The Federal Government has announced the employment of an additional 1,500 staff at Centrelink to improve customer service.
The new staff join 1,000 positions that were announced in April to help the Department of Human Services deal with surges in demand and to ensure service standards continue to meet community expectations.
Last year 250 additional call centre operators started their role through a pilot program with Serco.
Those staff have already answered more than two-million calls and have helped reduce busy signals on Centrelink phone lines by almost 20 per cent.
The Department of Human Services recently signed contracts with four service delivery partners to provide the additional 1,000 staff to improve call wait times and enhance service delivery.
Under the new contracts, Serco will engage additional staff at their Victorian call centres and Stellar Asia Pacific, Concentrix Services and DataCom Connect will create jobs based in Perth, Brisbane and Adelaide.
Centrelink answers around one-million calls a week.