End of Mail on Rails

[Tomnick]

National Rail Enquiries call centres seem to have been a fairly bad replacement for local enquiries numbers - one reason being the lack of local knowledge that's fairly important. So how can we expect someone in India, who may or may not have travelled on and have a good knowledge of our railways, to find the best route from Thornton Abbey to Lelant Saltings not travelling via London and with cross-platform interchanges where possible?

[johndibben]

For what use they are, Mars would not appear far enough away to send them

[GoodForNothing]

Press 1 to hear the main menu
Press 2 to hear American pie by Madonna
Press 3 to hear Billie Jean by Michael Jackson
Press 4 to hear Vivaldis four seasons
Press 5 to hear Walking on the moon by The Police
Press 6 to hear Save all your kisses for me by Brotherhood of man
Press 7 to hear The ketchup song by Las ketchup
Press 8 to hear Grandad by Clive Dunn
Press 9 to hear Making your mind up by Bucks fizz
Press 10 to hear Dancing queer by Abba
Or press 11 to hear this menu again.... and again and again and again

etc etc etc

(Not my personal choice or tastes I hasten to add !!)

[Tomnick]

And then you find that they all connect you to an operator anyway! Probably their way of selecting which operator should take the call

[sp762]

There was a Dilbert last year -something like this:

Dilbert: I just found out we outsourced the Callcentre to India
Pointy Haired Boss: So?
D: They outsourced it to the Solomon Islands?
PHB: So?
D: They outsourced it to Canada!
PHB: And?
D: They outsourced it back to us... what does that tell you?

PHB: We should put our prices up?

[anakha]

And it smacks more of exploitation of the good people in India and the Far East than a genuine attempt to spread wealth around the globe.

Actually, the move of jobs such as those in call centres benefits the country the jobs are moving from and the country the jobs are moving to. The McKinsey Institute ran a series of presentations last year in which they said that this movement of jobs benefits both countries involved in it - it is a win win situation. For example, they quoted that, for every $1 of costs that US companies moved overseas (moving call centres etc.) in 2002 the US benefited by about $1.14 and India (as an example recipient country) benefited by $0.33.

Interestingly, Procter & Gamble (a large American company) has centres in Newcastle & Egham which have over 2,500 jobs between them – funny how UK workers aren’t being exploited by this US company which has moved jobs from the US to the UK.

We don't exactly have full employment in the UK and many of these Call Centres are located in areas which have already been ravaged by the loss of manufacturing and production industries (Scotland, South Wales, Northern England) and were heralded as providing replacement jobs.

The point overlooked here though is that employment in call centres in the UK isn’t actually falling. In 2002 there were something like 660,000 call centre workers in the UK and in 2003 it was reckoned there were actually 5% more. In 2003 a survey of companies that are members of the Call Centre Association found that 66% of those companies said their workforces had grown in the previous year and almost half said they expected more increases in jobs in the next year.

Additionally although jobs in call centres make up a higher proportion of the total in Scotland and northern England, southern England has more than twice as many call-centre workers as Scotland.

Patricia Hewitt (Government minister of trade and industry) said that it was a “mythâ€

[Goingnorth]

And it smacks more of exploitation of the good people in India and the Far East than a genuine attempt to spread wealth around the globe.

Actually, the move of jobs such as those in call centres benefits the country the jobs are moving from and the country the jobs are moving to. The McKinsey Institute ran a series of presentations last year in which they said that this movement of jobs benefits both countries involved in it - it is a win win situation. For example, they quoted that, for every $1 of costs that US companies moved overseas (moving call centres etc.) in 2002 the US benefited by about $1.14 and India (as an example recipient country) benefited by $0.33.

Interestingly, Procter & Gamble (a large American company) has centres in Newcastle & Egham which have over 2,500 jobs between them – funny how UK workers aren’t being exploited by this US company which has moved jobs from the US to the UK.

We don't exactly have full employment in the UK and many of these Call Centres are located in areas which have already been ravaged by the loss of manufacturing and production industries (Scotland, South Wales, Northern England) and were heralded as providing replacement jobs.

The point overlooked here though is that employment in call centres in the UK isn’t actually falling. In 2002 there were something like 660,000 call centre workers in the UK and in 2003 it was reckoned there were actually 5% more. In 2003 a survey of companies that are members of the Call Centre Association found that 66% of those companies said their workforces had grown in the previous year and almost half said they expected more increases in jobs in the next year.

Additionally although jobs in call centres make up a higher proportion of the total in Scotland and northern England, southern England has more than twice as many call-centre workers as Scotland.

Patricia Hewitt (Government minister of trade and industry) said that it was a “mythâ€

[bigvern]

Well I still think the only people who benefit from this are the Directors and shareholders.

