Telstra announced today that the new call centre in Launceston, expected to open for operation in November this year, will line up 100 new positions and provide customers with fault reporting and fault diagnosis services.
The move comes in the midst of Telstra's on-going job shedding program that consists of 10,000 planned job losses over a two-year period, announced by the country's top telco in March 2000. At about the same time, Telstra said it would review all of its call centre operations, with reports saying it aimed to reduce to about 50 its 260 call centres countrywide.
Telstra Country Wide area general manager Northern Tasmania, Noel Hunt, said the new call centre would boost the local economy and strengthen the company's position as a -major creator of employment" in Tasmania.
"The construction phase and the flow on benefits from the development and the additional jobs created would be a boost to economic activity in Launceston," Hunt said in a statement.
Of the carrier's 10,000 jobs lined up for elimination, Telstra public affairs manager human resources, Megan Lane said: -obviously we're quite a way into that," although she did not reveal how many positions had been slashed to date.
