Unions push EU for Indian jobs investigation

Unions are calling on the EU to investigate the impact of offshore outsourcing IT jobs on the European economy.

Finance sector union Amicus is today holding a series of high-level meetings with MEPs on the back of last week's announcement by insurance group Aviva that it plans to offshore 2,500 jobs to India next year.

The DTI announced on Friday it will study the impact of offshoring on call centres to debunk the "myth" that UK jobs are being lost overseas, but Amicus claims a European study will reach deeper and reveal the wider picture.

Amicus national secretary for finance said not only the UK is being affected by the offshore outsourcing trend, citing examples of France offshoring to Northern Africa and South America, Germany offshoring to West Africa and Spain offshoring to Central America.

Today's meetings have been organised in conjunction with the Union Network International, which covers 320 unions in 48 countries.

Fleming said the campaign for more research into the impact of offshore outsourcing is not merely about protectionism.

"We are not asking for walls to be 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 tailspin unless they move offshore," he said in a statement.

Deloitte Research predicts two million jobs will migrate from western economies to India by 2008, with a large percentage being skilled business service jobs rather than low-skilled call centre work. But a study by analyst ContactBabel last week warned that companies who offshore may face a customer backlash.