‘Significant damage’: Transport minister warns Qantas over AI job cuts
The airline will send 850 back office jobs, “mostly” to India, through professional services firm Accenture.
The Australian Services Union, representing some of the affected Qantas workers, expressed scepticism over Qantas’ motives. “We need to make sure that these AI announcements and job cuts are genuine and not a Trojan horse for widespread offshoring,” assistant national secretary Scott Cowen said.
The airline’s prized place in corporate Australia as a provider of essential connectivity saw it receive $2.7 billion in taxpayer subsidies during COVID, to support employment and keep the airline functioning. Around the same time, Qantas outsourced 1800 ground crew in a move later ruled as illegal, triggering multiple fines and doing substantial damage to its public image.
More recently, the Albanese government has worked closely with Qantas, for example, in helping it secure jet fuel from Asian ports in the aftermath of the Iran-US conflict this year. In other ways, the Albanese government has protected Qantas from full exposure to deep-pocketed Qatar Airways’ ambitions to fly to Australia, in part for Australia’s national aviation sovereignty.
“My call to them is to work very closely with the unions to retrain, redeploy as many of those 850 people as possible, because we need those AI capabilities here in Australia as well,” King said.
“It shouldn’t just be an exercise in taking costs out of the business. It’s got to be an exercise in growing the business and growing Australian jobs for the future. And I think that’s what both the government, the union and the Australian people would expect of it,” she said.
