Call centers leaving India

[@meric@nwom@n]

And coming back to the US.

http://articles.moneycentral.msn.com/In ... =1,1794247

Maybe it will help some folks.

Now if we could just get manufacturing to come home.

[Gob]

Blame the high unemployment level in the U.S., which has driven down wages. People are willing to accept less money and are more open to working in low-skilled jobs in customer support.

That's not the case in India, where wages are up 10% this year, the FT reports. Senior outsourcing managers are now asking for more money than the global average.

Dear God, you know things are grim when you're doing Indians out of work by undercutting them on wages!!!

However, it's a two way process..

According to an industry estimate, more than 60,000 Indian professionals went back to their country last year alone, a majority of them IT professionals.

Years ago, the Silicon Valley beckoned the best IT minds from India.

But the exchange of ideas and innovations after nearly two decades has reversed the trend.

The charm of the US is wearing off. India's own Silicon Valleys are now at the forefront of innovation and they are attracting its shining lights back home from the US.

There was a time when nearly 90% of graduates passing out of the prestigious Indian Institutes of Technology (IITs) headed to the West. But not any more.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-south-asia-10614936

[Lord Jim]

There's something about this that just doesn't seem right to me....

I have a hard time believing that the wage paid to Indian workers in call centers is now higher than even the US minimum wage...

If it's cheaper now to have the call centers domestically, then there have got to be some other significant cost considerations involved.....

Like domestic call center operations cutting their profit margins to be more competitive, or the costs involved in having to handle the high screw up rate with the Indian service, or increases in government taxes or fees for the Indian call centers, etc.,

There's got to be something else involved here than just the cost of labor.

[Gob]

My money would be on the number of complaints from people not being able to understand the accent of the call centre person.

[dales]

accents?

you talk of accents?

TooFunny!

[dales]

i know i'm gonna get it now.

[@meric@nwom@n]

They do voble the vubbleyews a bit.

[rubato]

Both trends have been going on for several years now; educated Indians returning to India and call centers leaving, or not being established there.


The latter is driven in part by the fact that there are only so many people in India who are adequately bilingual in English and that group are generally educated and command much higher wages than the 'local' median. That group has an expanding range of options as Indian business becomes ever-more global and English-speaking Indians are needed to staff R&D centers distribution and manufacturing centers connected to the US, the UK, and many other countries where the lingua franca of business is frankly English. So the comparison is between people who command higher wages and expanding opportunities in India vs the lowest in the US. Call-center jobs in either place are generally dead-end employment with essentially zero chance of improvement.

Educated Indians have been flowing back by the thousands for a variety of reasons, one of them being that very few of them went to IIT or medical school and are thus in the true talent elite which have the highest level of success in the US (or elsewhere). The vastly larger group of capable, but not scintillating, people discovered that their level in the US was a professional salary but not great wealth and $40,000 in India buys a house full of servants and a lifestyle they can never have in the US for $100,000/yr. Family ties pull back some more. And some ambitious and creative types look back home and see opportunities for creating a business in an economy with much greater growth potential and not as much competition than the relatively mature US economy.

There has always been a rejection/return rate for each tranche of US immigrants; historically, we attract and keep the best of the best.

yrs,
rubato

[Jarlaxle]

Maybe it's my exposure to heavy accents, but I have never had any problem understanding an Indian or Filipino guy at a call centre.

Actually, the hardest accent to understand i heard last year reserving a hotel room in Smerset, Kentucky. The guy had a very heavy accent that was about equal parts Kentucky...and Australia. Yikes.

[dales]

That Scottish brouge is all but understandable.

AT&T tech support hired one.

A very intelligent and patient gentleman, his English was hard on my ears.

Korean is easier.

[Gob]

accents?

you talk of accents?

TooFunny!

I don't have an accent, you all do though.

Funnily enough the last time I was back in the UK, my mother was complaining about being harassed by Indian telemarketers; "OOh there's one in particular, a woman, she's says; "Mrs Th-om-as we-e wo-uld like to ma-ke you an off-er...""

During my stay I happened to catch a call off this woman, she sounded exactly like my mother.

[dales]

Agreed - Gob.

Unless you speak the Queen's English?