Westpac has put more than 250 roles on the redundancy list since early October, and it says AI has nothing to do with it. The Finance Sector Union (FSU) says the bank is cutting in pieces, with no single announcement to point at. On October 22 the union put the running total at 253.
Source caveat: we could not open a Westpac filing or release. The figures below come from the FSU’s October 22 statement, HRD Australia’s October 12 report, Retail Banker International and People Matters. Where they differ, we say so.
Two rounds, one fortnight
The first round was reported on October 12. HRD Australia put 174 roles in scope: 102 redundancies and 72 people moved to comparable jobs, across risk, institutional banking and finance. The second landed the following week. People Matters reports about 140 more redundancies without naming divisions, and the FSU describes more than 200 announced on a Tuesday “across numerous areas of the bank.”
The totals do not reconcile cleanly. The FSU headline says 253, its body says “over 250” and “over 200,” and the press reports 102 plus roughly 140. We use “more than 250” and treat 253 as the union’s count, not a Westpac figure. The bank has not published a total.
What Westpac says, and what it doesn’t
Westpac’s explanation is consistent across both rounds. The shape of the workforce follows the Group’s investment priorities, and the bank is adding bankers, digital delivery and customer-facing roles. A spokesperson told reporters AI did not drive these redundancies and said that as customer habits and required skills change, the workforce will change too.
The union points at Catalyst, Westpac’s internal program to simplify operations and cut cost. It says staff were assured Catalyst was not a job-cutting exercise, and that the 102 cuts broke that assurance. Westpac has not named the program in its statements.
So this is a Lane we run on purpose: a large employer, a hard number, and a company that states AI is not the reason. We do not write AI into a cut the source does not attribute to AI.
Against the other banks
NAB told the ASX on October 20 it will cut up to 2,500 roles, about 6% of staff, also without naming AI. Westpac’s 250 is a tenth of that, delivered with no headline and no charge disclosed. Deloitte Australia’s 170 cuts came with 500 hires attached. Westpac has more than 30,000 staff in Australia and says it hired over 5,000 there in FY25, so the cuts and the hiring run in the same year.
The FSU estimates more than 10,000 banking roles have gone in Australia over two years. That is a union estimate, not an audited count. It also noted that Westpac cut 134 retail jobs in October 2025, which makes this a second consecutive October.
The career read
The named areas are risk, institutional banking and finance, which are middle and back office functions, not branches. That matches NAB’s list of strategy, project management, compliance and risk. When two of the big four banks shed the same layer in the same week, the layer is the story, whatever the stated reason.
Three things to watch. Whether Westpac’s full-year disclosures or a regulator filing give a total and a cost, since neither exists yet. Whether the language shifts from investment priorities to technology. And whether the FSU’s push for AI oversight, which it took to a parliamentary select committee on October 22, produces any disclosure requirement. Until then, a Westpac role in these functions is exposed to cost programs, with AI an unproven but visible next step. Readers should not file this one under AI displacement.
Sources
- Finance Sector Union: Westpac joins NAB in sacking season by stealthily axing 253 jobs (Oct 22)
- HRD Australia: Westpac to cut over 100 jobs in Catalyst restructure (Oct 12)
- People Matters: Westpac cuts 140 jobs but insists AI is not behind the layoffs
- Retail Banker International: Westpac cuts over 250 roles
