Telstra-owned Yellow Pages company Sensis will cut 120 employees over the next three months, as it refocuses on digital growth.
The Community and Public Sector Union, which represents some of the employees affected, confirmed Sensis will eliminate the bulk of the jobs in Melbourne, although Sydney would be affected too, the CPSU said. Employees were being notified today.
Sensis’ external income dropped 17.6 per cent in the half year ending December 31 to $696 million, from the previous corresponding period, on declining revenues from its traditional print business. That compares against the 0.2 per cent increase in income for Telstra over the same period to $12.4 billion.
In its half-year results, Telstra said the Yellow Pages subsidiary’s faces weaker income “mainly due to the reduction in the revenue from traditional Yellow Pages print”.
Sensis will consider redeploying the laid-off employees elsewhere in the company, BusinessDay understands. Sensis now employs about 3800 staff.
“Sensis’ long-term growth strategy is evolving to align with the way Australian businesses are now promoting their products and services, and the way consumers are searching for local business information,” said General Manager Corporate Affairs manager Prue Deniz.
“As Sensis continues to evolve our strategic direction to meet these changing dynamics, fuelled by the explosion in digital marketing channels and devices, unfortunately there will be certain roles across the organisation that will no longer be required,” she said.
The directory company, as with much of the media sector, faces a consumer shift in preferences away from traditional print-based data such as phone books to online and mobile search technology.
Telstra had 39,800 full-time, contract and staff employees as of December, representing an 8.1 per cent decline over the half year to December 2009.
Telstra cut 950 jobs in 2010, as part of a company-wide staff reduction. Telstra also eliminated 80 call centre jobs in central Victoria’s Ballarat last month.
Chris Zappone February 15, 2011 – 2:49PM
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18 comments
why is the yellowpages still delivered unasked and in most cases, unwanted to every home and business? it is a monumental waste of natural resources – the paper it is printed on and the fuel for delivering it for a start. It’s time this dinosaur is consigned to history. If a person actually wants a printed copy, let them pick one up at a post office. Wasteful delivery can not be helping Telstra/Sensis’ “Green” credentials one bit. If people want to find a business they use the web. The smaller “Car Yellowpages” made me LOL, really??? Does sensis really think that anyone would put this in their car? Please stop the waste, stop delivering the yellowpages.
giant yellow waste of paper | the real world – February 15, 2011, 3:21PM
Good to see that Telstra is still a caring sharing safe job workplace as usual. What a bunch of I don’t give a stuff about my employee’s welfare people they are.
Peekay | Melbourne – February 15, 2011, 3:43PM
Is this the media’s way of putting icing on the cake? To mask the crap that underneath? How can refocus means job loss for those people? It should mean either the staff needs further training and more staff to move to that area of business focus. This is just another media hype to make it sound good when it just means the economy is slowly making its way downwards.
VoiceOfTheLocals | NSW – February 15, 2011, 3:42PM
The yellow pages are dying very quickly and will soon be as dead as a dodo given the ease of online searching.
The fact that Telstra could not see this comeing, and better prepare for it by building a better website, speaks volumes about the poor senior management at our biggest Telco. The purchase of The Trading Post in teh era of E-Bay is another such example of failing to see where the world is moving.
Brendo | Malvern – February 15, 2011, 3:38PM
Very glad to hear that the yellow pages is going digital.
We live in an apartment block that is reached by a long walk way and many stairs. Each year we groan when we see the huge stack of yellow pages phone books plonked at our apartment building front door (18 apartments).
Invariably no one wants them – and we have to throw them all out (over a month or so) – what a waste.
My husband thought he had caught the issue this year when he ran into the people delivering the books on the street. He requested that they do not deliver them to the apartment building. But they did anyway. So he carted them back up the pathway (which took about 5 trips) and placed them back in their truck. He is also just recovering from a heart attack – so didn’t need this problem.
The delivery people then took the whole stack of books back down to the apartment building.
Pathetic !
Martin | Sydney – February 15, 2011, 3:38PM
Will they now stop delivering the phone books that’s I’ve repeatedly requested not be delivered?
Matt | Sydney – February 15, 2011, 3:34PM
The yellow pages is a joke. The books are unwieldly and the website is useless. Everytime I’ve tried to search for something, and select my local area in the search options, I ususally get the top search results for shops in Sydney,…. not very useful when I live in Melbourne.
I just use Google by typing in the product I want and “melbourne”. Sensis have a lot of catching up to do.
Wyn | Outer East – February 15, 2011, 3:49PM
Yellow pages is carbon neutral i believe.. and you can turn off books or order more at http://www.directoryselect.com.au
know your facts | Australia – February 15, 2011, 3:49PM
Are they replacing all these staff with sock puppets?