And Rob is correct about part time work - round here that's all there seems to be, 12 hours a week or 16 hours a week for typical shop jobs.

Sorry but the Government should be putting its own people and the needs of this country first - that's not being xenophobic, simply patriotic as unfashionable as that may be these days.

[Kevo00]

Actually, the move of jobs such as those in call centres benefits the country the jobs are moving from and the country the jobs are moving to. The McKinsey Institute ran a series of presentations last year in which they said that this movement of jobs benefits both countries involved in it - it is a win win situation. For example, they quoted that, for every $1 of costs that US companies moved overseas (moving call centres etc.) in 2002 the US benefited by about $1.14 and India (as an example recipient country) benefited by $0.33.

I think that misses BigVern's point entirely as the issue here is not really the UK's wealth as a whole - that report does not mention who gets the $1.14, but it goes without saying that it won't be the person that lost their job to the person being paid less than $0.33 in India. I totally fail to see how the $1.14 really benefits the ordinary person at all when it will simply go into the pockets of the company and subsequently its owners. Most likely they will even manage to evade paying the full tax due on that $1.14.

Incidentally I would like to know where all these high value jobs are myself, speaking as a recent university graduate living in Durham where probably over half of jobs advertised are not full time and most of the rest are below my education level. I guess they are probably all in Slough or somewhere.

[micksasse]

(a) Superb parody at the start of this thread.

(b) It's highly debatable whether countries such as India gain from this 'social dumping' (i.e. movement of low-skill work to countries with lower wages and fewer legal protections for employees); there is, of course, a degree of income by way of wages, which is spent.

However, the work itself creates little or no value for India itself - remember, the type of Indians who end of doing these jobs are educated & skilled people, who could be contributing to the development of their country's economy and infrastructure.

Furthermore, by definition, the corporations concerned are not Indian-owned, and pay little in the way of taxes to benefit India. Kevo00 and BigVern have hit the nail on the head: organisations like McKinsey (a management consultancy - can we just remember who pays them, and what they're there for?!) exist to protect the interests of, to use politically-incorrect but convenient terminology, the capitalist class - it's completely meaningless to say "India [or anyone else for that matter] benefits by x%", as what they mean is that individuals (or more accurately corporations) in those countries benefit from the cost-cutting. Which is utterly self-evident to the point of the bleeding obvious. And the bleeding obvious is, as we all know, the stock-in-trade of the management consultancy 'profession'.

http://www.mckinsey.com

In any event, this trend won't last long: in a few years, Indian wages will have risen, so the social dumping will move to, say, Bangladesh - again a country which you might say should have better things to do than be shouted at by frustrated commuters from Batley. The same phenomenon happened in manufacturing: Made In England became Made In West Germany, which became Made In Hong Kong, and it's now Made In China - and I'm guessing India will be next when China becomes too expensive. Globalisation's at best a zero-sum game.

Do I say 'end of rant' now? Probably.

[jjules]

Sorry but the Government should be putting its own people and the needs of this country first - that's not being xenophobic, simply patriotic as unfashionable as that may be these days.

I agree that it has become most unfashionable to be patriotic. Nevertheless, I'd rather be patriotic than the sucking-up people that are everywhere.

Rule Brittania!

[ianmacmillan]

This goverment is very patriotic.............


TO AMERICA

[bigvern]

Well I wouldn't want to get too far off topic on Call Centres, which were included as an example of the *perception* I (and I'm sure many others) have about how the Government is managing this country. I'm not in a position to verify or dispute the various figures quoted other than to record my disagreement at the policy of exporting jobs, even if others may not agree.

Back on topic, apart from yesterday (Sat) we didn't get our post once before 1pm all last week.

[jjules]

We don't get post at home until then anyway. I must query what time it arrives now, as I haven't looked lately...

[Easilyconfused]

In any event, this trend won't last long: in a few years, Indian wages will have risen, so the social dumping will move to, say, Bangladesh - again a country which you might say should have better things to do than be shouted at by frustrated commuters from Batley. The same phenomenon happened in manufacturing: Made In England became Made In West Germany, which became Made In Hong Kong, and it's now Made In China - and I'm guessing India will be next when China becomes too expensive. Globalisation's at best a zero-sum game.

Do I say 'end of rant' now? Probably.

In fact the problems are already starting to develop in India. Apparently so much IT programming and support has been outsourced there that the wages of the really skilled developers are shooting up. The companies can not recruit enough developers either direct from university or on the open market so the comanies are setting up subsiduaries in Vietnam and China etc.

The Indian press is suitably unamused by this "moving of our jobs to Vietnam"