One would think after the disaster with the Telstra offshore contact centres, that greedy corporates would have learned. Cheap labour in the India and Philippines by people who struggle with English.
Officeworks staff hit by the company’s plan to offshore some white-collar jobs say it is an attempt to cut labour costs.
Employees of Officeworks say the company’s plans to shift hundreds of white-collar jobs to India and the Philippines are an attempt to cut labour costs at the expense of local customer service.
The ABC has revealed the Australian office products retailer will replace its Sydney-based customer service centre staff with a call centre in the Philippines and plans to base hundreds of other staff in India in coming months.
The company said it wanted a “globally connected team” and to keep costs low for customers, but disgruntled staff have told the ABC they believe they are being replaced with cheaper labour.
One current employee, who asked not to be identified to speak freely, said staff with 20 years’ tenure at the business were told about plans for redundancies in an online meeting.
“There was no send-off celebration funded by the business, only a digital card which got emailed around for people to send messages to,” the employee said.
“I 100 per cent believe the move is about the lower cost of labour overseas compared with Australia.”
Internal communications sent to staff said the new offices in Manila and Bengaluru would operate as “fully integrated extensions” of the Australian business as it increased reliance on AI.
The company declined to respond to further questions about staff concerns.
In response to the ABC’s initial story, Officeworks managing director John Gualtieri emailed all staff, saying the company valued “doing the right thing” and wanted to be as transparent as possible with employees.
Many companies, including Australian firms, have begun to open hubs called “global capability centres” in the Indian city of Bengaluru, which has a concentration of workers with skills in artificial intelligence and technology.
A website for Officeworks’s “global capability centre” is advertising about 50 jobs in technology and digital transformation, some of which require up to 15 years’ experience.
The ABC has also been contacted by an employee of the Officeworks-owned brand Geeks2U, whose local staff have been going through a redundancy process.
The person said Geeks2U staff saw their jobs advertised in the Philippine capital Manila before staff consultation was complete.
“It’s been so disappointing to be treated this way by a company I thought of as reputable,” the worker said.
University of Sydney retail expert Lisa Asher said Officeworks’s parent company, Wesfarmers, was putting shareholders above Australian workers in a decision that could hurt its bottom line in other ways.
“It is a short-term solution to a profitability issue that’s going to have long-term implications on employment options for people in Australia,” she said.
“If people don’t have jobs, they can’t go shopping.”
Wesfarmers’s last financial report showed the company was in a strong financial position, with revenue up 3.6 per cent to $23.5 billion in the half year to December 2025.