Sometimes all it takes is a nudge (as Richard Thaler might say, although he’d probably be a little more eloquent) to get things moving… Following my call for 2009 predictions in my last blog and Wrap I was pleased to receive a near-cartload of them over the last couple of days. Seems like plenty of you have put your thinking caps on. Predicting the future can be a risky business – I liked a few of these – but you’ve jumped in with aplomb. Fair play to you – and keep ‘em coming. We’ll be publishing the best ones next week just in time for the festive period.
On the subject of predictions: there’s been a plethora of mixed messages in the Indian press this week about various forecasts regarding possible job losses in the BPO sector next year. It’s all got very labyrinthine: see here and here for examples. But it appears there may be more than meets the eye here: in an email exchange earlier today I received the following from an anonymous, but much-appreciated, correspondent:
“…this 250,000 is a number which is not clear i.e. a part of it is supposedly jobs to be lost and a part is new jobs not being created…so, for example, if I had predicted to grow by 1000 heads and ended up getting only 500, I am losing 500 jobs!!! This to me makes no sense. My understanding of this is that this is more political. Most BPO companies have been set up under the old tax regime called the STPI regime. This regime will come to an end in June 2009 meaning all these companies will lose their tax free status from next year onwards. Basically, they want more sops from the Indian government and this includes extending the STPI regime by few more years….and in an election year, the government is willing to listen to some of this….so, the industry is talking of huge job losses to get the attention of the government….unfortunately, there is no data to back this….”
Veeeeeeeeeeeeeeery iiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiinteresting Mr Bond (not his real name)… Anyone with anything to add to this, drop me a line: anonymity respected of course.
Bye for now,
Jamie
Tags: BPO, election, India, Outsourcing, sharedservices, SSON
