BCA president Tim Reed warns of risk to jobs with working from home

Business Council of Australia president Tim Reed has warned white collar jobs could be outsourced overseas if ‘working from home’ becomes the norm.

Business Council of Australia president Tim Reed: ‘We’ve proven a good chunk of white collar jobs can be done remotely, and potentially outside Australia.’ Picture: NCA NewsWire / Gary Ramage

Business Council of Australia president Tim Reed has warned that white collar jobs could be outsourced to lower-paid workers overseas if “working from home” becomes the norm in the workplace.

The former chief executive of accounting software firm MYOB said the expected pick-up in wage growth the Reserve Bank has said must occur before any increase in interest rates might not happen if service and corporate jobs become exposed to global competition in the way manufacturing had been for decades.

“There’s an expectation that when unemployment drops that real wage growth will start to pick up, but this may not happen given we’ve proven a good chunk of white collar jobs can be done remotely, and potentially outside Australia,” he said.

“The pandemic had accelerated trends towards remote work that were already under way before the crisis.”

A survey conducted late last year by the University of Sydney found three-quarters of workers expected the option to work from home to remain after the pandemic had passed.

Occupancy of commercial office towers in Sydney and Melbourne was half and a third, respectively, the level of a year ago earlier this month, according to the Property Council, a year on from the start of the pandemic.

“For some individual, highly skilled workers the pandemic has created opportunities to work in more desirable or convenient locations, but the longer-term consequences for the domestic workforce whose jobs could be done at home is less clear,” Mr Reed said.

Australian Harvard University economist James Stratton estimated last year that about 40 per cent of the workforce could feasibly work from home, overwhelmingly concentrated in professional and higher-paid ­sectors.

A surprise drop in the unemployment rate from 6.3 per cent to 5.8 per cent in February has lifted hopes wage growth will pick up sooner that expected.

Reserve Bank governor Philip Lowe said changes in the global supply of labour and the trend towards international provision of goods and services would weigh on wage growth.