It's not known yet how many staff will lose their jobs, with an Optus spokeswoman saying only that “outsourcing opportunities” were being considered but the company was a “long way off" being able to identify specific roles or the number of affected staff.

The spokeswoman did say, however, that there would be no redundancies this year.

Australia’s second largest telco on Tuesday confirmed it was in discussions with management consultancies about outsourcing but no arrangements have yet been finalised nor a vendor contracted. Accenture and Infosys are reportedly two of the major outsourcing firms under consideration.

Optus says a vendor will be selected in the next few months to work with it on outsourcing. “While we are talking to a number of parties, we have not finalised arrangements with any vendors,” the spokeswoman said.

“Optus continually reviews its operations to ensure it has the right organisational structure in place to achieve its goals.

“We are currently reviewing our back-office HR and finance operations to identify potential activities that could be outsourced over the next 12 months. We are also looking at ways that we can enhance our finance and HR functions through better analytics, systems and technology to evolve service delivery across our business.

“Specific roles which may be affected have not yet been identified but we will work with employees who may be affected by these changes.”

In April, Optus denied it was preparing to cut hundreds of jobs as part of a significant cost-cutting measure in a move to achieve “sustainable growth” over the long-term, but said at the time it would talk to employees about redeployment opportunities.