India first choice of UK firms for outsourcing jobs

LONDON: Two-thirds of British companies intending to outsource jobs offshore prefer India over China. This is the finding of a study jointly carried out by the Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development here and the accounting firm KPMG. The remaining one-third will go to China and eastern Europe.

The corporates are seeking to export call centre, IT and finance jobs abroad. A significant number of such employers called on the UK government to rethink the immigration cap imposed by home minister Theresa May in the present Conservative-Liberal Democrat coalition government, illustrating that one out of 10 jobs in the UK's private sector will be relocated abroad in the next year.

CIPD and KPMG's Labour Market Outlook research claimed a decline in the qualities of those who are emerging out of the British education system, which is driving companies to look overseas. Among the employers questioned, 42% said literacy skills of British graduates had fallen over the past five years, compared with 6% who said they had improved. For finance, the figures were 35% and 5% and for communication and interpersonal skills 34% and 19%.

This, despite some of Britain's universities ranked among top five or top 10 in the world. And per capita, the UK still wins the highest number of Nobel prizes in the sciences. Many firms are also looking to hire people from outside the UK. Gerwyn Davies, author of the CIPD-KPMG report, said, "The proposed introduction of a migration cap comes at a time when many employers are still struggling to fill skilled vacancies."