Qantas using AI as ‘Trojan horse’ for lay-offs, says union

Résumé détaillé

Citing the impact of AI, the airline will send 850 back-office jobs, “mostly” to India, through professional services firm Accenture.

The government and a key union have blasted Qantas over the decision to outsource 850 jobs, while raising concerns the airline – or any company – could use AI disruption as an excuse for mass firings.

Describing the outsourcing move as part of the business model for Qantas, Transport Minister Catherine King said: “This has been a model that Qantas has been using for some time, outsourcing jobs, no longer having them in house.”

Qantas said on Tuesday it will eliminate 850 local jobs, and send them to professional services firm Accenture, to “modernise its back-end systems, processes and data”, with back-office functions “mostly” shifted to India.

The Australian Services Union, representing some of the affected Qantas workers, expressed scepticism over Qantas’ motives. “We need to make sure that these AI announcements and job cuts are genuine and not a Trojan horse for widespread offshoring,” assistant national secretary Scott Cowen said.

“This isn’t the first announcement we’ve seen by big corporate giants in Australia where they announce a deal with a big tech giant like Accenture,” he said, citing examples such as Coles and Telstra.

Cowen expressed concern that “AI” is being used as a cover for simple offshoring.

“Is this using AI as the excuse to say the work can’t be done internally because it’s new or too specialised? And then [using] that as a way to outsource jobs from local communities?”

On Tuesday, chief executive Vanessa Hudson said: “Reinvention at this scale is not possible to do on our own ... because we cannot hire at the pace this work needs.”

Cowen said that more broadly: “If a huge corporation like Qantas is saying that it can’t internally employ people as these new technologies are implemented ... then what company is going to be employing locals?”

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