LogicaCMG leeks Welsh jobs news

LogicaCMG announced on Thursday that it will be creating 750 new jobs in Wales.

The roles will be located in its service centre in Bridgend, in Glamorgan, handling LogicaCMG's onshore BPO work as well as providing a contact centre and data centre. The new jobs will chiefly employ skilled workers such as lawyers and technicians.

The onshore facilities will be integrated with LogicaCMG's facilities abroad, including its Indian, Malaysian and Czech arms, for 24-hour customer support, with clients dealing with a UK outsourcing and BPO hub that will coordinate and manage the overall service management.

Kirk Smith, a senior outsourcing strategist for LogicaCMG, said that the decision to locate the new facility in the UK rather than abroad came as part of the overall trend to keep 'middle office' functions more in the customer's control.

"With back-office processing, taking advantage of the lower costs makes a lot of sense, but when the processing is more complex, customers perceive that it might be more risky and they want greater control of their outsourcing," he told silicon.com.

While the Malaysian and Czech facilities employ relatively few people compared to the planned Welsh expansion, LogicaCMG's Indian workforce will also be enjoying a boost in the near future, with an almost tenfold increase in its staff numbers from the current level of 150 to about 1200 during the next two years, according to the Financial Express in India. The lion's share will be programmers but some of the new workers will be call centre agents, the report said.

Smith said that the company would be looking to expand globally but could not confirm any new hires in India.