"This is a hard day for many of our teams right across Telstra," CEO Vicki Brady said as she broke the news.Many of its big corporate customers are shifting away from traditional voice calls to cheaper internet-based services provided by software companies.
The toll this will take on families and those who will struggle to find other work wasn't lost on the Treasurer Jim Chalmers. But look again at the treasurer's first phrase: "I think this is very distressing for a lot of people."Cracks are appearing in the job marketA few redundancies here or there are not going to affect what economists call "aggregate demand" in the economy, but several mass sackings would.Australia's unemployment rate rises to 4.1 per cent in April, up from 3.9 per cent in March, after unemployment increased by 30,300 people.
She said it will now be harder for those workers to find another role than it would have been, say, late last year."Companies are continually growing and needing greater, higher level skills," she said.