AAPT to offshore Sydney consumer call centre

Up to 80 Australian staff could lose their jobs.

AAPT is offshoring its consumer call centre functions in Sydney's inner-city suburb of Glebe to Manila in the Philippines. 

CRN understood that AAPT told staff yesterday by email of its decision.

The email, viewed by CRN, stated that the call centre will close before 31 October.

CRN understood all "customer experience" staff were terminated yesterday. Further positions were expected to be phased out by the end of October.

An AAPT spokesman told CRN that 80 staff were impacted. "We'll do whatever we can [to place them] in different parts of the business."

The spokesman said that level-one and two support functions were affected and not all of AAPT's call centre.

A third of the telco's call centre resources will stay in Australia, the spokesman said.

"We have a large business solutions division and a large wholesale division and there a lot of call centres functions.

"Technical support and wholesale support functions are still located in Australia."

AAPT has been sending its call centre operations to Manila for two years. 

In April, Computerworld reported that AAPT had axed 20 Sydney staff in the Sydney Glebe call centre.

In AAPT's May 27 investor day presentation, chief executive officer Paul Broad said "offshoring of consumer call centre functions are forecasted to reduce call centre costs by $27 million" by the middle of next year.