Outsourcing Of Jobs Accelerates In US

[CVX]

By Kimberly Blanton
The Boston Globe

FAIRHAVEN, Massachusetts -- Michael Brightman is reminded daily that workers in New Delhi do the same job he does. His Indian counterparts routinely direct AT&T customers to him for long-distance billing problems that the workers in New Delhi cannot answer.

Brightman and 139 others will be laid off Friday from AT&T's call center on the southeastern coast of Massachusetts. AT&T said the job cuts resulted from a decision in July to phase out residential long-distance service.

"This work did not move," Tracey Belko, a spokeswoman, said. "It went away. We are not moving any of these jobs overseas."

Brightman and co-workers picketing here last month are skeptical. To them, jobs are being lost in the United States, and they are moving overseas.

Union officials said AT&T gave information on its offshore activity in January, showing one in four AT&T customer calls was handled by independent U.S. contractors employing 1,400 workers overseas. In five years, AT&T has cut its national call-center employment by half, to 3,270, the union said.

More at: http://www.iht.com/bin/print_ipub.ph...ness/jobs.html

[tankspring]

I, a canadian, see many jobs around me because we are cheaper labour than the us. I work painting industrial and military equipment, which is sold to the usa. And also is built by US companies(GD). My job exists because it is cheaper to pay me than an american. I see why people are upset, but with our dollar increasing in value (was up over .85), i see a lot of our jobs dissapearing as well.

Just a thought

[Jack Sprat]

Consider the alternative as well.... I live in New York and work part time on the Internet for a Europen company as an advisor for one of their American locations. This type of job has a higher salary in Europe than it does here, and with the exchange rate being as it is, I get more (per hour) than people who have similar jobs for American companies.

[tankspring]

Yeah, Im not anti-american, but the americans seem to complain a lot about outsourcing, compared to others all over the world, it is a global economy, but I am only a lowly painter, and wouldn't even try to get to far into this as i really am not educated on the subject, lol.

[koan]

Originally Posted by Jack Sprat

Consider the alternative as well.... I live in New York and work part time on the Internet for a Europen company as an advisor for one of their American locations. This type of job has a higher salary in Europe than it does here, and with the exchange rate being as it is, I get more (per hour) than people who have similar jobs for American companies.

So, you make more money as an American working for Europeans working for Americans than you would if the American company just hired you from the States directly? I find this hilarious and, in a weird way, justice. Or was this just hypothetical?

[gmc]

we have a similar situation in the UK but there is increasing public hostility to call centres per se, people resent being on the phone for half an hour with a simple inquiry. some banks are now advertising you can speak to a person not a machine, you can call your own branch and speak to someone there, you can call 24 hours and speak to a human being not a machine, they are picking up new customers in their thousands.

[persephone]

Originally Posted by gmc

we have a similar situation in the UK but there is increasing public hostility to call centres per se, people resent being on the phone for half an hour with a simple inquiry. some banks are now advertising you can speak to a person not a machine, you can call your own branch and speak to someone there, you can call 24 hours and speak to a human being not a machine, they are picking up new customers in their thousands.

Although it's sometimes tough to tell which country you are calling still

The public here get upset when they call a service line and have someone who, although speaks English, doesn't always understand the dialect/accent, and vice-versa.

The same thing happens with face-to-face communication too, I've lost count of the number of times I've been called in to a patient to translate when both patient and nurse/doctor are speaking perfectly good English but with thick accents. I have a clear English accent that breaks into farmer Giles/cokney only every so often.

It all makes simple things so much more difficult.

[Jack Sprat]

Originally Posted by koan

So, you make more money as an American working for Europeans working for Americans than you would if the American company just hired you from the States directly?

The funny thing was that I was not even looking for work when they approached me. Now that I am working again (16 hours a week) I find that I miss working with kids,

[gmc]

posted by letha
The public here get upset when they call a service line and have someone who, although speaks English, doesn't always understand the dialect/accent, and vice-versa.

I find the worst culprits are south east based ones in that they tend to assume tthe way they pronounce words is the correct one, everywhere else phone, liverpool, or anywhere else with a regional accent they ask you to spell or have the common sense to tell you they can't understand the accent southerners seem to assume everybody else speaks funny except them. Even when you spell it out they insist in pronouncing words their own peculiar way, like every word with r in it that they insist on mispronouncing.

Although it's sometimes tough to tell which country you are calling still

yeah bradford or delhi, hard to tell sometimes

I used to work in london with quite a mixed bunch of people, i never used to appreciate how hard to get your tongue around scots names could be since i obviously think they are normal, curious experience i was the exotic one with the foreign name and strange accent that nobody could understand till i modified my speech

[persephone]

Originally Posted by gmc

I find the worst culprits are south east based ones in that they tend to assume tthe way they pronounce words is the correct one, everywhere else phone, liverpool, or anywhere else with a regional accent they ask you to spell or have the common sense to tell you they can't understand the accent southerners seem to assume everybody else speaks funny except them. Even when you spell it out they insist in pronouncing words their own peculiar way, like every word with r in it that they insist on mispronouncing.

I don't think anyone can say a word is pronounced correctly or incorrectly anymore, esspecially with local dialects coming into play.

I'm dyslexic and dyspraxic, the latter prevents me from saying many multi-syllabic words (bloody tough in medicine).

There's a book "Accomodating Brocolli in the Cemetary or why can't anybody spell?" by Vivian Cook, in the first paragraph of the introduction is this quote by Bernard Shaw "The English 'spell it so abominably that no man can teach himself what it sounds like'."