QBE Australia has announced that 100 Australian IT staff will be “redeployed” while their jobs are moved to the insurer’s operations in India.

The Finance Sector Union (FSU) says the affected workers are from NSW, Victoria and WA, and are “the latest casualties in QBE’s war on Australian workers… as part of the insurer’s aggressive offshoring agenda”.

A QBE Australia spokesman confirmed the number to insuranceNEWS.com.au, saying the company has “advised the FSU that we will have 100 people going into redeployment”.

“We are very focused on minimising the impact on our Australian-based employees and intend to manage the transition primarily through a combination of natural staff turnover and staff redeployment,” she said.

It is understood the roles affected include systems analysts, systems administrators, support staff and developers, and represent almost one-third of QBE Australia’s IT workforce. However, QBE could not confirm these details.

The offshoring is part of QBE Group’s global operational transformation program announced in February, which is expected to cut $US250 million in costs by 2015 and will see roles moved from across Australia, Europe and the US to Asia.