Officeworks has confirmed it's offshoring hundreds of Australian roles to India and the Philippines, joining a growing line of ASX heavyweights shipping white collar work overseas while Labor markets a "Future Made in Australia."

Dozens of Western Sydney customer service staff have already been told their jobs are being moved to a call centre in Manila. Office and technology roles in Sydney and Melbourne are being shifted to a new "global capability centre" in Bengaluru, India. Geeks2U, the Officeworks owned tech support business, is also going offshore. Internal plans seen by ABC News indicate the changes will roll out in three phases.

An Officeworks spokesperson cited "rising costs, increasing competition, and rapidly changing customer expectations" as the drivers, saying the changes would let the company keep offering low prices. Staff were also told the retailer would lean further on AI, automation and data to "improve decision making and efficiency."

The transformation is being overseen by Officeworks managing director John Gualtieri, who previously ran Kmart and Target. Both chains already have staff working out of the same Bengaluru global capability centre.

Officeworks pulls in more than $3.5 billion in annual revenue and is owned by Wesfarmers, the Perth based conglomerate that also owns Bunnings, Kmart, Target and the Priceline pharmacy network.

This isn't a company in trouble. Wesfarmers' half year results, released on 19 February, showed group revenue up 3.1 per cent to $24.2 billion, net profit after tax up 9.3 per cent to $1.6 billion, and a fully franked interim dividend up 7.4 per cent to $1.02 a share. Officeworks itself reported revenue up 4.7 per cent to $1.842 billion. Officeworks earnings before tax dropped 21.8 per cent to $68 million, which the company attributed to costs from its "transformation program," including a $15 million one off hit.

In plain English, the cost of laying off Australians and standing up the Indian operation is a one time charge on the way to a permanently cheaper labour base. The savings flow to shareholders, not customers, regardless of the "low prices" framing.

Officeworks isn't first in the line.

ANZ announced 3,500 job cuts plus 1,000 contractor cuts on 9 September 2025. NAB followed the next day with 410 Australian technology and operations cuts and 127 new roles in India and Vietnam. Telstra confirmed up to 650 cuts in February 2026, with 442 enterprise roles to be outsourced to Infosys in India and 209 cut from its AI joint venture with Accenture. KPMG has moved around 200 Australian executive assistant roles to the Philippines. Westpac is reportedly preparing its largest redundancy round in a decade. Commonwealth Bank wrapped hundreds of job losses in a $90 million "AI workforce transition."

Officeworks now sits on that list.

The Albanese Government has spent two terms selling a "Future Made in Australia" plan, a $15 billion National Reconstruction Fund and, since January 2026, a $20 million "Made Right Here" ad campaign run by Industry Minister Tim Ayres asking Australians to buy local at the checkout.

The policy settings push in the opposite direction. Closing Loopholes industrial relations reforms, the OECD's Pillar Two multinational tax reporting regime, and an additional $700 million in ATO funding in the May 2026 Budget have all lifted the cost of keeping a worker in Australia. Wesfarmers' own half year report cited "higher operating expenses" and "domestic cost inflation" as a key driver of the Officeworks transformation.

In December 2025, the Government's National AI Plan formally shelved earlier proposals for mandatory guardrails on high risk AI systems, opting instead to rely on existing laws and a new $29.9 million AI Safety Institute. Worker consultation is encouraged. Nothing in the plan is enforceable on a company deciding to offshore or automate.

Wesfarmers chairman Michael Chaney, who retires at the company's October 2026 AGM, is the father of Independent MP Kate Chaney, who holds the Western Australian seat of Curtin and previously worked at Wesfarmers in sustainability and reconciliation roles before entering parliament in 2022. She has no role in Wesfarmers operations and has previously said she does not speak for the family.

If a company with rising sales and a lifted dividend can ship hundreds of jobs to Manila and Bengaluru without political consequence, every other ASX 200 board can do the maths. Officeworks isn't likely to be the last.

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