Offshoring wave raises fears of white-collar brain drain

Australia’s finance and professional services sectors are facing renewed concerns of a white-collar brain drain, as major employers increasingly shift skilled support, technology and administrative roles offshore while accelerating adoption of AI. Recent cases highlight the breadth of the shift, with PwC moving 58% of its Australian-based executive assistant roles to Manila, while KPMG is offshoring 200 similar roles to the Philippines in a move expected to save $17 million annually. In banking, the Finance Sector Union has warned that Bendigo Bank’s partnership with global technology firms could see hundreds of roles offshored or replaced, while NAB’s reported plans to hire over 1000 staff in India and Vietnam have added to concerns that higher-value finance and technology roles are increasingly vulnerable.

The trend suggests that offshoring is no longer confined to low-value back-office work but is moving deeper into the corporate labour market as firms pursue lower costs, productivity gains and more flexible operating models. For example, NAB is following the path of other big banks which have also established similar offshore footprints across Asia, with CBA and ANZ employing a combined 26,000 people across India and the Philippines. When combined with relatively recent local job cut announcements from the same banks, the actions reflect a broader shift in banking work away from domestic head offices and into offshore technology hubs.

However, the motivation is not purely cost-based. RMIT finance academic Angel Zhong argues the trend is increasingly about accessing specialised talent as firms scale their AI capabilities, while Deloitte research for the Australian Computer Society estimates Australia will need an extra 52,000 tech workers each year to meet 2030 demand forecasts. This suggests the offshoring wave reflects both corporate cost discipline and a domestic skills bottleneck, with Australia risking a gradual erosion of high-value white-collar capability if local training, migration and technology workforce pipelines fail to keep pace.

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