JayneK | Sydney – February 15, 2011, 3:47PM
If you really want to stop delivery of the books, just go to this website.
https://www.directoryselect.com.au/ds/creator | Melbourne – February 15, 2011, 3:57PM
I’d like to jump in here and defend the delivery of the yellow pages. The yellow pages have been a great resource for me over the years, by raising my computer screen to eye level and eliminating neck strain.
PMAC | Melbounre – February 15, 2011, 3:58PM
The best way to prevent Yellow/White pages from being delivered is to register on the following website run by Sensis
http://www.directoryselect.com.au
brightwolf – February 15, 2011, 3:59PM
She says ‘As Sensis continues to evolve our strategic direction to meet these changing dynamics, fuelled by the explosion in digital marketing channels and devices’ when in actual fact they were simply holding onto the lucrative revenue stream of print for as long as they could. Their online business hasn’t really evolved much over the last 5 years except for a copycat Groupon style addition that doesn’t seem to be gaining as much traction as it’s competitors.
It’s a shame that such a strong brand is falling by the wayside due to status quo greed that as the previous commenter put, is an absurd drain on natural resources.
Richard | World Wide Web – February 15, 2011, 4:03PM
I refuse to use yellow pages online. Its the “clunkiest”online directory ever. A bit like their phone book…. Useless
steve@ | CBD – February 15, 2011, 4:15PM
But then who’s going to look after the socks?
betty butcher | newtown – February 15, 2011, 4:26PM
Yeah, right up there for compassion people. 120 folk are out of jobs in a tough market and all you can do is whine about having a directory delivered
BB – February 15, 2011, 4:38PM
Doubt that the decision maker has completed a finance course.
Sacking 120 people means what? Let me tell you Mr. Bruce Akhurst.
Assume the employee being sacked has average $50,000 in year salary,
Assume associated annual overhead saving $50,000 per employee. (very large allowance)
That give you total cost cut in half year 0.5x(50,000+50,000)x120=$6,000,000
Wow… 6 million dollars lots of money has been saved!!!
Wait a minute!
“Sensis’ external income dropped 17.6 per cent in the half year ending December 31 to $696 million …”
In fact, 6 millions is nothing – not even weight 1% the profit.
In my assumption, the cost of training these 120 people has not yet been taken into account.Conclusion:
Slumped profit is not caused by these 120 fully trained employees at all.
Sacking 120 people are just an excuse that the upper management used for the Slumped profit. Pathetic!Ousider | Melbourne – February 15, 2011, 4:49PM
Can anyone from sensis comment on this story?
As far as I know, Most of the employees are paid extremely well (over 80k p.a) for minimal work.
Since when was it wrong for an advertising company to sack workers? I prefer to see all advertising / marketing companies go broke and out of business, It is the most useless industry that does nothing for societal advancement.coooo poop | Trafalgar – February 15, 2011, 4:59PM
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theage.com.au/business/sensis-to-cut-120-staff-20110215-1auok.html
Comments
18 comments
why is the yellowpages still delivered unasked and in most cases, unwanted to every home and business? it is a monumental waste of natural resources – the paper it is printed on and the fuel for delivering it for a start. It’s time this dinosaur is consigned to history. If a person actually wants a printed copy, let them pick one up at a post office. Wasteful delivery can not be helping Telstra/Sensis’ “Green” credentials one bit. If people want to find a business they use the web. The smaller “Car Yellowpages” made me LOL, really??? Does sensis really think that anyone would put this in their car? Please stop the waste, stop delivering the yellowpages.
giant yellow waste of paper | the real world – February 15, 2011, 3:21PM
Good to see that Telstra is still a caring sharing safe job workplace as usual. What a bunch of I don’t give a stuff about my employee’s welfare people they are.
Peekay | Melbourne – February 15, 2011, 3:43PM
Is this the media’s way of putting icing on the cake? To mask the crap that underneath? How can refocus means job loss for those people? It should mean either the staff needs further training and more staff to move to that area of business focus. This is just another media hype to make it sound good when it just means the economy is slowly making its way downwards.
VoiceOfTheLocals | NSW – February 15, 2011, 3:42PM
The yellow pages are dying very quickly and will soon be as dead as a dodo given the ease of online searching.
The fact that Telstra could not see this comeing, and better prepare for it by building a better website, speaks volumes about the poor senior management at our biggest Telco. The purchase of The Trading Post in teh era of E-Bay is another such example of failing to see where the world is moving.
Brendo | Malvern – February 15, 2011, 3:38PM
Very glad to hear that the yellow pages is going digital.
We live in an apartment block that is reached by a long walk way and many stairs. Each year we groan when we see the huge stack of yellow pages phone books plonked at our apartment building front door (18 apartments).
Invariably no one wants them – and we have to throw them all out (over a month or so) – what a waste.
