By Andy McCue, 9 December 2003 15:10
NEWS Unions are calling on the EU to investigate the impact of offshore outsourcing IT jobs on the European economy.
Finance sector union Amicus is today holding a series of high-level meetings with MEPs on the back of last week's announcement by insurance group Aviva that it plans to offshore 2,500 jobs to India next year.
The DTI announced on Friday it will study the impact of offshoring on call centres to debunk the "myth" that UK jobs are being lost overseas, but Amicus claims a European study will reach deeper and reveal the wider picture.
Amicus national secretary for finance said not only the UK is being affected by the offshore outsourcing trend, citing examples of France offshoring to Northern Africa and South America, Germany offshoring to West Africa and Spain offshoring to Central America.
Today's meetings have been organised in conjunction with the Union Network International, which covers 320 unions in 48 countries.
Fleming said the campaign for more research into the impact of offshore outsourcing is not merely about protectionism.
"We are not asking for walls to be put up around Europe. We want to develop a strategy to deal with changing technology and to safeguard against offshore providers who are trying to put the fear of death into finance companies by telling them their share price will go into a tailspin unless they move offshore," he said in a statement.
Deloitte Research predicts two million jobs will migrate from western economies to India by 2008, with a large percentage being skilled business service jobs rather than low-skilled call centre work. But a study by analyst ContactBabel last week warned that companies who offshore may face a customer backlash.
Comments
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1. Krista
100-98=2. 100 is the number of jobs available, 98 is the number of jobs outsourced, 2 is the number of jobs left. Elementary, my dear watson!
2. anonymous
How dare the DTI suggest that it is a myth that jobs are being lost to overseas. The company I work for has just announced redundancies in the UK and then set up jobs in India.
3. Tim
My client, a major UK company, has outsourced most of it's IT support to EDS who in turn have outsourced helpdesk roles to Indian call centres. This puts employees in the odd situation of having to call a support person in Bangalore and explain in great detail (over a poor quality and echoing long distance line) what they require, typically a password resetting or a new account being created. This is then emailed to other support operatives located in the caller's UK office to be carried out. What follows is a third stage of enquiry from the UK support person where they contact the original caller to verify whatever the support call is all about. In this example it's hard to see what the call centre is adding.
4. John Manley
Is it only me or does anyone else have the same problem? I often get calls from (obvious Asian) call centres. The person on the other end speaks English very well but the line is often so bad either they can't hear you or vice versa. Also, just a thought, but isn't it racial discrimination to make call centre personnel adopt English names? If anyone tried to make a British subject of Asian ethnicity do that in this Country they would be in Court straight away.
5. Steve Wardle
The UK public should exercise some consumer power. These companies constantlt state they move for commercial reasons so if they understood that British people wouldn't buy the products or services they provide if they don't beleive our people are good enough to employ then the jobs would soon return. Make it commercial suicide for them to take jobs away then they won't.
Ford's biggest single market in Europe is the UK but they don't appear to be keen to keep plants here so uk buyers should think twice before buying a Ford. Consumer power is more powerful than governments and we should use it more often.
6. anonymous
Is it the government or me that's stupid?
The trend towards offshoring is inevitable given the superficial economics.
However, the absolute garbage from Blair and Brown is unbelieveable.
Blair has caved in, relying on the crass note that we have to compete internationally. True - but his job is to help us structuure the country accordingly. Say something with content Mr Blair - no more platitudes please.
Bone-head Brown reports that we have full employment (so where have all the IT, Banking, Insurance employees, and general management gone then?). From what I see, most are now "consultants" But as yet, without contracts, hence without income! So they're not paying taxes. This has to hurt. Brown's response is to attack anyone with the initiative (using IR35, section 660, IR5.91 etc).
What a country. So I'm off abroad to somewhere I can make a buck and keep some of it.
Good luck to those remaining, but I fear you're on a a sinking ship.
7. anonymous
Is it the government or me that's stupid?
The trend towards offshoring is inevitable given the superficial economics.
However, the absolute garbage from Blair and Brown is unbelieveable.
Blair has caved in, relying on the crass note that we have to compete internationally. True - but his job is to help us structuure the country accordingly. Say something with content Mr Blair - no more platitudes please.
Bone-head Brown reports that we have full employment (so where have all the IT, Banking, Insurance employees, and general management gone then?). From what I see, most are now "consultants" But as yet, without contracts, hence without income! So they're not paying taxes. This has to hurt. Brown's response is to attack anyone with the initiative (using IR35, section 660, IR5.91 etc).
What a country. So I'm off abroad to somewhere I can make a buck and keep some of it.
Good luck to those remaining, but I fear you're on a a sinking ship.
8. John Higgins
Lookslike you poor Brits can't bear it to see all of the jobs are going to India and your firms are racking profits because of this move. Too bad you don't like it but that is the way business is done any where. Cut the expenses to make profits.