Outsourcing is considered as one of the major cost saving efforts by the IT firms in Western countries but how cost saving and efficient it is? Currently, India is the top outsourcing destination in the world. Because of outsourcing to India, entry level IT employees are suffering in the UK. According to the Association of Technology Staffing Companies (ATSCO), the wages of the junior IT employees have not increased in the last five years. However, wages at the managerial level jobs have increased by 20%. The stagnated salary has stopped UK workers from entering into these jobs.
BBC reports:
According to ATSCO's annual skills survey, which compares salaries across more than 75% of the industry, average pay for low-skilled front-line staff has stalled at £18,000 for five years.
By contrast, pay for managers has risen by more than 20% over the period.
The offshoring trend is threatening to deprive the UK IT industry of entry-level staff with the potential, one day, to become managers, the report said.
This is a particular worry, ATSCO said, because senior project management and advisory positions have remained in the UK even when operational roles have been transferred.
Despite concerns about poor customer service and data security lapses in offshore operations, few UK firms have repatriated their technical support teams, it added.
Though outsourcing to India has proven to be very cost-effective it has some demerits as well. In the long run, UK it firms will not find any suitable candidates for managerial level jobs in their country. As the entry level jobs are outsourced to India, the UK workers are being deprived of the experience that would prepare them to assume managerial positions in future.
Ann Swain, chief executive ATSCO, says, ‘It is like removing the bottom rung of the ladder.’ I agree with her very much. Outsourcing to India is saving lots of money but the UK firms should also bring under consideration at what cost they are saving this money. The entry level jobs are shifted to India but managerial level jobs are remaining in the UK. How can the IT workers in UK prepare themselves for managerial level jobs if they can not get into entry level jobs and gain the necessary experience that would prepare them to take over the post of managers in future?
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