My husband thought he had caught the issue this year when he ran into the people delivering the books on the street. He requested that they do not deliver them to the apartment building. But they did anyway. So he carted them back up the pathway (which took about 5 trips) and placed them back in their truck. He is also just recovering from a heart attack – so didn’t need this problem.
The delivery people then took the whole stack of books back down to the apartment building.
Pathetic !
Martin | Sydney – February 15, 2011, 3:38PM
Will they now stop delivering the phone books that’s I’ve repeatedly requested not be delivered?
Matt | Sydney – February 15, 2011, 3:34PM
The yellow pages is a joke. The books are unwieldly and the website is useless. Everytime I’ve tried to search for something, and select my local area in the search options, I ususally get the top search results for shops in Sydney,…. not very useful when I live in Melbourne.
I just use Google by typing in the product I want and “melbourne”. Sensis have a lot of catching up to do.
Wyn | Outer East – February 15, 2011, 3:49PM
Yellow pages is carbon neutral i believe.. and you can turn off books or order more at http://www.directoryselect.com.au
know your facts | Australia – February 15, 2011, 3:49PM
Are they replacing all these staff with sock puppets?
JayneK | Sydney – February 15, 2011, 3:47PM
If you really want to stop delivery of the books, just go to this website.
https://www.directoryselect.com.au/ds/creator | Melbourne – February 15, 2011, 3:57PM
I’d like to jump in here and defend the delivery of the yellow pages. The yellow pages have been a great resource for me over the years, by raising my computer screen to eye level and eliminating neck strain.
PMAC | Melbounre – February 15, 2011, 3:58PM
The best way to prevent Yellow/White pages from being delivered is to register on the following website run by Sensis
http://www.directoryselect.com.au
brightwolf – February 15, 2011, 3:59PM
She says ‘As Sensis continues to evolve our strategic direction to meet these changing dynamics, fuelled by the explosion in digital marketing channels and devices’ when in actual fact they were simply holding onto the lucrative revenue stream of print for as long as they could. Their online business hasn’t really evolved much over the last 5 years except for a copycat Groupon style addition that doesn’t seem to be gaining as much traction as it’s competitors.
It’s a shame that such a strong brand is falling by the wayside due to status quo greed that as the previous commenter put, is an absurd drain on natural resources.
Richard | World Wide Web – February 15, 2011, 4:03PM
I refuse to use yellow pages online. Its the “clunkiest”online directory ever. A bit like their phone book…. Useless
steve@ | CBD – February 15, 2011, 4:15PM
But then who’s going to look after the socks?
betty butcher | newtown – February 15, 2011, 4:26PM
Yeah, right up there for compassion people. 120 folk are out of jobs in a tough market and all you can do is whine about having a directory delivered
BB – February 15, 2011, 4:38PM
Doubt that the decision maker has completed a finance course.
Sacking 120 people means what? Let me tell you Mr. Bruce Akhurst.
Assume the employee being sacked has average $50,000 in year salary,
Assume associated annual overhead saving $50,000 per employee. (very large allowance)
That give you total cost cut in half year 0.5x(50,000+50,000)x120=$6,000,000
Wow… 6 million dollars lots of money has been saved!!!
Wait a minute!
“Sensis’ external income dropped 17.6 per cent in the half year ending December 31 to $696 million …”
In fact, 6 millions is nothing – not even weight 1% the profit.
In my assumption, the cost of training these 120 people has not yet been taken into account.Conclusion:
Slumped profit is not caused by these 120 fully trained employees at all.
Sacking 120 people are just an excuse that the upper management used for the Slumped profit. Pathetic!Ousider | Melbourne – February 15, 2011, 4:49PM
Can anyone from sensis comment on this story?
As far as I know, Most of the employees are paid extremely well (over 80k p.a) for minimal work.
Since when was it wrong for an advertising company to sack workers? I prefer to see all advertising / marketing companies go broke and out of business, It is the most useless industry that does nothing for societal advancement.coooo poop | Trafalgar – February 15, 2011, 4:59PM
Comments are now closed
“As far as I know, Most of the employees are paid extremely well (over 80k p.a) for minimal work.”
As an ex-Sensis employee who was one of many made recently redundant by upper and middle management, I can confirm that a Sensis sales employee can earn in excess of 100K+, including super, phone, laptop and a car; with the potential of increasing this income with a large bonus and going on amazing overseas trips for them and their partners.
However, the sacrifice made to earn this is approximately 90-100 hour weeks (increased from the introduction of the new Gen system), visiting clients late at night and up to 17 weeks away from home in country regions.
Yes, we used to earn great money, but my family and friends did not know who I was…work life balance… a term loosely thrown around in the office each Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, Saturday, Sunday…
I’ve heard there’s going to be more redundancies before mid-year. Can anyone confirm this?