US one up on India

[Mr. Big Dog 10,747]

Isn't it nice? India now looking at outsourcing call center jobs to the US. And the race to the bottom continues...

Cheap Labor: U.S. Competes With India For Call Center Jobs

by Jacob Goldstein

A big outsourcing company that does lots of work in India is looking to staff up in the U.S., where call center workers can now be hired on the cheap, the FT reports this morning.

People in the U.S. "are open to working at home and working at lower salaries than they were used to," Pramod Bhasin, chief exec of Genpact, tells the FT.

The firm plans to triple its U.S. workforce in the next two years — a plan rendered somewhat less impressive by the fact that it only has 1,500 employees in the U.S. right now.

Despite the relatively low number, there is something broader going on here: India is moving up the global pay-scale ladder, pushing outsourcing firms to look elsewhere for labor.

Wipro, an outsourcing company based in Bangalore, has been staffing up in Europe, the Middle East and Africa; roughly half of the firm's employees will be non-Indians in two years, up from 39 percent now, an exec tells the FT.

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Yeah, Wipro is on a hiring spree.

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I wonder what it would be like to work for them.

[Mr. Big Dog 10,747]

I wonder what it would be like to work for them.

You just need to be able to read scripts. That's what they do in India. I'd have to work on my accent, though.

[^_^ 5,021]

You just need to be able to read scripts.

You know that's not true for all open positions, but the perception alone is a good reason to not go work there.

[Mr. Big Dog 10,747]

You know that's not true for all open positions, but the perception alone is a good reason to not go work there.

I don't know that company. But I have dealt with call centers in India and you just know when the person on the other end reads a script. My employer shipped some stuff over there and I actually feel bad for the folks that work there - they're literally not allowed to think. They're directed to follow a particular script or procedure - the the t - without exception.