fastfrank

Hi there,
I'm sure you've all heard of the publications with regards to call-center work being transfered to India in order to cut costs?
Well just when I thought it couldn't get any worse, we were told a few weeks ago by the management , that they were looking to implement such ideas in our department (IT support)
I actually thought being in my position and quite technically skilled that this would never be the case but it appears as they mentioned in a meeting 'any job which can be done from a desk, can be done from anywhere in the world...'. Oh yes and they get paid between 1-6k per year which is massive cost savings to the company concerned.

I know that major outsourcing companies worldwide are being forced down this route in order to stay competitive but don't they think about the moral elements here.... obviously not ... we'll all be out of jobs and India will end up with massive control over this country's businesses.

I believe Tony Blair was in a press conference last week and was asked the question regarding these issues and he said there was nowt he could do about it because it was helping the economy etc etc.

Anyway a couple of them are arriving sometime this week and we've got to show them how we do our jobs.. DEEP JOY

God only knows what the future will hold. Maybe I should think about being a Hairdresser or a Fireman. ???

Winge over.

yoza

You have to train them up to knick your job! Not nice....

Maybe you could go over there and keep your job, sell the scoob and buy a 1970 Beetle(to blend in), and live on a bowl of rice a day, or then again, maybe not!

pslewis

YEP, be a fireman!! They do very little, you being in IT will fit in remarkably well!!

Hairdresser? I have a lovely Red MX5 if you need to borrow it for the interview!!

Its world market forces at work ... not a lot can be done in a free society - unless you want to work for £6k!! Hope it pans out better than you think!

Pete

beemerboy

Vote Labour...

LOL

Trouble is, a lot of people may laugh at this, but excluding the helpdesk/callcentre side of things where there are obvious language barriers, there are some highly educated professionals in these countries, especially programming and dba's.

No jobs are safe these days....

keep voting labour though, we need more illegal immigrants, then we can all go on the dole and live a life of reilly!!!

good luck in all you do!!! - and above all, be happy.

BB

fastfrank

hey yoza... I was thinking of buying one of those battered up Peugeot 206's like from that advert... then I proper fit in ;-)

fastfrank

also, I bet the market for Subaru's picks up in India as they become more wealthy???? Maybe I should export it over there.

SJ_Skyline

fastfrank,

A simple solution to your problem is to be as economical with information as you can get away with. When the chaps go back to India they still won't have a clue how to do your job and in the meantime fill all your systems with backdoors and timebombs. When you eventually get nished you walk out the door with your redundancy cheque, cash it and then bang - everything falls over

messiah

It's a f***ing outrage - plain old corporate greed.

Worst thing is that OK, they speak english, but everytime I've been diverted to some muppet in Islamabad I can't undertand a word they're saying, and they have trouble understanding me - usually thinking I'm saying something completely different.

Exporting call-centre jobs does not benefit us, the consumers, we never see any of the savings reflected in our bills, and in return we have to speak to someone we cant understand.

<rant to be continued>

HumptyDumpty

I dink dis is a veddy veddy good idea

alcazar

iTrader: (2)

My two lads have already swopped their accounts from HSBC, and sent a letter explaining why, with the request to close.
They are both about to start on the jobs merry-go-round, and are disgusted with this sort of thing.
Alcazar

DrEvil

Sorry to hear this, it seems common place these days.
One saving grace is as the demand has increased in India, it is getting harder for companies to employ good skilled staff - we've found it nearly impossible to find decent DBAs, Unix Admins etc..
Plus as someone else said the language barrier is proving worse than expected.

Plus a view companies are begining to realise India/abroad isn't the answer in all cases.

Rgds, Alex

MATTeL

Yeah my company were looking to move the development teams from Germany and America to India. After two motnhs of studies and looking at the level of work produced by one of the coding farms they decided not to bother.

Everyone was relieved...

messiah

Alcazar - hit the nail on the head son,

First Direct account soon to be closed...

Luke

Spent 1/2 hour today trying to talk to a Amex call centre in India....it would have only taken 10 mins in uk..The lady just could not understand.

but she sounded well naughty...

HumptyDumpty

I'd be interested to know the view of some UK resident Indians on this as it's their UK job market too that will decline

Dave P

Happening in banking ops as well at the moment. I hear the average Indian gets paid about £850 a year, but this is 3 times the average salary. But here's my points:

Firstly there will be very quick upward pressure on salaries in these countries. So Bank A moves to India and train up a team. 6 Months later another Bank B moves there. They are on the look out for trained staff... for just £1,000 they can get trained staff from Bank A. Of course a grand is nothing to Bank B but to the Indian it's another years salary! This whole thing is bad enough in the UK but I'm sure it'll be compounded in other countries.

