More big employers, including Qantas, are poised to shed workers across Australia, adding to the recent wave of cuts in banking and in the struggling manufacturing and retail sectors.
As ANZ Bank yesterday flagged plans to slash 1000 positions, it emerged that Qantas was expected to announce job cuts on Thursday when it issues its half-year earnings.
The announcement of bank job cuts - mostly in middle-management - comes with all four big banks having now raised home loan interest rates independently of the Reserve Bank, setting them on a collision course with the government, which is openly urging borrowers to seek better deals from smaller lenders.
The Commonwealth Bank and National Australia Bank yesterday became the last of the big four to shift on rates, despite last week's decision by the Reserve to keep rates steady rather than deliver mortgage holders a cut as the market had expected.
The Commonwealth yesterday raised its standard variable rate by 0.1 percentage point to 7.41 per cent. The NAB raised its it standard variable by 0.09 percentage points to 7.31 per cent.
The hikes followed rises announced on Friday by ANZ and Westpac.
Bendigo and Adelaide Banks have also raised their rates.
Assistant Treasurer Bill Shorten continued the government's attack on the banks, urging borrowers to look at smaller lenders for a better deal, citing Members Equity as one institution that was keeping rates on hold.
But he acknowledged banks were grappling with a rising cost of capital from overseas.
The Commonwealth's group executive retail banking services, Ross McEwan, said the bank had taken into account all of its funding costs, not just the official cash rate set by the Reserve.
''The Commonwealth Bank believes Australian banks should continue to price sensibly, taking into account factors both on and offshore, rather than experience similar problems to those that many banks overseas have experienced,'' he said, referring to the difficulties of some overstretched foreign banks.
''Whilst we understand that any increase in interest rates is not favourable to borrowers, our millions of deposit customers are favoured and since the commencement of the GFC we have seen significant competition in retail deposits pricing,'' he said.
NAB group executive personal banking, Lisa Gray, said the decision to lift rates was ''never taken lightly'' but stressed the bank's standard variable was still the lowest of the four big banks. She said the state of the European and British economies was having a ''serious impact'' on banks' funding.
Shadow Treasurer Joe Hockey said the avalanche of rates rises made a mockery of Treasurer Wayne Swan's call on Friday for borrowers to ''go down the road and get a better deal''.
''This is no use if 'down the road' does not have a better deal,'' Mr Hockey said. ''Australians deserve real competition in the banking sector.''
Meanwhile, ANZ Australian head Phil Chronican said the job cuts were in response to structural change sweeping the banking sector. These included the rising cost of funding loans, a sharp drop in demand for loans as well as increasing global regulation, which was driving up expenses.
''This is the environment we need to get ready for and it's likely to persist for a number of years,'' Mr Chronican said.
Analysts, including brokerage UBS, have forecast the big banks will scrap as many as 7000 jobs over the next two years.
Finance Sector Union national secretary Leon Carter said the ANZ job cuts were unjustified after the bank made a $5.3billion profit last financial year. He also warned that as many as 10,000 finance sector jobs could go in the next 18 months.
''This decision is nothing more than a short-term money grubbing exercise designed to keep their institutional investors happy at the expense of their customers, the community and their workers,'' Mr Carter said.
Hundreds more jobs are at risk in the retail sector after administrators were appointed yesterday to the national bedding and furniture chain, Sleep City.
The latest job losses come after moves by car makers Toyota and Holden to slash their Australian workforces, and as Alcoa considers offloading hundreds of workers at its Geelong aluminium smelter.
Amid speculation about more job cuts at Qantas, Mr Shorten warned the airline's managers to focus on the longer term and said ''if you cut too much you then lose skills that are never coming back''. A Qantas spokesman said it would not release any details ahead of its results but denied it would send jobs offshore.
Bureau of Statistics job figures to be issued on Thursday are expected to show a slight rise in unemployment to 5.3 per cent. Jobs growth has stalled and 2011 was the weakest year for the job market since the early 1990s recession.
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