Energy retailer brings in Alvarez & Marsal to review operations, with nearly 7 per cent of its workforce facing redundancy
EnergyAustralia is preparing to cut about 150 jobs – nearly 7 per cent of its workforce – after engaging global professional services firm Alvarez & Marsal to review its operations, The Australian has reported.
Senior sources told the newspaper the redundancies will span multiple areas of the business, as the Hong Kong-owned energy retailer moves to reduce costs and restore profitability amid volatile wholesale electricity prices.
The job cuts come as one of the country’s largest electricity retailers deals with a steep fall in retail earnings and tougher competition for customers.
According to The Australian, EnergyAustralia has lost 163,000 customer accounts since 2022. Its operating earnings before fair-value movements fell 85.6 per cent last year.
Wholesale price swings add a further strain. Retailers across the sector can be forced to find large sums of cash at short notice, even when they expect to recover those higher costs over time.
The report did not specify which teams will be affected or when the redundancies will take effect.
Workforce reductions of this size trigger specific requirements under the Fair Work Act 2009 (Cth). If a business is considering making 15 or more employees redundant, the employer must give Services Australia written notification of the proposed dismissals as soon as possible, according to the Fair Work Ombudsman. An employer must also notify or consult with a union if at least one employee is a union member.
Consultation obligations under modern awards and enterprise agreements carry equal weight, and recent Fair Work Commission decisions show how costly a misstep can be. In July 2026, the Commission found a Sydney childcare operator’s redundancy failed the consultation test – even though it accepted the role had genuinely disappeared from the business.
Redeployment is another pressure point. In March 2026, the Commission rejected Triple Zero Victoria’s genuine redundancy defence over redeployment failures, establishing that enterprise agreement consultation obligations extend to redeployment discussions, not just the initial announcement of change.
A similar lesson emerged when a cosmetics maker proved its redundancy case but lost on consultation. In that case, the Commission concluded the consultation obligation was not met, which meant under the Fair Work Act the dismissal could not be a genuine redundancy.
For HR leaders managing restructures under cost pressure, the message from these rulings is consistent: a sound commercial rationale does not replace a properly run consultation and redeployment process.
