Telstra to move 3,000 jobs overseas

Telstra Corp, Australia’s largest phone company, will shift as many as 3,000 jobs overseas in the next few years as it seeks to cut costs, the main Opposition Labor Party said. ‘‘Telstra’s new strategic approach to cost cutting will effectively wipe out all the company’s major IT jobs in Australia,’’ Labor’s Communications spokesman said. Telstra rejected an Australian financial review report that the Melbourne-based company was planning to move several hundred payroll, accounting and purchasing jobs to India. ‘‘There is no proposal to change current arrangements,’’ Telstra said in a statement.

Chief executive Ziggy Switkowski is seeking to cut Telstra’s costs by as much as 800 million Austalian dollar ($632 million) within two years to maintain profit as the former government monopoly loses market share to Singapore Telecommunications Ltd’s Optus unit and Telecom Corp of New Zealand’s Aapt Ltd. Telstra said it has previously outsourced technology services to a number of companies, including Indian company Satyam Computer Services, based in Hyderabad. Its Net profit doubled to 2.3 billion Australian dollar a year ago, when Telstra wrote off its investment in Reach Ltd, a Hong Kong Undersea Cable venture with PCCW Ltd.