ANZ has become the latest big Australian company to send more jobs overseas, replacing 70 call-centre jobs with positions in New Zealand as part of attempts to bolster profit through cost-cutting.

In another case of ''offshoring'' by a big bank, ANZ last week told staff it would shift the jobs from its Dorcas Street office in Melbourne to New Zealand, where it is bulking up its 175-strong staff who respond to Australian customers' queries.

According to bank sources, the cuts are part of a plan to replace up to 500 call-centre positions with jobs in New Zealand over the next few years through natural attrition. Credit:Jessica Shapiro

The bank said it did not anticipate redundancies as part of the plan, as it thought natural staff attrition would drive the reduction. But the finance union doubted this and said offshoring in the past had inevitably led to layoffs.

The move to shrink domestic staff numbers underlines the fragile state of the labour market and comes after Ford last week announced 1200 job cuts and collapsed cleaning contractor Swan Services terminated its entire staff of nearly 2500.