While it could meet its goal to reduce its staff numbers to 320 by 2019-2020 through natural attrition of departing employees, it has admitted it could turn to voluntary redundancies to reach the target.

Director-general David Fricker said the national institution - which houses government records and promotes good records management by Australian Public Service agencies - was facing budget cuts through a series of efficiency dividends and savings measures.

"I want to strongly emphasise that this downsizing is not due to any view that the Archives is underperforming," he said.

"Indeed, the feedback I continue to receive from government and public stakeholders is that we provide an excellent service and have a high level of professionalism.

"As I have often said, it is only because our budget is being reduced that we must look constantly across the services we provide and ask how we can do 'less with less'.

"And as we shed some functions, we must re-commit ourselves to ensuring that the services that we do continue to deliver are performed in line with budget constraints while maintaining the high standards of professionalism and creativity that Australians expect from their National Archives."

The move to find cuts to its average staffing level coincided with the need to create new roles within the organisation to develop its digital capabilities, Mr Fricker said.

"The Archives continues to review its budget position in an effort to minimise the scale of the ASL reductions."

The National Archives had kept staff abreast of its budget pressures, and had supported them by assisting in redeployment as well as training to help them move into new roles.

"Priority is being given to reassigning existing ongoing staff when internal vacancies arise," Mr Fricker said.

The Archives' cuts will come as another Canberra employer, the Australian Bureau of Statistics, will axe 100 more jobs in a move that will shed nearly 50 jobs in the national capital in yet another round of redundancies at the agency.