Firms plan overseas job moves

One in ten private sector employers plan to outsource jobs abroad this year in a bid to grow staff levels at a lower cost, a new report suggests.

According to the Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development (CIPD), almost half of IT firms, and 17% of manufacturing companies, plan to relocate some jobs to other countries.

Half of these jobs will go to India while a third will go to Eastern Europe, the report found.

“The private sector will be dealing with ongoing concerns about productivity, wage costs and inflation alongside the spectre of deep public spending cuts,” said John Philpott, CIPD chief economic advisor. 

“With many private sector companies looking to move jobs abroad in an attempt to find the right balance between skills, quality and cost reduction, the jobs market needs all the continued support and protection it is getting from the government.”

The report also suggested that any growth in the UK jobs market as a whole will be entirely driven by the private sector as the full extent of public sector cuts begins to emerge.

Philpott added: “Despite the jobs market proving resilient in recent months while, the number of redundancies has eased in the private sector and cuts yet to be felt in the public sector, this represents a mere pause for breath.”

© Crimson Business Ltd. 2010