PASSAGE TO INDIA

A few years ago I wrote a piece for the Express about the practice of outsourcing jobs, especially to India. Back then, the focus was largely on call-centre jobs but it seemed to me that once the principle was established, it would be bound to spread to other areas and that, unless there were strong physical and geographical reasons why your job had to be done in the UK, it was at risk of outsourcing, I ended the piece asking "Is your job safe? Is mine?"

I mention this now because just last week, AOL, where I worked until August, told its editorial staff that many of their jobs are to be outsourced to India. As I understand it, dozens of UK web editorial people will be made redundant and the AOL UK sites will be managed in Bangalore (I think the same is happening to AOL France and Germany). Grim news for my former colleagues, who have endured a series of 'restructures' over the years, and a bit of a first, as far as I am aware. I've never heard of editorial/journalism jobs being outsourced in this way and it will be interesting to see what effect it has on the quality of what's on offer at AOL.

Delicious

Digg

StumbleUpon

Reddit

Subscribe to RSS Feed