The Industry Department will cut another 200 of its public servants in the next three months.
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The department's boss Glenys Beauchamp told staff gathered in Canberra on Monday that the job losses will come on top of a reduction of 200 public servants already undertaken.
The cuts will come as a part of wider raft of cost-cutting that will also see programs and spending on suppliers and consultants slashed.
The CPSU reacted with dismay to the news, saying it wanted urgent talks with the department's leaders to discuss the cuts.
The department's headcount is now thought to be just under 4000 after redundancies of hundreds of public servants in or out of Industry as part of the Abbott Government's "machinery of government" changes to the bureaucracy.
But Ms Beauchamp told her workers on Monday that deeper cuts were coming in the next three months.
"In the department we have reduced so far by 200 staff just in straight headcount," The Departmental Secretary told the staff.
"We will be reducing by another 200 by 30 June and we already have processes in place.
"We haven't gone out and done blanket VRs [voluntary redundancies] but we've looked at obviously some programs have closed down, people do want a change, we've looked at natural attrition, we've got the constraints around recruitment and I think we have managed that, and when I repeat those numbers, when I think about those numbers, that's an incredibly big task that we've achieved without dropping any balls."
Ms Beauchamp also foreshadowed the closure of programs run by Industry.
"We have, and when I came into the portfolio, about more than 110 programs and by the end of the forward estimates we will have a much slimmer range of programs as well," she told the gathering.
It is understood that the National Advisory for Tertiary Skills and Employment will be one of the high-profile casualties with workers on the program already told it is for the chop.
The CPSU reacted to the news of more job cuts at Industry with disappointment and said it was seeking urgent meetings with Ms Beauchamp and her senior executives.
Senior union official Beth Vincent-Pietsch said the government had a duty to insure the functions of the Industry Department continued to be carried out.
