Sunday, May 11, 2003

More 'Can I Help You?' Jobs Migrate From U.S. to India
Her accent, pleasant and neutral, was hard to place. When callers asked her location, she demurred. If they knew where she was, said Ms. Martin, 27, "they would drop off their seat."

Some New Jersey officials say they just about did that when they learned that a contractor had arranged for Bombay operators to handle calls from the state's welfare recipients. County welfare directors complained. A state legislator, Shirley Turner, proposed a bill requiring that workers hired under state contracts be American citizens or legal aliens, or fill a specialty niche Americans could not, prompting at least four other states to consider similar bills.

Much as the exodus of manufacturing jobs abroad did in decades past, sending service or knowledge-intensive jobs to countries like India is causing fears of displacement in the United States and elsewhere.

A study by Forrester Research of Cambridge, Mass., estimated that this type of labor migration, generally referred to as outsourcing if contracted to another company, or offshoring if run by a company itself, could send 3.3 million American jobs overseas by 2015. India, with its large pool of English-speakers and more than two million college graduates every year, is expected to get 70 percent of them.

American companies say a weak economy is pushing them to find new ways to cut costs. American workers say the same economy is the reason they need the jobs to stay home.

"There is a feeling of unease," said Kiran Karnik, the president of India's National Association of Software and Service Companies. "Unless the U.S. economy picks up there's going to be a continuing issue about job loss, and also migration."

Ultimately, Ms. Martin's company, the eFunds Corporation, based in Scottsdale, Ariz., reached an agreement with New Jersey's Department of Human Services to move the work to the state. It created 12 jobs in New Jersey — at an additional cost to the state of $1.2 million until the contract ends in August 2004.

"For us it was about the consistency of the message," said Andy Williams, a department spokesman. The department is telling welfare recipients that they have to work or try to, he noted, "so to have a contract where you're exporting service-sector jobs — it just seemed we were working against our clients' interests."
http://www.nytimes.com/2003/05/11/international/asia/11INDI.html?pagewanted=all&position=

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