Outsourcing Of Jobs Accelerates In US

Big Business, Small Business, Investments, and Personal Finances
Post Reply
User avatar
CVX
Posts: 722
Joined: Wed Aug 04, 2004 12:00 pm

Outsourcing Of Jobs Accelerates In US

Post by 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.php?f ... /jobs.html
koan
Posts: 16817
Joined: Sun Oct 31, 2004 1:00 pm

Outsourcing Of Jobs Accelerates In US

Post by koan »

Jack Sprat wrote: 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
Posts: 13566
Joined: Sun Aug 29, 2004 9:44 am

Outsourcing Of Jobs Accelerates In US

Post 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.
User avatar
persephone
Posts: 664
Joined: Sat Nov 13, 2004 3:14 pm

Outsourcing Of Jobs Accelerates In US

Post by persephone »

gmc wrote: 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 :wah:

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.
Bad Girls have very high standards, but they love you even if you sometimes fall short.
gmc
Posts: 13566
Joined: Sun Aug 29, 2004 9:44 am

Outsourcing Of Jobs Accelerates In US

Post by 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. :D

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


yeah bradford or delhi, hard to tell sometimes :D :D

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
User avatar
persephone
Posts: 664
Joined: Sat Nov 13, 2004 3:14 pm

Outsourcing Of Jobs Accelerates In US

Post by persephone »

gmc wrote: 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. :D 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'."
Bad Girls have very high standards, but they love you even if you sometimes fall short.
LottomagicZ4941
Posts: 752
Joined: Wed Oct 06, 2004 12:00 pm

Outsourcing Of Jobs Accelerates In US

Post by LottomagicZ4941 »

I have had a few experiences with call centers.

When I switched to MCI from Quest to get cheaper phone service I called quest and offered that they match MCE.

The American was like go a head and swithc I can't match the rate.

So I switched to MCI.

Then I got a call from Quest wanting me back and they offered a lower rate then MCI.

Not being unhappy with Quest in the first place I switched back.

However I kept getting billed from MCI. The first call seemed okay. They said they would fix things but I kept getting billed.

MCI claimed that I hung up on the rep on the first call and that I called the wrong number. These were American call centers

So I called the "right number" and complained about how the number they gave for "customer service" was not really the customer service number. These were forign call centers. They kept telling me that I could not get the bill zeroed out and I kept asking to speak with a supervisor. Eventually I did get the extra period of billing zeroed out but I had to be quite persistant.

In all honesty I found the forign workers to be more professional and polite. The Americans did not really give a rip from what I could tell. The forigners were like I would be upset as well.

We all need jobs. I think what we need are standardized pay rates and vacation.

__________________

Lotto

http://www.flalottomagic.net/cgi-lo...cgi?welcome-344

Magic
Post Reply

Return to “Wall Street to Main Street”