14 per cent reduction to its workforce<\/a>, according to Financial Services Union. On top of that, another 1000 contractor roles would be affected.<\/p>\nAnd because banks like to follow each other\u2019s leads, NAB announced plans to cut 410 jobs, while a Bendigo Bank restructure would affect 637 staff, Bank of Qld is cutting 200 roles and moving half its call centre operations to India. Meanwhile, Westpac is reportedly considering about 1500 redundancies.<\/p>\n
Australia\u2019s workforce is at about 14 million people, so 14,000 job losses would be enough to move unemployment up to 4.3 per cent. In September so far, banks alone got us nearly halfway there.<\/p>\n
On top of this, BHP Mitsubishi Alliance announced 750 job cuts in Qld, Telstra is planning to add 550 role reductions to its already 2800 cuts this year and Australian biotech company CSL has announced 12,000 global lay-offs, a significant number of which could be in Australia.<\/p>\n
![\"\"\/](\"data:image\/svg+xml,%3Csvg)
<\/p>\n
Shane Oliver of AMP said it makes sense to continue easing if unemployment creeps up.<\/p>\n
If more banks and other major companies follow suit, they might find they shift the unemployment dial far enough to prompt another rate cut.<\/p>\n
RBA Governor Michele Bullock has repeatedly emphasised the importance of unemployment figures in shaping cash rate decisions, and while the central bank forecasts a 4.3 per cent unemployment rate through to 2027, a strong increase in that figure would lead to pressure for further, accelerated rate cuts.<\/p>\n
Finder\u2019s RBA Cash Rate survey revealed in August that 80 per cent of experts believed unemployment would rise in the next 12 months.<\/p>\n
Stella Huangfu, University of Sydney, said \u201cunemployment is likely to edge a bit higher over the next 12 months as the economy continues to slow \u2026 perhaps towards the mid\u20114s. If the RBA continues to cut rates, that should help put a floor under the jobs market.\u201d<\/p>\n
Shane Oliver, AMP, said \u201cthe risks to unemployment are shifting to the upside and monetary policy is still tight so it makes sense to continue easing.\u201d<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Canstar data insights director Sally Tindall. Picture: Tim Hunter.<\/p>\n
The news comes as banks continue to slash their fixed rate products out of cycle, to try to win customer share in a highly competitive market. And because they obviously believe variable rates will continue to fall.<\/p>\n
CBA was the latest lender to go below the 5 per cent interest mark<\/a>, with a 4.99 per cent rate for two-year fixed home loans. The move followed Westpac\u2019s announcement of a 4.89 per cent fixed rate product in late August.<\/p>\nCanstar\u2019s data insights director Sally Tindall said there were now more than 30 lenders with at least one fixed rate product under 5 per cent.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe competition is heating up as banks encourage more borrowers to lock in,\u201d Ms Tindall said. \u201cSmaller lenders are offering rates as low as 4.64 per cent.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"It\u2019s been a big news week for ANZ. (Picture: William West) ANALYSIS Could our major banks be unwittingly…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":33400,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[13],"tags":[72,61,60,150],"class_list":["post-33399","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-jobs","tag-business","tag-ie","tag-ireland","tag-jobs"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/33399","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=33399"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/33399\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/33400"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=33399"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=33399"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=33399"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}