So recently NAB announced cuts to 6000 jobs over the next 3 years and then to hire 2000 more in a different field of work. They did it on the same day where they announced a 5.3b profit.
What are your thoughts on this?
NAB Cutting 6000 Jobs. Thoughts?
Lworrierwan on 03/11/2017 - 12:06
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Somewhere between zero and none. NAB's CEO claimed last night in a radio interview that the cuts are 'customer driven' due to preference for digital products. Clearly customers would never 'drive' to cut the dead wood at the top…
It's not wrong though. I use my bank app or online banking whenever possible, and even at a branch I prefer to use the ATM than go to an actual human teller. You still need human tellers for more complex or out-of-the-ordinary things, but for 99% of stuff most people want to do with/at a bank, an ATM or the app is fine and even preferable.
It's true that I rarely visit any branches to do banking. When I go to deposit cash the ATM is sometimes broken, forcing everyone to stand in line to the one teller while there are another four sales staff standing around who will not help. Those people are there to sell home loans, insurance, credit cards. The big money earners for banks.
The tellers are forced to ask me about my insurance situation, about getting a better deal on a home loan. Go away. I'm here to deposit cash and that's it.
Zero. Zilch. Nada. Nothing.
That's probably job automation in action. Fintech is booming and humans need not apply…
The commbank branch at my local shopping centre used to be staffed with roughly 6-7 people during business ours, now it is almost completely automated and only staffed with 2-3 consultants at very limited hours.
They're getting ready for the downturn/recession/depression, whatever you call it.
Physical bank branches need a minimum staffing level, for security etc. But, they will 'fine-tune' the individual hours of work to maintain the minimum over the length of the day. There will also be a (continued) push of the majority of customers to use smart-ATMs.
As stated by scrimshaw, job automation is where the losses will be (and NAB have said that). That would include analysis and assessment of lending applications against set criteria, review of account overdrafts, probably generate targeted sales marketing, etc.
Limited losses in management, most likely in middle-management if any.
What thoughts? No one, or company, has any legal or moral obligation to employ people they don't need or want. If you have skills and there's someone who wants those skills to make money, you'll be able to find a job. If you don't have skills that are useful to anyone else…
During these announcements, have a look at the current advertising campaign. Right now on their website, it's "ready for your next leap?", genuinely.
Company's responsibility is to maximise profit for their owners. Therefore I think the message is — be one of the owners? For public companies you can always buy their shares.
Disclaimer: This is not a financial advice
When can I buy stock for your site?
Sounds reasonable to me. Identify opportunity to save money and increase profits, do it. If they staff they are making redundant are not bringing enough value to the company then there is no need to keep them.
after cutting staffs usually share price will go up.
very sad. humanity should unite and kick those corporations in the balls and limit their profit and reallocate to public services.The Soviet union, Yugoslavia and Venezuela worked out great.
Yeah, not like corruption had anything to do with those failed regimes. Now bow to your capitalist overlords!
You realize that at the end of the day, "corporations" are just groups of people who've put their money together to do business right?
If you have savings, if you have Super, or any kind of investment, you're banking (literally) on the value of these 'evil' corporations to go up in order to keep or grow the value of those savings and investments.
You realize that it's possible to be trapped in a system and acknowledge the inherent flaws at the same time right?
I've no idea what this means. Do you own Super? The value of your Super depends on companies making money. Same with most every person you see on the street, including people who're struggling, and the elderly, if they have any amount of superannuation. And this "system" is the one that's led to the greatest period of wealth creation in the history of mankind.
Sure there are flaws, but the alternative is going back to around the turn of the century when companies weren't a thing yet, currencies were still based on the gold-standard, and most working class people would have been complaining about not having enough to eat, instead of not being able to afford their own property. Oh yeah, back then? No one in the working class would have owned any property.
i dont believe in letting some people to get whatever they want just because they can. if they have wings and circle around their head, i dont mind. everything need to be fair. there should an "enough" bar.
What's unfair about letting people keep what they earn (and every dollar are dollars other people willingly give them), and letting them swap money for work - with both sides agreeing? Because that's the only thing happening here - customers agree to give companies money for goods or services. And companies agree - with workers - to give workers money in exchange for work.
If customers don't want to give companies money? They don't have to. If workers don't want to work for these companies? They don't have to.
So, what's unfair here?
They make the right choice to cut staffs they don't need and hire those they need, they need to prepare for the future even if they currently make huge profits. Nokia used to be the biggest mobile phones makers, see where they are now. For those employees, it is sad to lose your jobs because your employers no longer need you, but if you have the right skills, then you can find a job anywhere. Maybe time to learn new skills that employers needs.
It makes a mockery of the government's justification for tax cuts for big companies. The theory goes if you increase profits, you increase jobs. But as this example shows, that correlation doesn't always hold. In fact, I'd argue that the bigger the company, the less it holds. The reason being is that big companies are often in established industries, not growth industries. In an established industry, companies are fighting with each other for a piece of a pie that is not growing, or only growing marginally. In these situations, profits often come from increasing efficiencies which often means less jobs.
There probably was a justification for cutting taxes for businesses with turnovers of up to $50m. But for companies bigger than that, how much value will we get out of the $26bn that will be cut from revenue? I'd argue very little. And I'd go further and say that the $7bn of that that will go to the banks - this is a huge amount of money in my opinion - will create 0 jobs. Colossal waste of money.
Very good point
Many things make a mockery of arguing for corporate tax cuts - cutting company tax whilst leaving individual taxation where it is causes one of the greatest wastes of money in our system. People pretending to be companies, how many laws, audits, debates, blah blah blah have happened to try to stop that? If the tax rates are the same then that all goes away.
The theory of trickle down economics (which is what company tax cuts to create good for all rely on) has been conclusively debunked, even by our own treasury department when the government did the modelling.
And don't get me started on giving money to companies like Adani to dig out coal in the hopes of future tax from them - what a joke, they have shell/international tax haven/etc structures that mean they won't give us anything apart from a completely environmentally screwed area of Queensland.
So what? If you dont work for them then you are not affected.
My thoughts on this is if you can't beat them , join them. Bask in their 5.3b profits by being a shareholder ….fast! 100% franked dividends how much better can you get. On the downside of retrenchments, I suspect they are redeployed into phoneline customer service but not locally, instead call centres operating overseas.
My thoughts are that never work in an industry which seeks to increase its profitability by firing staff.
They can say blah blah driven by customer but I suspect that if customers requested 5% interest rates on credit cards then they'll be telling us a different story.
In the end business lies, to its staff and to its customers. No point in really listening to them any more.
I wondered how many of the 6000 were from the Board or Upper Management.