Officeworks moves hundreds of tech jobs to India and Philippines
SYDNEY, AUSTRALIA — Officeworks, Australia’s largest office supplies retailer and a Wesfarmers subsidiary with more than 9,000 Australian employees, is shifting hundreds of support office, technology, and analyst roles to Manila and Bengaluru as part of what it describes as a “significant business transformation program.”
According to a report from Australian Computer Society, the transition unfolds in multiple phases, with Western Sydney customer service redundancies already underway and office-based roles in Sydney and Melbourne to follow.
First phase cuts Western Sydney customer service center
The Western Sydney customer service centre has been the first to move, with dozens of positions made redundant as operations transition to an established Manila-based provider.
The company has simultaneously established approximately 50 new roles in Bengaluru covering sales, technology, and analyst functions.
The transition maintains an Australian footprint — store network roles are unaffected and Geeks2U’s 120+ Australian workforce continues without change — but office-based roles in Sydney and Melbourne face further reductions as subsequent phases proceed.
“These changes affect a portion of our support office workforce. The majority of our team, including everyone in our store network, will continue to be based in Australia,” an Officeworks spokesperson said.
AI pivot and low-cost repositioning drive offshore expansion
Wesfarmers — Officeworks’ parent company — announced AI partnerships with Microsoft and Google earlier in 2026 to accelerate technology adoption across its portfolio of retail businesses.
Officeworks cited increased AI and automation use, improved data-driven decision-making, and operational efficiency as the objectives behind the transformation, framing the offshore expansion as a capability enhancement alongside cost optimization.
Internal sources describe a strategic pivot by the company’s new chief executive toward a lower-cost operating model — a repositioning described by staff as not well received among those affected.
The combination of group-level AI investment and subsidiary-level offshoring follows the same pattern visible at Australia’s major banks — AI infrastructure builds at the Wesfarmers group level while offshore centers absorb the workload being restructured below.
The company described its approach as “transitioning to an experienced provider in Manila, while maintaining an ongoing Australian presence,” the spokesperson said.
For BPO operators in the Philippines and India, Officeworks’ transition adds another major Australian retail brand to the offshore tech workforce pipeline that banks like NAB, ANZ, and CBA have already built.
The combination of Wesfarmers’ AI partnerships and Officeworks’ offshore scale signals that Australian retail is following financial services into the same dual-track transformation model.
Providers already embedded in Australian retail sector IT — particularly those with Manila and Bengaluru delivery capacity — are positioned to capture further phases of that expansion.
