go 31 staff in total go, 11 employees from the Glebe call center in Sydney and a further 20 from a Brisbane inbound and outbound sales centre. In the last half of 2009 AAPT had further job reductions, with 205 employees let go.

AAPT maintains that customer service quality will not be affected by the relocation to another country. “Our Manila centre is largely resourced by degree-qualified people and has proven successful in maintaining our high levels of customer satisfaction.”

The telecom company did not comment on how many more jobs will be created in the Manila call centre as a result off the Glebe layoffs.

Image credit: Carlos Chavez, royalty free

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