Indian investor warns remote workers in Australia: Return to office or your jobs will be outsourced to India

Companies in Australia have been asking employees to return to offices while they grapple with increasing inflation, high interest rates, and a slowing economy.

An Indian investor in Australia has a stark warning for those resisting return-to-office mandates -- either comply or the jobs will be outsourced to new recruits in India.

At a time when companies in the country have been grappling with increasing inflation, high interest rates, and a slowing economy, Iqbal Singh, founder of financial advisory firm Innovative Consultants, told News.com.au, "Absolutely they can be outsourced. Support staff, IT, finance, mortgages—all of those can be supported because of a lower cost and at the same time English-speaking workforce."

Singh estimated that if Indian employees are hired for the same roles, Australian companies would have to pay them only 10 to 15 percent of the salaries that they pay Australian workers. Calling the Indian workforce “one of the largest opportunities” for the companies Down Under, the investor added that Indians also bring “more efficiency” to the table.

“Ultimately the biggest problem across the world (countries are) grappling with is inflation,” Fortune quoted Singh as saying. “It becomes of paramount importance in these kinds of environments to become more efficient, to make the supply chain more efficient, and at the same time relying on those jobs which can be completely outsourced in a very cost-effective manner.”

Despite the warning, outsourcing jobs to India or another country is riddled with challenges that include miscommunications, problems arising from differences in time zones, and stories of fraud, data breaches, and intellectual property theft, Fortune reported.

But even then, this is not the first time that workers in other, more developed countries have been warned about Indians being a threat to their jobs. As economist Richard Baldwin had earlier said, “If you can do your job from home, be scared. Be very scared... Because somebody in India or wherever is willing to do it for much less.”

Read more: Amazon employee quits refusing to return to office, loses stocks worth Rs 1.7 crore