Indian firm offshores to Belfast Indian systems integrator and software developer L&T Infotech is opening its European headquarters in Belfast which will eventually employ 85 people. Sunip Banerjee, Chief Executive of L & T Infotech, said he hoped the centre could expand even further than the 85 posts currently planned. He said the company was impressed by …
Since they all stopped trying to kill each other the heavy subsidies pretty much dried up. I believe subsidies are pretty much in line with any UK local development agency. The biggest probelm I believe is 28% coporation tax in N.I (as in the rest of the UK) but 12.5% 50 miles south in Eire. Hence the LibCon paper to be produced on fixing the N.I. economy, which is much more exposed to these sorts of Eurozone/UK discrepencies that we are in GB.
"Nothing to do with the woeful salary levels compared to the rest of the UK then???"
In fact Invest NI list this as one of our USPs:
"# Salary costs are up to 30 per cent lower than other similar European locations.
# Labour costs are comparably lower than the rest of the UK and Europe"
http://www.investni.com/index/locate/why_northern_ireland/competitive_costs.htm
Good news for the folks back home.
Of course it could be that they will just turn up and spend whatever money the Irish Development Board throw at them and then bugger off to somewhere else when its all gone.
But anybody bringing new jobs into the UK market has to be a good thing
The reason at the time was the 'Norn Iron' accent was seen as being more customer friendly. Nothing to do with the lower wages paid.
Those jobs have since been moved onto the North of England as those accents were seen as being even friendlier that the 'Norn Iron' accents. Again nothing to do with lower wages.
Now those call centre jobs are being moved elsewhere presumable because they have friendlier accents in Indian. Again nothing to do with low wages.
The wages are lower in 'Norn Iron' but so is the cost of living.
"The wages are lower in 'Norn Iron' but so is the cost of living."
Maybe compred to London but not compared to say the North of England. 20 years ago maybe it was true (who'd want to come here after all) but now housing costs have risen massively driven by speculators from the south, energy costs are up to 30% more than GB with no choice of supplier (up to a couple of weeks ago). And if you ever see any of those TV insurance commercials look for the "Excludes Northern Ireland" at the bottom of the screen. They keep their *very best* prices for us!
"He said there were three main reasons for the move. The availability of high-quality talent and low attrition rates were important, as was Belfast's excellent infrastructure."
Well, at least this puts a dent in claims that western firms outsource to india because they're unable to find talent locally.
IIUC, this is a software development unit, not a "call centre".
(Hence, the ref to engineers and the Aunty headline says "s/w dev".
But, yeah, good news. What goes around, come around. In next 10 years, we'll surely see more of that. As India salaries rise and european govts lift their skirts a little.
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