Executive assistants will all but disappear from the offices of one of Australia’s largest consultancy firms to be replaced by remote workers dialling in from the Philippines as the firm cuts costs.
Once widespread throughout white-collar workforces in the mid-20th century, only the most senior staff at KPMG will retain Australian-based executive assistants after the planned transition, representing about a fifth of the number it once employed here.
Under the proposal leaked to corporate gossip Instagram page The Aussie Corporate, there would be a phased approach, with 100 roles shunted from Australia to the Philippines in April and a further 100 across May and June.
The cost-cutting measure, also aimed at improving consistency of service across the business, comes as demand for consulting services has dropped off among the big-four consulting firms. In the year to June 2025, KPMG reported revenue of $2.3 billion: slightly lower than the previous year, while remuneration for its partners grew 10.3 per cent.
Nicole Gorton, executive recruitment director at recruitment agency Robert Half, said offshoring can be successful in some cases where work is highly repetitive.
“Where it’s very administrative task heavy, such as triaging emails or formatting documents and entering data, that’s when we’re seeing [these jobs] be offshored,” she said. “That’s where organisations see that they can have cost benefit by offshoring.”
However, Gorton said it is more difficult for organisations where the assistant is involved in strategy, execution, decision-making and stakeholder engagement.
“These responsibilities require deep knowledge of the business and local stakeholder understanding,” she said. “The EA role has evolved to being a strategic partner who often has input in conversations and decisions. Proximity matters in these cases, and EAs are often the glue to the business.”
Gorton said offshoring tends to be cyclical, but that she has seen an increasing number of jobs being outsourced over the past decade.
“A company might do an offshoring project that will be sustainable for a period of time, and then the people in the weeds of managing the offshoring relationships have challenges,” Gorton said. “But most definitely, offshoring has been happening at a larger scale.”
Job ad data from employment marketplace Seek shows personal assistant, executive assistant and secretarial roles have been declining steadily for the past few years.
As of December, these roles declined 18 per cent over the year, while wider administration and office support industry roles fell 7 per cent over the same time period and job ads more widely dropped 4 per cent.
KPMG Australia last year conducted its own analysis of the fastest growing jobs and those “going extinct”, noting some occupational groups had seen sharp declines in workers.
“The number of executive assistants fell by more than 20 per cent to 82,300 over the past decade due to the automation of administrative functions through smartphones and apps,” it said.
While roughly 65 of KPMG’s EA roles would remain in Australia, the scope of services covered by every role will change with updated position descriptions.
The final decision on KPMG’s proposal, which is subject to consultation with impacted employees, will take place in early- to mid-March, with the firm looking to redeploy as many people as possible to other roles within the business.
A spokeswoman for KPMG said consultation with its people was ongoing as the firm moved away from the practice of doing everything in-house.
“We are continually evolving the way we work to build a scalable, modern, resilient business that positions us for growth and competitiveness,” she said.
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Millie Muroi is the economics writer at The Sydney Morning Herald and The Age. She was formerly an economics correspondent based in Canberra’s Press Gallery and the banking writer based in Sydney.Connect via X or email.