Rail giant Aurizon slashes jobs, warns of rising costs

Queensland rail giant Aurizon is cutting scores of key jobs and outsourcing them in order to cut costs, saying the measures need to be taken to stay competitive and maintain profits. See which departments the affected roles are in.

An Aurizon freight train loaded with cargo heads south along the railway tracks at Woree, south of Cairns. Picture: Brendan Radke

Rail giant Aurizon plans to cut key finance, accounting and human resources roles across the company amid a bleaker outlook for its coal haulage business.

Aurizon will outsource more than 60 positions to an external partner warning it needs cut costs to stay competitive and maintain profits.

Employees in back office, IT and administrative operations will be the most impacted, according to an internal document obtained by City Beat and given to employees as part of a consultation process.

“Aurizon is at a critical juncture,” says the document titled Aurizon Business Services (ABS) project. “A combination of the outlook for coal, increased competition, financial and other pressures is driving the need to change how we operate.”

The document says the company’s current costs are higher than its competitors and if that does not change Aurizon will no longer remain cost competitive to win new business and profit will erode.

Aurizon‘s processes needed to be more streamlined to leverage automation and digitisation, the document says.

“The proposed solution is to consolidate our repeatable, high volume and or transactional tasks and outsource to an external partner,” it says.

Aurizon is facing coal challenges

The cuts will see 19 positions cut from its accounts team, 20 from administration, six from people and development with the remains roles cut from other areas.

Aurizon says the impacted employees will be supported through a redeployment process with some offering new roles. According to one insider Aurizon was currently in ‘consultation’ with a large number of staff to offshore their jobs to India.

“This is not the first time they have done this and it surely won‘t be the last,” says the insider. ”There are many disgruntled employees, whether they are losing their jobs or staying.”

Aurizon announced Monday that it had dropped expectations for its coal volumes for the full financial year, saying disruptions at the mines of key customers would lead to slower growth in coal exports than it had expected.

The rail major declared a half-year profit of $257m on Monday, down 4 per cent on the previous year and dropped its interim dividend to 10.5c from 14.4c as it preserves cash to complete the acquisition of freight group OneRail.

An Aurizon spokesperson said the company continued to review its corporate and support costs to ensure its remained competitive.

“This includes engaging external providers for high-volume transactional and processing activities performed in corporate, finance and support areas,” the spokesperson said.

“Aurizon is proposing a reduction of approximately 60 roles as we implement these changes. We are currently consulting with employees and no decisions have been made. “

The review was restricted to corporate support areas of Aurizon, the spokesperson said.