New look Kaz: 40% smaller

Staff numbers at Kaz have sunk by 40 per cent over the past several years, the Telstra executive overseeing the IT services subsidiary said today.

David Thodey
(Credit: Suzanne Tindal/
ZDNet.com.au)

The company, which once numbered its employees at around 3,000, has taken a diet pill to sink its staff to around 60 per cent that number, Telstra group managing director enterprise and government David Thodey, who oversees Kaz, told ZDNet.com.au today.

There have been reports of Kaz losing workers which were not officially confirmed, but the extent of the change had previously not been made known.

It is unclear how many staff have been made redundant, with the restructure likely to have shuffled some headcount into Telstra's separate total.

Despite the thinning operation, Thodey was pleased with Kaz's performance. "Kaz has performed very well," he said.

The future of Kaz, which Telstra bought in 2004 for an estimated $333 million, had been in doubt with Telstra having put the subsidiary up for sale, attracting interest from international firms like Fujitsu. However, no suitable suitor was found and the telco said at the last annual earnings call that it intended to keep the business, but to integrate it further to make it "more attractive".

Sol Trujillo elaborated further at Telstra's investor day in November, saying that the focus of Kaz was changing. Today Thodey said that Kaz would focus on IT services, leaving network services to its parent.

Kaz holds major contracts relating to desktop services with large organisations such as the Department of Defence and ING Australia.