Qantas ships 850 Australian office jobs to India via Accenture, and its union says it was promised otherwise
The airline says a multi-year Accenture deal will fix 1,000-plus legacy apps and speed up AI. The union says staff were told no jobs would go offshore; Qantas denies it.
Qantas will cut about 850 corporate jobs in Australia and hand much of that work to Accenture, which will do it "mostly" from India. Chief executive Vanessa Hudson told staff on Tuesday that the first changes will be in place by mid-2027, starting with finance, procurement, people and marketing roles, according to the BBC and ABC News. The airline says the deal is about fixing old technology and moving faster on AI. Its union says staff were told months ago that no jobs would be sent offshore. Qantas denies it ever gave that promise.
The cut is about 3% of the airline's 28,000 Australian workers, Reuters reported via The Hindu. That is small next to the whole group. But these are office jobs, mostly in Sydney, and they are leaving the country rather than being automated away on the spot.
What Qantas is actually doing#
Qantas signed a multi-year deal with Accenture to "modernise its back-end systems, processes and data," The Guardian reported. Some of the work done today by Qantas teams will move to Accenture staff. Most of those staff will be in India, with some in Australia.
Hudson's case rests on the airline's technology. "Like every airline, we run on technology built up over decades for a different era, including more than 1,000 legacy applications that were never designed to work together," she wrote, as quoted by ABC News. She said the change "will allow us to unlock innovation faster and accelerate our use of AI."
She also argued that Qantas could not hire the skills on its own. "Through a partner we can access the data and AI skills that every industry in the world is competing for, because we cannot hire at the pace this work needs," she said, according to Reuters.
Qantas spends more than A$1 billion a year on technology, Hudson told staff, per the BBC. The company said the work Accenture takes over will "in time" be "transformed further with automation and AI." In plain terms: the jobs move to India first, and some of them may then be automated there.
| Detail | What Qantas said |
|---|---|
| Jobs affected | About 850 corporate roles |
| Share of Australian staff | About 3% of 28,000 |
| First teams | Finance, procurement, people, marketing |
| Timing | First changes by mid-2027 |
| Partner | Accenture, mostly from India |
Sources: BBC, Reuters via The Hindu, Travel Weekly.
The fight over a promise#
The sharpest dispute is over what staff were told. The Australian Services Union says Qantas gave it a direct assurance. "Earlier this year, Qantas told us directly there was no plan to offshore any jobs. Today, they've come out and told hundreds of staff members that their work will now be delivered mostly from people overseas," assistant national secretary Scott Cowen said, according to Reuters.
Qantas rejects that account. "We have never given assurances to the union that some jobs wouldn't move offshore," a spokesperson said. The company said it had met the union several times over recent months to discuss roles moving to Accenture teams in India and Australia.
Both claims cannot be fully checked from the public record. No written assurance has been published. What is on record is that the plan was not a surprise to everyone. In August, a Reddit thread in r/cscareerquestionsOCE shared reports that Qantas was in advanced talks with Accenture to move about 1,000 back-office roles to India. The final number announced on Tuesday was lower, at 850.
Why the reaction is so hot#
The news spread fast on X, both in Australia and India. The BBC's world news account posted the story to its more than 42 million followers within hours of the email going out.
In India, the Indian Tech & Infra account, which has about 1 million followers, posted the news with a siren emoji. The post drew more than 5,600 likes, a sign of how closely Indian tech workers track these deals.
In Australia, the anger centered on the airline's own branding. Phillip Adams, the veteran broadcaster and writer, says he gave Qantas its "spirit of Australia" slogan. He wrote that he was withdrawing his permission to use it and called the move "shameful." The union used the same line, saying more offshoring was "not in the spirit of Australia," according to Travel Weekly.
These posts show what some people said in public. They are not a measure of how most Australians feel. No poll on the decision has been published.
Part of a wider wave#
Qantas is the third big Australian firm in three weeks to announce major job changes, after design company Canva and National Australia Bank, The Guardian reported. Canva's restructure touches 1,271 roles. Our roundup of this month's biggest layoffs covers that and other cuts.
The pattern goes beyond Australia. Global firms keep moving office work to India through outsourcers and their own "global capability centers." At the same time, the US is pushing the other way on foreign labor. On the same day as the Qantas news, IBM said it would stop sponsoring visas for most roles in IBM Consulting.
Consultations start now; transfers by mid-2027#
No one has been told yet that their job is gone. Qantas said individual outcomes have not been decided. It will consult staff and the union over the coming months, according to Travel Weekly. The airline said it will try to redeploy as many people as it can through retraining and new roles in Australia.
Hudson also pointed to growth on the operations side. She said Qantas has created more than 4,400 new operational roles since 2023, with more coming as its fleet grows. That will not help a finance or marketing worker in Sydney whose desk is moving to Bengaluru or Pune. The union says it will fight for every job.
The key dates to watch are the consultation rounds over the next few months and the first transfers by mid-2027. The bigger test is whether the AI promise pays off. If the work moves to India and is then automated, the 850 figure may not be the last one.
Cite this article
Patrick Karsh. “Qantas ships 850 Australian office jobs to India via Accenture, and its union says it was promised otherwise.” 567 Business. Published 2026-11-10. https://567business.com/news/qantas-850-jobs-india-accenture
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