Telstra poster
A man and power lines are reflected in a Telstra poster adorning a public telephone in Sydney, Australia, August 13, 2015. Australian telecoms giant Telstra Corp Ltd on Thursday posted a 1 percent slide in full-year net profit, in line with expectations, and forecast modest earnings growth in the current year. Reuters/David Gray

Telstra has blamed falling profits while slashing more than 400 jobs from Australian call centres. The telecommunications company earlier announced that it would spend US$1 billion (AU$1.4 billion) for a joint venture project in the Philippines.

The announcement of slashing jobs in Australia comes after Chief Executive Andy Penn told investors in Sydney on Thursday that the company was going to own a 40 percent share in a South-East Asian company worth US$2.5 billion (AU$3.5 billion).

Later at night, Telstra said it would slash 411 jobs in Australia, with 273 full time Telstra workers and 276 agency staff. The company slashes the jobs despite being on track to collect more than AU$27 billion revenue in the financial year 2016.

"However we are creating 138 new roles and 11 roles will transition from Ballarat to Melbourne," Fairfax Media quoted a Telstra spokesman as saying. "This would result in a net loss of 135 Telstra roles.”

The spokesman said the company did not take the decision lightly. "We don't take these decisions lightly and our focus at the moment is working through the proposed changes with our staff, including hearing their feedback on the proposals," he said.

More than 100 jobs will be slashed in Perth, 25 contractors and 80 employees, under the proposal. Telstra area general manager Guy Champion said the company was, nevertheless, committed to the city.

"Our teams in Perth would continue to perform a wide variety of work, including customer service, network design and deployment and field services," the ABC quoted Champion as saying.

The city that will suffer the most is Townsville with 178 contractors scexpected to lose their jobs. However, the company has said it will directly re-employ around 50 people in north Queensland.

According to Champion, the offer may not be applicable for all employees in Perth. However, some of them may be relocated to Townsville.

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