Commonwealth Bank has reversed its decision to cut 45 call centre jobs to make way for an AI chatbot.
The bank, Australia’s largest with an annual profit of $10.25 billion, had announced last month that dozens of roles would be affected following an AI investment aimed at making customer service “easier and faster.”
The Finance Sector Union (FSU) confirmed today that CBA would now allow staff to either remain in their roles or opt for voluntary redundancy. However, the union noted that the uncertainty had already impacted the 45 employees concerned.
The reversal follows a dispute reviewed by the Fair Work Commission. FSU national secretary Julia Angrisano described the outcome as a significant win for workers but emphasized that it was not a complete victory. She criticized the bank for using AI as a pretext to cut secure jobs, calling it a “cynical cost-cutting exercise,” and highlighted employees’ desire for secure employment and training for future roles.
A CBA spokesperson acknowledged that the initial decision to cut the 45 roles was an “error,” explaining that the assessment did not fully consider all relevant business factors and the roles were not actually redundant. The bank has apologized, offered affected employees options to continue in their current roles, pursue redeployment, or leave the organisation, and is reviewing internal processes to prevent similar mistakes in the future.
The bank denied that any of the roles would be offshored and said some staff would have been transitioned into other open positions. The 45 roles represented a small portion of CBA’s 38,000-strong workforce, which had already seen 164 job cuts in its technology division earlier this year.
