Commonwealth Bank sacks 90 workers and replaces | Australian Markets

One of Australia’s main banks has come beneath fire after it introduced the axing of 90 jobs from numerous frontline departments.

The Commonwealth Bank is “replacing skilled Australian workers with AI systems as well as cheaper offshore labour”, in response to the Finance Sector Union.

But the bank mentioned AI could make it “easier and faster for customers to get help”.

The FSU on Tuesday mentioned the focused job cuts would impression roles in direct banking and buyer messaging roles which, it says, are characterised largely by their reliance on human-to-human interplay.

“Workers affected by new technology should be retrained and supported into new roles, not discarded in the name of cost-cutting,” a union spokesman mentioned.

“The union supports the use of new technology and AI in banking but says it must be done in partnership with workers, not at their expense.”

FSU national secretary Julia Angrisano gave a scathing review of CBA’s determination on Monday, saying there was “no excuse for treating its workforce like this”.

“Just when we think CBA can’t sink any lower, they start cutting jobs because of AI on top of sneakily offshoring work back to India,” Ms Angrisano mentioned.

“Workers want a tech savvy bank, but they expect to be part of the change, not replaced by it.

“Our members want to be trained and supported into better jobs that leverage AI, yet rather than invest in its people, the CBA are simply discarding Australians through ongoing redundancies and offshoring,” she mentioned.

“There is a human cost to this. You can’t just replace frontline jobs with a voice bot and expect the same service for customers.”

The row between the FSU and CBA is simply the latest in a spate of strongly-worded exchanges over AI and overseas-related job cuts, which have been ongoing since March.

A CBA spokesman mentioned the bank employed more than 9000 people within the 2025 financial 12 months and was presently investing more than $2 billion in operations.

“To meet the changing needs of our customers, like many organisations, we review the skills we need and how we’re organised to deliver the best customer experiences and outcomes,” the spokesman mentioned.

“Our investment in technology, including AI, is making it easier and faster for customers to get help, especially in our call centres. By automating simple queries, our teams can focus on more complex customer queries that need empathy and experience.

“We currently have around 450 open roles across retail banking services, more than 220 on the frontline.”

It was extensively reported in March that 164 jobs had been cut from CBA’s technology division, most of which had been concentrated in Sydney.

At the time, CBA mentioned “some roles and work can change”.

“Our focus is on providing our growing team with the right skills for evolving work,” a CBA spokesman mentioned.

“Our priority is always to redeploy or re-skill for a new role or opportunity wherever possible.”

According to the World Economic (*90*), Artificial Intelligence is anticipated to create roughly 69 million jobs within the subsequent 5 years, however round 83 million will probably be eradicated.