The Hippie Trail Leads to Telemarketing

Kerry Howley | February 23, 2005

This week's Economist (sub. req.) highlights an unexpected source of call center workers in India: Europeans happy to work for Indian wages. Here's a snippet:

Having cut costs in the British business, Prashant Sahni, Tecnovate's boss, wanted to expand across the Channel. But India lacked the language skills. When people had the language skills, they were unwilling or unqualified to do the work. "The key was to hire foreigners," says Mr Sahni.

So the company flies in gap year students and others who are willing to work for low wages just for the chance to live in Delhi. They require a year-long contract, but if the trend catches on in a more flexible form, it will probably turn into an attractive option for the countless backpackers traveling through India and Nepal who stop and work for three months every time they run out of cash. The plan seems to be working for now:

Tecnovate says its turnover rates are half the industry average of 35-40% a year. Mr Sahni says this is due in part to the foreigners, three-quarters of them young women, who make the place seem "cool."

Comments

s.m. koppelman|2.23.05 @ 1:53PM|#

Well, all right. The backpackers' spent wages go into the local economy, so there's considerable positive local effect even though the employees are imported transients.

But in hiring Westerners in India -- with its rampant child labor, poor working conditions, fewer years of cumpulsory education, virtually nonexistent environmental control, and other factors that give employers a massive advantage over the aspiring employee in the labor market and over competitors in countries with breathable air and potable tap water -- doesn't this exert further downward pressure on Indian wages and workers' bargaining position?

And in the end, by transferring jobs that essentially require native-speaker Europeans to such a place, isn't it an indirect way of rolling back many of those very things that vastly improved life and increased social mobility on the lower economic rungs in the West?

|2.23.05 @ 1:57PM|#

"The Hippie Trail Leads to Telemarketing"

If the headline had read: "The Hippie Trails Lead to Telemarketing", I would have posted a comment that only said, Trippy!"

|2.23.05 @ 2:34PM|#

s.m.k.:

Haven't you heard about the vibrant service industry in India that teaches subcontinentals how to adjust their accent so that a housewife in Des Moines or Manchester can understand them? If the Indian-based firms are using the foreigners to train their other staff, then that would be a form of productivity-enhancing skill transfer.

One has to be careful with this, though. If one's colloquial NorthAm English gets too good, one might be disqualified from a position as a Teaching Assistant at a U.S. college. :)

Kevin

|2.23.05 @ 2:47PM|#

"...three-quarters of them young women, who make the place seem "cool."

Sounds more like a Booty Call Center to me.

|2.23.05 @ 2:50PM|#

s.m koppelman -

"But in hiring Westerners in India -- with its rampant child labor, poor working conditions, fewer years of cumpulsory education, virtually nonexistent environmental control, and other factors that give employers a massive advantage over the aspiring employee in the labor market and over competitors in countries with breathable air and potable tap water" blah blah blah.

I can spot at least two errors in that statement.
1. Call-centres as also other high-tech industry facilities in India tend to be near state-of-the art, often even by US standards. And especially so if they are subsidiaries of MNC's. You may be right about "working conditions" in butcher shops, though.
2. What exactly do you mean when you claim that "employers have a massive adavantage over labour" ? Turnover rates in high tech are as high as 50 % (the article claims it's 40 % on average) & there's been serious wage-inflation in the past few years. "Old economy" industries tend to be heavily unionized and there are all kinds of archaic labour laws around to prevent lay-off's and closures.
You seem to have your devoloping/third-world countries mixed up.

|2.23.05 @ 3:08PM|#

One has to be careful with this, though. If one's colloquial NorthAm English gets too good, one might be disqualified from a position as a Teaching Assistant at a U.S. college.

Ha! That's the post of the day.

|2.23.05 @ 3:09PM|#

Next thing you know you'll start heaing about Indians comlaining about "insourcing."

|2.23.05 @ 5:50PM|#

Quick, someone alert Lou Dobbs!

mobile|2.23.05 @ 6:08PM|#

It's affecting us kids, too! Me and my friends started our own call-center business. We were trying to be responsible and make money, you know? But then these people came along and, and now we're out of work too!

Oh, they tuk err jobs!

|2.23.05 @ 6:54PM|#

I can't wait to hear some Indians complain about the cheap foreign labor staffing those call centers.

|2.24.05 @ 1:12AM|#

I don't know, kevrob. If I had a dime for every time I got a call from someone identifying themselves as "Sue" or "John" or "Larry" yet sounding like they were on semester break from MIT (the Maharashtra Institute of Technology, that is), I'd have enough saved to start my own call center.

It's really kind of insulting that these people are instructed to pander to my supposed bigotry and xenophobia as an Amuracan, when the fact is that call centers and tech support around here in the Northeast is full of Sunils and Kumars and Laksmis.