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NAB to slash 2500 jobs, thousands of roles to go by Christmas
The National Australia Bank (NAB) has announced it will slash 2,500 jobs and cut back on consultants and external contractors in a major restructure.
- National Australia Bank (NAB) has announced a large restructure that will see it slash 2,500 internal jobs this year.
- The bank said the move was to simplify its operating model.
- A total of 1,500 jobs will go before the end of 2026, with the rest to follow before the end of FY27.
The National Australia Bank (NAB) has announced it will slash 2,500 jobs and cut back on consultants and external contractors in a major restructure.
Announcing the move to shareholders this morning, NAB said it was simplifying its operating model to “better align its workforce”.
Of the 2,500 jobs, 1,500 will be gone before the end of 2026. The remaining roles are expected to be cut by the end of FY27.
As of June 2026, NAB operated 413 Australian branches, compared with 633 for CBA, 475 for Westpac and 284 for ANZ, excluding Suncorp branches, Canstar research shows.
NAB employed 41,880 people globally, according to its last financial results. Today’s layoffs represent about 6 per cent of its workforce.
NAB CEO Andrew Irvine said there will be no “material impact to customer-facing banking roles.”
“This will simplify work between teams and improve cross-functional processes with clearer roles, priorities and accountabilities for our colleagues,” he said.
“We know this will be a difficult period for our colleagues impacted by these changes as well as the people around them,” he added.
“We will treat every person with dignity and respect.”
Irvine said most of the cuts will come from the bank’s back office, with the intention of removing departments that duplicated work.
“Our ambition and strategy remain unchanged. We will improve productivity, risk outcomes and execution to be a simpler and more efficient bank,” he said.
“These changes are expected to improve outcomes for customers by reducing duplication and speeding up decision-making.
“We have also deliberately made deeper changes to senior management positions which will broaden leadership responsibilities across the bank.”
The bank flags it was expecting the job cuts to cost $300 million in FY27, mostly from costs associated with redundancy packages.
NAB has traditionally been Australia’s biggest business lender, with a particular focus on small and medium-sized enterprises, commercial property and agricultural businesses.
An ACCC assessment in 2023 found that business loans represented 42 per cent of NAB’s combined retail and business lending portfolio, compared with 34 per cent for ANZ, 28 per cent for Westpac and 26 per cent for CBA.
In the first 30 minutes of trade, NAB shares erased Monday’s gains, dropping 1.7 per cent to $39.14 as investors reacted to the news of the layoffs.
Nicole McPherson, National Assistant Secretary of the Financial Services Union (FSU), said the union was “appalled” by the layoffs.
“To take a wrecking ball to 6 per cent of one of Australia’s largest workforces this close to Christmas is disgraceful and shows that NAB’s leadership is completely detached from the lived experience of their workers,” McPherson told The Money Edition.
“NAB’s public statement today is full of nothing but corporate spin and confirms the bank is in denial about the significant impact these cuts will have on a workforce already overwhelmed by unmanageable workloads.
“Cutting 6 per cent of a workforce will not ‘simplify’ NAB’s operating model or ‘better align its workforce to prioritise growth’. It will wreak chaos and entrench a culture of anxiety at a bank that seems hell-bent on self-destruction.”
NAB layoffs latest in ‘big four’ staff purge
NAB’s mass layoffs today are the latest in a string of redundancies as Australia’s ‘big four’ banks grapple with the rise of digital banking, wage costs and technological change.
In late March this year, NAB announced it was cutting 447 jobs, including 227 Australian staff. Of those roles, 237 jobs would be relocated to India and Vietnam.
A year ago, ANZ announced it would cut 3500 jobs, citing the same rationale as NAB that it was simplifying its business model.
The Commonwealth Bank of Australia has laid off approximately 1,000 roles in 2026, while Westpac has also announced several redundancy rounds, resulting in the loss of hundreds of jobs.