Orange to outsource 1,500 jobs to India

Tuesday, 11 January 2005, 20:30 IST
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NEW DELHI: Orange, Britain's largest mobile phone operator, has announced plans to outsource 1,500 jobs, or 12 percent of its British workforce, to India as part of a drive by its parent company, France Telecom, to cut costs. The company is beginning trials with two specialist sub-contractors, Convergys and Vertex, in which 215 call centre workers in Delhi will answer customer service inquiries during peak periods. An Orange spokesman told the media: "A final figure on the numbers we intend to outsource will not be decided until these trials are complete. The steps we are taking will not lead to site closures and redundancies. "This outsourcing is intended to help Orange Customer Services cope with high demand and ensure the company continues to offer customers the high level of service they have come to expect over the last 10 years." Call centre staff make up half of Orange UK's 12,000-strong workforce, with the lion's share working in the North-East in Darlington, Peterlee, and North Tyneside. The group is also making 200 staff redundant from the technical department at its Bristol headquarters, where it has offered some information technology staff one-year salary deals. According to the Communication Worker's Union, 33 large companies - including Barclays, British Airways, LloydsTSB, Prudential, and Reuters - have collectively outsourced 52,000 jobs serving British customers. The Confederation of British Industry recently warned there would be no jobs for unskilled workers in Britain in 10 years because of outsourcing, while Amicus has predicted that 200,000 jobs could be lost to offshore outsourcing by 2010. Orange UK's plans could cause further bitterness towards France Telecom, which some insiders say considers its British operations a soft target for job losses because the British unions are less powerful than those in France.
Source: IANS
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