'Onshore offshoring' arrives to fill gaps among IT specialists
Mark Milner
Monday November 21, 2005
The Guardian
British companies are looking abroad to attract information technology specialists to plug skills gaps at home - with India a top destination for industry head-hunters.
About 22,000 IT workers were granted visas to work in Britain over the last year, according to the Association of Technology staffing companies (ATSCo), with 85% coming from India compared with 5% from the US, which came in second place.
ATSCo said its findings, based on Home Office figures, are the first evidence that multinationals recruiting workers in low-cost economies and transferring them to high-cost ones - a phenomenon known as "onshore offshoring" in the US - may have become widespread in Britain.
Ann Swain, ATSCo's chief executive, said: "The transfer of jobs between the UK and India is now very much two-way traffic ... while low-skilled IT jobs continue to be shipped to India, highly skilled India IT professionals are coming to the UK to take up managerial roles.
"Skill shortages continue to be a major pull factor in bringing foreign IT workers to the UK but the concern is that some organisations may be taking advantage of the visa system to import cheap labour."
Ms Swain warned it would be dangerous for companies to become reliant on recruiting from overseas. "There is still plenty of IT talent in the UK currently under-utilised. If British IT professionals don't have the right skills, organisations need to look at their investment in training, rather than relying on overseas skills."
Mark Milner
Monday November 21, 2005
The Guardian
British companies are looking abroad to attract information technology specialists to plug skills gaps at home - with India a top destination for industry head-hunters.
About 22,000 IT workers were granted visas to work in Britain over the last year, according to the Association of Technology staffing companies (ATSCo), with 85% coming from India compared with 5% from the US, which came in second place.
ATSCo said its findings, based on Home Office figures, are the first evidence that multinationals recruiting workers in low-cost economies and transferring them to high-cost ones - a phenomenon known as "onshore offshoring" in the US - may have become widespread in Britain.
Ann Swain, ATSCo's chief executive, said: "The transfer of jobs between the UK and India is now very much two-way traffic ... while low-skilled IT jobs continue to be shipped to India, highly skilled India IT professionals are coming to the UK to take up managerial roles.
"Skill shortages continue to be a major pull factor in bringing foreign IT workers to the UK but the concern is that some organisations may be taking advantage of the visa system to import cheap labour."
Ms Swain warned it would be dangerous for companies to become reliant on recruiting from overseas. "There is still plenty of IT talent in the UK currently under-utilised. If British IT professionals don't have the right skills, organisations need to look at their investment in training, rather than relying on overseas skills."
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