...interesting to see that outsourcing to India is being involved in this too.

Makes you wonder just how much the minimum wage, PC over sacking useless folk, and unions are costing this country!

Discuss! :D

I've only seen the BBC report of this and it doesn't mention India only that jobs would be outsourced to IBM.

I worked for a call centre for 10+ years and I don't think it's the minimum wage doing damage here but just plain greed by the corporations.  It is not too difficult to sack people in call centres as the staff are rigidly monitored and part of the job is sticking rigidly to scripts and call handling times. I know that NTL does already outsource to India or suchlike because I have spoken to their people on a premium rate technical helpline for broadband users.  The people I spoke to couldn't understand what I was asking (I don't mean because of accent either), they were obviously following a script of which my query didn't fit so I hung up frustrated and angry that NTL had wasted my money.  Trying to report this in this country was virtually impossible as NTL has you dangling on the phone but eternity and then passes you around departments where eventually you give up or burst a blood vessel  

It really is down to the consumer collectively to do something but I think we have already accepted the call centre culture and are paying for it financially and by accepting an often very poor service while the corporations rake in more of our money.

I am as guilty as the next person for accepting the call centres but have vowed that the day my bank outsources abroad I would close my account and that I am adamant about.

On the sky report it says that jobs will be outsourced, including *some* to IBM...

I agree that it is greed that has corporations moving call centres to India, but I do think that we make it easy for them to do so.

Makes you wonder just how much the minimum wage, PC over sacking useless folk, and unions are costing this country

It comes down to the money the investors demand from the companies & by outsourcing to India etc they can cut staffing costs by millions & the investors end up reaping the rewards.

I tried ringing Barclays to get some Post Office paying in envelopes & when I eventually I got through to a human being yes she was in India & it took ages for her to understand my East Yorkshire accent-good job the call was free

It has been long planned(over 15 years)to eventually have all claims processed for state benefits in China, when the technology is in place. It is only the unions that are stopping it being done. The reason for the outsourcing is to reduce the staff cost involved from an average of £15,000 a year to £4,000 a year !!!(it was actually much more of a reduction back in 1991) & yes useless staff are sacked by the DWP Seen it happen several times(but only in the lower grades sadly). There are lots of security issues involved & the pilots run with the outsourced company  so far showed a mega amount of staff errors far more than the system that is in place now !(like over 30% error rate instead of under 5 %) & the delays in payments were also huge

Anybody noticed the same thing with Petplan puppy insurance line.  I spent so long spelling an owners name and address that I gave up in the end.  So embarrassing with them sitting there listening and it doesn't inspire confidence!  It is easier now that you can do it online. :)

I think the worst example of outsourcing was one of the telephone enquiry services. A TV report live on air tried to get Manchester United FC's telephone number. The person on the other end of the line couldn't find the number & actually asked the reporter(who had a normal english accent)"are you sure manchester is in england ?" :rolleyes::rolleyes:

The minimum wage is hardly a luxury.  It doesn't even equate to £10,000 a year.  Just renting a room in a grotty shared house is going to set you back at least £4,000 a year, including council tax in most of the country.  The average house price is now 20 times that salary, and you can forget trying to raise a family on it.  I have seen some of the effects of employers not being able to sack people (in one case, when I was working in a hospital, a life threatening case) and agree with you on that one, but I don't think it's unreasonable for people to want to be able to afford a roof over their head if they put in a week's work.  A lot of people I have known earning the minimum wage have been forced to do two or three jobs.  The problem in many cases is not the people at the bottom of the feeding chain demanding the minimum wage but corporate greed and waste higher up the line.  I remember having my eyes rather rudely awakened during my first job during a gap year after a rather sheltered catholic school upbringing and discovering that directors and salespeople at the company I was working for were using company money for cocaine and escorts!!! I left when they tried to get me to enter bogus orders onto their system just before their financial audit!

I'm not saying I don't agree with the Minimum Wage - I just wonder how much it affects the UK jobwise in situations like this....

There's no doubt it does - most employers want to pay their staff as little as possible for as many hours as possible.  They are happy to take advantage of the UK economy to reap profits but feel no obligation to contribute to it by creating or sustaining domestic employment. I'm feeling a bit cynical today...

>I agree that it is greed that has corporations moving call centres to India, but I do think that we make it easy for them to do so.

How do we do that?  We live in a global economic climate now and it is difficult to stop corporations to pick up and drop off what and where they like.  As dreadful as I think call centres are, they are now vitally important to employment as in recent decades manufacturing in this country has become almost non-existent compared to first 6/7 decades of the last century.  However not only are the big organisations forever looking for ways to increase their profits they also make it nigh on impossible for small operators to compete with them.  Any small company looking to put a little friendly customer service back into the equation do not stand a chance because the big organisations are only intersted in increasing revenue and we, the customers, (generally) are looking for the cheapest deals.

We make it easy by not stopping using these companies. I personally won't use a company that outsources to India - Norwich Union lost my insurance for example and I too would change banks. I use Cheltenham and Gloucester for my mortgage and have since found out most of the admin and telephone support is in India - so when the house sells they will be the last people I deal with!

Chloe I agree that is the only way to stop them is to stop using the companies that outsource.  The companies would still win when forced back though by punishing us with higher prices even though they don't seem to pass on the profits by way of lowering prices when they outsource to India.

Exactly Carla,

I have changed my mortage from the TSB recently and my Visa etc from M&S who I used faithfully.  During the time I was with them I would always ask what county the person was in and I would imediately be ask to be transfered back to the UK. In the end I have changed them over.

I wish everyone would do it.  We can protect the people if we try.  Just my thoughts.