Inquiry plea over call centre job cuts

A leading union has called for an inquiry by the European Union into the economic impact of call centre and other jobs being outsourced to India.

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

Research has suggested that two million jobs will migrate from western economies to India by the year 2008, most of which will be skilled business service jobs rather than low skilled call centre work.

Union officials were meeting MEPs and will follow up the talks with a European conference in the New Year.

David Fleming, national officer of Amicus, said: "We are not asking for walls to put up around Europe. We want to develop a strategy to deal with changing technology and to safeguard against offshore providers who are trying to put the fear of death into finance companies by telling them their share price will go into a tail spin unless they move offshore.

"The USA has already offshored 200,000 finance sector jobs in the last 12 months and 8,500 have left the UK since October. This is a global issue and we need global solutions.

"Europe has a massive role to play in helping emerging economies and we applaud any company with a commitment to corporate social responsibility at home and abroad."

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