What’s
all the fuss about job losses over at National Australia Bank? The bank
claims it is removing bureaucracy and cutting out duplication as part
of its efficiency drive. Let’s accept this for the moment on face value
and assume it to be true and justified. So, if there is nothing for
these 2,000 employees to do, the bank needs to let them go right? Well,
yes, except for this:

1) Insiders say the bank has been hiring
hundreds of new staff over the last 12 months (and still is). Staff are
asking why weren’t some of these 2,000 redundant employees allowed to
apply for these positions?

2) The bank is claiming these 2,000
employees no longer have jobs and must all leave (ie. these are forced
rather than voluntary redundancies). Staff facing these forced
redundancies are asking why staff in other areas, who WANT to leave,
can’t apply for these redundancies. This would allow the staff in roles
that have been removed but want to stay, to transfer over to other
areas, be retrained, and thus save their jobs. This would be a win-win.
The bank would make its savings, the employess who want to leave could,
and the ones who want to stay could also.

3) Speculation is that
the NAB has plans to move sections of its back-office processing to
India. The NAB has so far denied this. Speculation is that savings from
the 2,000 job losses will help finance the expansion into India. The
NAB wants to avoid the public drawing any connection between the 2,000
job losses and the India function. Therefore they will not announce the
India moves until the job losses have all been completed.