India Losing Call-Centers Due To High Wages?

     Laura Clawson for Daily Kos Labor     Tue Oct 18, 2011

Call centers leave India as American companies look for cheaper labor

Congratulations to India, where labor and business costs have risen enough that American companies are transferring their call-center work elsewhere:

Some Indian companies have tried to adjust by hiring less-expensive workers from small Indian towns or switching to high-end back-office work, including paralegal services, accounting and education.

But in the past three years, 13 Indian call-center companies have set up large offices in the Philippines and have trained and hired local workers, according to the National Association of Software and Service Companies.

“The growth in the Philippines is also being driven, to a large extent, by Indian outsourcing companies that are setting up operations there,” said Sangeeta Gupta, the association’s senior vice president.

Call-center work for Indian companies, like that "high-end back-office work," is still located in India. At least until the never-ending race to the bottom sends much of that to the Philippines, too. But when that happens, India should take heart in the fact that the U.S., after losing so many jobs to cheaper labor elsewhere, eventually itself became a source of cheap labor and got some jobs back.

Originally posted to Daily Kos Labor on Tue Oct 18, 2011

Also republished by Class Warfare Newsletter: WallStreet VS the Working Class Occupy movement. and Daily Kos.

Technorati Tags: Outsourcing,Labor,India,The Philippines,Current Events,An American Gothic,Employment