Amicus to demand new outsourcing study

Tuesday, 9 December 2003 12:36 AM

Finance sector union Amicus today will press MEPS to back a deeper inquiry into the "outsourcing" of call centre jobs to India and other Asian countries.

Amicus said it wanted the inquiry to be more comprehensive than the study announced last week by Trade and Industry Secretary Patricia Hewitt.

Consequently, it would be asking Theo Bouwman MEP, chair of the all-party Employment and Social Affairs Committee, to launch the European Parliament inquiry.

In the light of research from Deloitte, the consultancy, the union fears two million jobs may go from western countries to India by the year 2008, many of which will be skilled business service jobs rather than low skilled call centre work.

The national secretary of trade union Amicus, David Fleming, said outsourcing started off as a trickle but was now becoming a "deluge" of jobs leaving the UK and going to India, the Philippines and elsewhere."

The meeting, organised in conjunction with UNI (Union Network International), comes as Norwich Union, a unit of Aviva, a large insurance group, last week said it would cut 2,350 jobs in the UK in 2004, transferring administration and call centre tasks to India.

Ms Hewitt said it was a "myth" that firms moving call centres and other operations abroad would create widespread unemployment.

The independent 'Sector Study into call centres' DTI study is due to report in March.

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