Secondly and ultimately these firms will just kill their own trades and the country. A saving for a bank or insurance company in staff today is a lost customer tomorrow. Add to the fact that the government will have an increasing social services bill that they will have to fill increasingly from Corporate Taxation (less workers, more unemployed, less personal tax eanred)

I personally think it's pretty scary!!!

Dave

Mungo

People who harp on about Corporate Greed driving this current trend to outsource need to think twice about what they're saying. Who are the shareholders in these big companies? Institutional investors, i.e. our own pension schemes. It's our own need for a pensions recovery which is requiring better returns from these companies, and that's what's driving the boom in outsourcing to India (and China for manufacturing).

HumptyDumpty

bood bood bood

Kevin Mc

Don't close your First Direct account yet Messiah - HSBC are going but First Direct are not. I was going to do the same, but spoke to their call centre who've advised that they are staying.

She put a "complaint" forward for me so it got logged. I basically said that I thought the service was great at the moment, and if they export the jobs out to India / China wherever, I will close my bank account with them. I think it is important they know how their customers feel. I do not want cost savings at the cost of poor service, and more importantly exported jobs.

I with DaveP on this - this is worrying me seriously. They are affectively exporting the wealth out of the country.

How many jobs in the UK are done from a PC at a desk? It's not just programmers and DBA's, but clerical staff, accounts staff, local government admin - sure, we outsource all of this to cheap labour in the far east, we'll save money, but there would be hundreds of thousands (millions? ) out of work, not paying tax, and having to claim.

There's be a big PSBR defecit as it is - what's it going to be like with massively reduced income from income tax - plus higher social costs. Worst case scenario I know, but it's got me thinking on re-training to a career you can't do from a PC - doctors, Police, architects, surveyors, builders etc etc).

Just seems like one huge downward spiral to me.

The government needs to step in to level the playing field - I don't know, put some sort of tax on using foreign labour.

Who the f&ck do these companies think are going to pay fpr their goods and services - their customers don't have jobs anymore!

[Edited by Kevin Mc - 10/21/2003 1:42:59 PM]

ian_sadler

Was thinking along the same lines as Kevin. So I'm gonna give First Direct a ring now.

Mortywrx

RSA just as bad but there alternative to India is HALIFAX any way we found out in august and are jobs end on 31st march looks like my dads work is looking enviting, been offered a job there already same money plus night shift allowance and overtime...me thinks big money going on car after a few month over time.

Darren

logiclee

I don't agree with it but it's already happened in other sectors.

Just look at the UK's Coal industry. The generators purchased coal from cheap labour countries such as the eastern block, Poland etc. The Government even allowed coal in from heavily subsidised countries such as Germany.

Only a handful of UK mines remain with the communities devistated and heavily subsidised by the tax payer and the EU.

Economics you might say? Well isn't it the same with Desk Jobs?

As for the theories of India pushing up the prices once the UK jobs have gone, well lets look at the coal industry again.

UK Coal is produced at around £1.05 per GJ, world price is now around £1.33. There is only enough UK coal produced for about 30% of what is burned in UK Electricity generation.

The Government let the industry die, the tax payer pays to subsidise the communities and Electricity consumers pay higher prices.

This is why the labour market should not be left to Market Forces
Other countries, even big EU countries will susbsidise their industries to gain an uneven share of the market and then hike up the prices. The UK does nothing about it.

Lee

Suresh

Here's another point of view :
The IT industry had its good years when everyone went self-employed contracting and earned a shed load. There was not much loyalty shown to the employer back them. As the job market turned bad, said contractors came back looking for a nice, secure regular job. My guess is that the employers are doing nothing other than giving the IT boys some payback by outsourcing to Dikkum Dokkum in Bangalore (which is a lovely city by the way)!

Reckon the companies will come regret their decision in the end if not for language then for legal reasons. Recall that companies who out-sourced branded-goods manufacturing to the far east got massively burned when they realised that there were no local copyright laws to protect their brand and intellectual property.

If your job is under threat it's time to re-skill and think about doing something else. Sorry for not having much sympathy for IT employees, but the mess we've had to clear up after the 'it's about the technology' boys is almost criminal.

Suresh

Tim-Grove

Glad I did an apprenticeship and got my self a trade now and never went in for a desk job. I wanted a desk job when I left school in a nice warm office and not out working on cold sites but it seems as if it worked out in the end.

fastfrank

I wonder how long it will be before the Indian's start getting greedy and ask for MORE £££££££? By that time I guess the whole affair will seem a waste of time and they move it back home.

Its human nature.