Background: NAB, formerly known as National Australia Bank, is one of Australia's Big Four banks and has been operating in some form since 1834. The bank currently employs around 38,000 people. But earlier this year, NAB announced plans to cut 170 local jobs in Australia.  

What happened: Now, NAB has announced plans to hire up to 1,000 new employees. But there's a catch: these roles are not being created in Australia. Instead, the bank is expanding hiring across its operations in India and Vietnam. NAB has doubled its workforce in both countries over the past three years. It employs around 5,000 staff in India and roughly 2,000 in Vietnam through its "innovation centres."

What else: Rising demand for offshore tech talent is closing the gap in labour costs between Australia and in India and Vietnam. So, the strategy seems to be less about lower wages... and more about "operational flexibility".

What's the key learning?

💡 Operational flexibility is a company's ability to scale its workforce up or down quickly in response to demand fluctuations or changing market conditions. And in a world where AI could reshape large parts of the workforce, that flexibility is becoming increasingly valuable.

💡 AI could create major workforce shifts - especially in tech. A Gartner report warned that 80% of the software engineering workforce will need to upskill or risk being left behind by AI tools. So, banks want flexibility when it comes to building these teams.

💡 Offshore teams are typically easier to unwind than roles onshore, because there can be fewer labour law constraints, union considerations, and redundancy costs. Australia's major banks have already built this into their models:

• CBA has more than 6,700 roles in India
• ANZ has around 9,000 roles in India and 2,000 in the Philippines