The federal government's biggest department is backing down from a plan to hire more than 1000 casual workers while cutting more than 2400 of its permanent staff.
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The Community and Public Sector Union claimed victory on Wednesday in its fight for job security.
The plan by the Department of the Human Services, which provides Centrelink, Medicare and the Child Support Agency, was first reported last month by The Canberra Times.
The department was facing a $66 million loss this financial year, blamed on a burgeoning workload, natural disasters and a delayed redundancy program.
Secretary Kathryn Campbell told staff last month the budget allocated $30 million for a ''flexible workforce'', most of whom would be put to work to improve its customer services.
The department has been advertising for part-time, casual or permanent workers.
The union had said the department's management was trying to casualise some of its workforce while undermining the job security of all 36,000 employees.
The union had accused management of trying to keep the workforce changes from its staff.
On Wednesday the department stopped all advertising for casual staff and would offer all affected casuals ''non-ongoing'' contracts, the union said.
This was confirmed by a spokesman for the department.
Ross Peake