Telstra Corporation has listed 651 jobs on its axing sight, which the giant telco said on Tuesday was part of underway efforts to streamline its customer service operations across the nation.

The planned job separations were Telstra's response to what it termed as the "changing environment ... in a competitive market."

According to Business Day, 442 full-time Telstra employees will be given the boot soon and another 229 workers managed by employment agencies will not be renewed.

A statement issued today by the company called the move as unfortunate but necessary.

"These are hard decisions and our focus at the moment is working through the changes with our staff," the Telstra statement was reported by The Herald Sun as saying today.

Telstra's Melbourne customer service operations will let go of 235 staffs while in Sydney the company is set to send termination notice to 174 employees.

Call centres maintained by the telco in Lismore, New South Wales and Townsville, Queensland will lose 116 and 126 customer service operators respectively.

The move was prompted by emerging trend in customer service, in which call volumes for customer inquiries and other related concerns have shrunk by about 20 per cent over the past 12 months.

Parallel to that, Telstra disclosed that 30 per cent of its existing customers now mostly rely on online transactions to pay their bills and more.

"As a result, we believe we need fewer contact centres in the future," Telstra said, adding that the current customer care services trend is expected to be sustained in the future.

The jobs, Telstra clarified will not be abolished but will be shifted to other Telstra and Foxtel call centre facilities existing in Perth and Townsville.

"Some of this work will also be undertaken by existing partner contact centres offshore," Telstra hinted too, and according to Business Day it is likely that some of the jobs will be farmed out to the Philippines, a leading location for the business process operation needs of many global companies.

"Telstra relies on a mix of partners locally and globally to benefit from their expertise in particular tasks and their capacity to manage fluctuating workloads using world-class technology and solutions," the company said.

However, the Fairfax publication also reported that Telstra has opted for now to keep the customer service needs of its business clients to Australian-based call centres.