iiNet’s Melbourne Office Is Rumoured To Be Shutting Down

We have received inside reports that iiNet’s Melbourne office is shutting down today. Here’s everything we know.

It’s no secret that iiNet has significantly downsized its operations in Australia. In December last year, the telco closed its Sydney office and made most staff redundant. This followed a shrinking of local customer service roles which have been gradually off-shored to South Africa. Now, it appears that same thing could be happening in Melbourne.

According to a former iiNet employee who contacted Lifehacker, most staff at iiNet Melbourne were offered redundancy packages today with the office set to close in the coming weeks. Around 60 employees are said to be affected which is the bulk of the office’s remaining workforce.

Speculation about the Melbourne office’s imminent shutdown have been circulating since 2016. When we asked iiNet’s general manager of customer service Matt Conn to confirm or deny the rumour in December, he offered the following response:

“The Melbourne branch does specialist tasks for us; right now, that is the focus for them. There are roles with in the [TPG] group that are open to staff, depending on how it all plays out. Today, Melbourne is a key part of our business.”

We’ve reached out to iiNet for comment and will update the story as soon as we know more.

Inside The Downfall Of iiNet Sydney It has been over a year since TPG bought iiNet and the situation looks bleak for the ISP that was once the darling of the telco industry. Most recently, iiNet's Sydney office was shut down and most of the staff were made redundant. We spoke to former iiNet employees to get the insider story on the aftermath of the TPG acquisition. We also spoke with iiNet to get its side of the story. Read more