Uploaded May 2026 | Updated September 2026, 2 weeks ago
In today’s episode of Friday Focus: Offshoring Australian Jobs to India.
Officeworks is Australia’s leading office supply brand, fully owned by the massive retail conglomerate Wesfarmers. But a breaking ABC News article has laid their latest corporate strategy bare. The headline says it all: “Officeworks to offshore hundreds of Sydney and Melbourne jobs to India and Philippines.”
Of course, corporate PR wants you to believe this move has absolutely nothing to do with saving a dollar, and everything to do with a local “vacuum of talent.” To prove this, the national broadcaster interviewed an international business professor, Vikas Kumar, from the University of Sydney, who claimed the move simply reflects a lack of skills in Australia.
How strange. It seems our massive, historic immigration program has done remarkably little to bring in the actual skills our country supposedly needs.
The article notes that Officeworks India has already begun hiring for about fifty sales, technology, and analyst roles based in Bengaluru. But don’t worry, a federal government spokesman swooped in to reassure us, stating: “Our government will always back Australian jobs and put the interests of Australian workers first.”
Good to know.
But if we are supposed to buy the narrative that Australia simply lacks the necessary talent, why does the very first line of the report read: “Dozens of workers at the company’s Western Sydney customer service centre have been made redundant,” noting that they “would be replaced with a call service based in the Philippines”?
Oh, I see. Those local customer service workers lacked the “skills” to answer a telephone, which obviously requires a level of niche, highly technical ability that can only be found in Manila.
Let’s be real. This isn’t a talent crisis; it’s a cost-saving measure. Workers in India and the Philippines are simply prepared to do the exact same work for a fraction of the cost.
And they are far from alone. Look at this recent ABC headline: “Telstra to axe up to 650 roles in mass redundancy round, some jobs to be outsourced to India,” or this one from The West Australian: “BHP’s new Indian AI hub ignites offshoring fears,” or this one from the Australian Financial Review: “NAB plans to hire up to 1000 more staff in India and Vietnam.” Because, naturally, what better way to improve the security of a major Australian bank than by having a massive chunk of its workforce operating completely outside of Australia?
Forget using skilled immigration to build up our own domestic capabilities; that project has clearly failed. It is apparently far better, and infinitely cheaper, to just move the operations of Australia’s biggest companies entirely overseas to keep executive bonuses on track.
And that was this week’s Friday Focus.
MUSIC
Allégro by Emmit Fenn
In today’s episode of Friday Focus: Offshoring Australian Jobs to India.
Officeworks is Australia’s leading office supply brand, fully owned by the massive retail conglomerate Wesfarmers. But a breaking ABC News article has laid their latest corporate strategy bare. The headline says it all: “Officeworks to offshore hundreds of Sydney and Melbourne jobs to India and Philippines.”
Of course, corporate PR wants you to believe this move has absolutely nothing to do with saving a dollar, and everything to do with a local “vacuum of talent.” To prove this, the national broadcaster interviewed an international business professor, Vikas Kumar, from the University of Sydney, who claimed the move simply reflects a lack of skills in Australia.
How strange. It seems our massive, historic immigration program has done remarkably little to bring in the actual skills our country supposedly needs.
The article notes that Officeworks India has already begun hiring for about fifty sales, technology, and analyst roles based in Bengaluru. But don’t worry, a federal government spokesman swooped in to reassure us, stating: “Our government will always back Australian jobs and put the interests of Australian workers first.”
Good to know.
But if we are supposed to buy the narrative that Australia simply lacks the necessary talent, why does the very first line of the report read: “Dozens of workers at the company’s Western Sydney customer service centre have been made redundant,” noting that they “would be replaced with a call service based in the Philippines”?
Oh, I see. Those local customer service workers lacked the “skills” to answer a telephone, which obviously requires a level of niche, highly technical ability that can only be found in Manila.
Let’s be real. This isn’t a talent crisis; it’s a cost-saving measure. Workers in India and the Philippines are simply prepared to do the exact same work for a fraction of the cost.
And they are far from alone. Look at this recent ABC headline: “Telstra to axe up to 650 roles in mass redundancy round, some jobs to be outsourced to India,” or this one from The West Australian: “BHP’s new Indian AI hub ignites offshoring fears,” or this one from the Australian Financial Review: “NAB plans to hire up to 1000 more staff in India and Vietnam.” Because, naturally, what better way to improve the security of a major Australian bank than by having a massive chunk of its workforce operating completely outside of Australia?
Forget using skilled immigration to build up our own domestic capabilities; that project has clearly failed. It is apparently far better, and infinitely cheaper, to just move the operations of Australia’s biggest companies entirely overseas to keep executive bonuses on track.
And that was this week’s Friday Focus.
MUSIC
Allégro by Emmit Fenn
