Unions fear of flood of financial jobs to India

Thursday, 15 January 2004, 20:30 IST
Printer Print Email Email
LONDON: Workers unions in Britain believe there will soon be a 'stampede' of financial jobs leaving Britain for India and other low-cost economies. The latest to join the India outsourcing bandwagon is banking major Abbey National, which is shutting its customer services centres in Warrington and Derby and transferring the 400 jobs to Bangalore. Insurer Axa also announced that up to 230 staff in its general insurance division were likely to be laid off as a result of plans to move posts to India. "There is a stampede of jobs leaving the UK like this and the UK government seems unable to stop it," said Linda Rolph, general secretary of Abbey National Group Union. She said her members were helpless to prevent the transfer of jobs to lower-cost economies. A spokesman said the bank would be looking at "other processes and operations" which might be suitable for outsourcing. "We have taken some tough decisions today absolutely necessary to the health of Abbey's future and for giving our customers a better service at a competitive price," said Abbey chief executive Luqman Arnold. Axa already has two back-office centres in Bangalore and is in the process of setting up another facility in Pune, near Mumbai. Next month it will undertake a feasibility study to investigate the potential for moving "business processes" to its Axa Business Services operation in India, a spokesman said. "The precise implications of any offshoring strategy will be announced once these investigations have been concluded later in the year but are likely to account for up to 230 jobs," he said. It is not yet clear where the axe will fall. Axa Insurance employs staff in more than 20 British locations. Peter Hubbard, Axa Insurance's chief executive, said the company was continually looking at ways to become a stronger player in an increasingly competitive marketplace. "We are being up front with our employees that offshoring some jobs to Axa Business Services in India is one of the options," he said. The move is part of a "major refocus" of the French-owned group's general insurance business strategy that will see a further 470 jobs axed. About 220 of these will be lost from the company's call centres in Darlington and Morecambe over the next nine months. "Operational efficiencies", across the general insurance business will account for the remaining 250 jobs.
Source: IANS
siliconindia