Hundreds of white collar jobs to go across Big Build projects

Large-scale redundancies are expected across the state’s Big Build road and rail projects — including at Metro Trains — as projects wind up and the government tries to rein in costs.

Hundreds of white collar jobs are set to be slashed across the state’s Big Build as road and rail projects wrap up and the government tries to rein in costs.
The Herald Sun can reveal large-scale redundancies are expected as the finishing touches are put on the $14 billion Metro Tunnel and $10.2bn West Gate Tunnel and projects are “demobilised” before opening next year.
Combined with a broader slowdown in the state’s bulging infrastructure pipeline, which had been running at capacity or beyond for the past year, expectations are growing of a major jobs crunch.

Changes to the pipeline, which include the shelving of the $10bn Airport Rail Link, will lead to widespread redundancies at Metro Trains Melbourne, where staff are effectively seconded to work in public sector teams on rail projects.

Other private contractors are also shedding numbers, with an expectation they will start hiring again once other public sector work ramps up, such as on the $35bn Suburban Rail Loop Stage One being built between Cheltenham and Box Hill.

A spokeswoman for Metro Trains said the company “staffs its project division in line with project requirements”.

Work on the Footscray Road launching gantry in mid 2023. Picture: David Caird

“As projects are completed, Metro works with these employees to redeploy them into other roles within Metro, or supports them to find external roles,” she said.
“This does not impact Metro Trains Melbourne front line operations and service delivery.

Meanwhile, a Victorian Government spokesperson said: “Big Build projects have been deliberately set up as a pipeline of work – as some projects are winding down, others are powering up, creating and maintaining thousands of jobs.”

One insider said redundancies could be as high as 500, as several of the state’s larger projects scaled down or were cut back, and as the brakes were tapped on the pace of level crossing removals.

Work on the Westgate Tunnel Project in mid-2023. Picture: David Caird

A new public sector agency to oversee the Big Build, called the Victorian Infrastructure Delivery Authority, will be established next month when several transport agencies brought under its umbrella.
This is likely to see duplicate roles eliminated over the coming months, allowing the Allan Government to ease the squeeze on its ballooning State Budget.

“White collar jobs will be cut, it’s a fact that the pipeline of projects is coming down,” one insider said.

Another said when mega builds are “demobilised” it meant desk roles were cut, but that agencies or companies usually tried to redirect them to other vacancies.
“It doesn’t mean every redundancy is a job lost,” they said.

One of the first High Capacity Metro Trains on the Sunbury Line.

Senior government figures have indicated a brutal State Budget is likely to be unveiled in May, mainly due to skyrocketing net debt that is expected to hit $178bn within four years.

Last year the Government whacked big business with a levy to try to pay down what it called “Covid debt” and promised to “rebalance the public service back towards pre-pandemic levels” — without cutting frontline services.

The average Victorian public sector infrastructure spend for the past two years was about $23bn, but budget papers show it is now expected to taper down to about $17bn a year, by 2027.

This is still above the average annual spend over the past decade, however.