David Thodey, the head of Telstra has asserted that the company's focus towards Asia should not be seen as a move to shift jobs out of Australia to cheaper locations.

Mr Thodey said that the number of employees in the company had fallen from 100,000 to about 40,000 when it was privatized in 1997. However, the number has been stable in the past 12 months. The company faced ire in the country after it announced that 651 call centre jobs will be cut in rural Australia and some service delivery testing services will be shifted to the Philippines.

Mr Thodey said that it is not correct to think that the company's increasing focus would mean more jobs moving from Australia to Asian locations. He said that that it is wrong to only hink about job uts as the company also creates new job opportunities.

"That is exactly the wrong interpretation. Just like any Australian company looking at opportunities in the future, we have got to go where Australia is going, which is to look at new market opportunities. To portray it as just moving jobs from Australia to Asia, that is not what we are talking about," Mr Thodey said.