It’s been an interesting year. First we had the surprise of Brexit, then the surprise of the US elections and now there are rumblings in the Australian market. Whilst it will be interesting to see whether jobs will be brought back to America, there is likely to be some fallout in Australia.
More recently there have been headlines in Australian news: A kind of madness has come over the world and Australian politicians seem not to be able to judge which way the wind is blowing.
However, it seems like it is coming back to a time to be seen to putting “Australia-first” in the jobs market, with a likely pull back on the 457 visas through a “condensing” of the list of occupations eligible for a 457 visa.
This looks like Australia is headed to the rise of support for protectionist movements, displayed in the success of the Brexit and Trump campaigns.
So you can expect to see more of the following comments coming along: “building Australian, buying Australian and employing Australian”. Though whether we have a “Bring the jobs home” Act will be interesting to see.
This brings up one of the interesting fears Australian accountants have always had: What will my clients think if I tell them I am sending work offshore. What will my clients think if I have employed offshore labour.
Certainly it might just come down to the lesser of two disclosures: Sending ad hoc work overseas during peak times might just pip the post over having full time offshore resources.
This might be tempered by whether your compliance fees have actually reduced in the past few years through the deployment of offshore resources, or whether the additional revenue has been utilized to crop up other personal or company needs.
It’s certainly shaping up to be an interesting time, and the effects on offshore resources for Australian compliance work are only just becoming visible.
So it’s time to strap in and enjoy this wild ride we’re all about to experience in the Australian accounting compliance world!
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