The telecoms giant declined to specify which roles would be affected, but a source familiar with the matter revealed 200 positions were involved.

According to reports, some staff may be redeployed within the business after a consultation process that began today [24 February 2026].

A spokesperson for Optus said the company-wide restructure included new recruitment, leadership shifts and “role adjustments”.

“We are bringing in new expertise where needed, supporting transitions and simplifying areas of the business to drive faster, more effective decision-making,” the spokesperson said.

“We recognise some of the changes will have a significant impact on some of our people and we are committed to approaching this decision with empathy and respect.”

The job cuts come as Optus CEO Stephen Rue apologised last year to Australia’s parliament for a nationwide outage that blocked access to the country’s “000” emergency number, an incident linked to four deaths.

The outage, which occurred on September 18, 2025, left customers across South Australia, Western Australia, the Northern Territory and parts of New South Wales unable to reach emergency services for up to 15 hours.

Speaking before a parliamentary inquiry in Canberra, Rue described the event as “deeply regrettable” and issued a public apology to those affected. He confirmed that Optus had already implemented “immediate corrective actions” to strengthen network resilience and emergency service connectivity.

“I want to extend my deepest apologies to the families impacted and to all Australians who rely on us,” Rue told the committee. “My focus is on ensuring such an event never happens again.”

Optus is the latest in a wave of major employers announcing redundancies, following similar moves by Amazon, T-Mobile, Telstra, Salesforce and Ericsson.