Officeworks to offshore hundreds of Aussie jobs to India and the Philippines - as some vow they'll never shop there again

By KYLIE STEVENS, SENIOR BREAKING NEWS REPORTER, AUSTRALIA Published: 06:30, 29 May 2026 | Updated: 06:30, 29 May 2026 Aussie retail giant Officeworks has made what it calls a 'difficult' decision to relocate hundreds of support jobs overseas as part of a major cost-cutting restructure.  Dozens of customer service call centre staff in western Sydney were made redundant this week and will be replaced by a team in Manila in the Philippines. Office-based roles in Sydney and Melbourne will also be relocated in the coming months to a new 'global centre' in Bengaluru, southern India, to 'support our stores and offices'. Staff with technology support company Geek2U are among the affected positions, which will be relocated in three stages to minimise disruption to operations. Officeworks India has already started recruiting for 50 sales, technology and analyst roles. Parent company Wesfarmers announced earlier this year that Officeworks had transitioned to a 'significant business transformation program' to continue supporting low prices for customers while driving sustainable earnings growth. Officeworks recorded earnings of $68million for the first half of 2025-26, a 21.8 per cent drop compared to 12 months prior, which Wesfarmers said was due to a one-off $15million transition to a 'low-cost operating model'.  The company would not give an exact figure on how many jobs are being moved offshore but said customer-facing roles will not be affected. Officeworks will relocate hundreds of support jobs to India and the Philippines as part of a major cost-cutting restructure. The retail giant assured that customer-facing roles will not be impacted 'With rising costs, increasing competition and rapidly changing customer expectations, this transformation is critical to strengthening our growth, resilience and competitiveness in a fast-evolving retail landscape,' a spokesperson told Daily Mail on Friday. 'As part of this program, some activities currently performed in our Australian support office will transition to a new global centre in Bengaluru to support our stores and support offices.  'The work currently done by our customer service centre is transitioning to an experienced provider in Manila with an ongoing Australian presence. 'The majority of our team, including everyone in our store network, will continue to be based in Australia, and we remain committed to investing in our local operations.  'As we open new stores to better serve our customers, we are also creating more jobs across Australian communities. 'This is difficult for affected team members, who will be supported with redundancy entitlements alongside redeployment opportunities and outplacement support where possible.' The decision drew criticism online  'Your recent decision to offshore jobs is disgusting. I’ll never shop with you again,' one said on X. Officeworks recorded $68million in earnings for the first half of the 2025-26, a 21.8 per cent drop compared to 12 months prior A former customer added: 'I’ll be boycotting Officeworks. If they want to destroy Australian jobs, they deserve to go bankrupt.' Another posted: 'What a betrayal of Australians, who built and sustained your company/business for so many years; yet you turn around and stab them in the back like this. National disgrace.' Officeworks recently announced major price cuts on 400 items, in addition to reductions on more than 1,000 products that were announced last February. The retailer has followed firms like NAB, Westpac, CommBank, Telstra, KPMG and PwC in relocating jobs to India, the Philippines and other parts of Asia. Officeworks was established in 1994 by Coles Myer, based on popular US chain Office Depot. The first store opened in Melbourne and the chain now has 175 outlets nationwide. The comments below have not been moderated. The views expressed in the contents above are those of our users and do not necessarily reflect the views of MailOnline. By posting your comment you agree to our house rules. Do you want to automatically post your MailOnline comments to your Facebook Timeline? Your comment will be posted to MailOnline as usual. Do you want to automatically post your MailOnline comments to your Facebook Timeline? Your comment will be posted to MailOnline as usual We will automatically post your comment and a link to the news story to your Facebook timeline at the same time it is posted on MailOnline. To do this we will link your MailOnline account with your Facebook account. We’ll ask you to confirm this for your first post to Facebook. You can choose on each post whether you would like it to be posted to Facebook. Your details from Facebook will be used to provide you with tailored content, marketing and ads in line with our Privacy Policy.