Germany's Siemens will move most of the 15,000 software programming jobs from its offices in the US and Western Europe to locations such as India, China and Eastern Europe, a company official said Monday.
"Siemens has recognized that a huge amount of software development activity needs to be moved from high-cost countries to low-cost countries," Anil Laud, managing director of Siemens Information Systems, the group's information technology subsidiary in India, told reporters.
About 3,000 of the 30,000 software programmers that Siemens employs worldwide are already in India. The number of Indian employees will go up by at least 30 percent each year, Laud said. It could be much higher if the Indian center manages to glean the bulk of those overseas jobs.
Laud declined to reveal the exact number of jobs that will be relocated, or how long the process will take.
"This is the general direction. Details will be worked out," he said.
Scores of Western firms have farmed out software development and back-office work to India and other countries where wages are significantly lower. India is expected to earn US$13 billion from such services for the fiscal year ending next month.
The job shift has sparked a backlash from unions and politicians in Western nations.
Siemens programmers worldwide might lose their jobs, once the planned shift is implemented.
"It is a problem. They could lose their jobs," said J. Schubert, a Siemens spokesman.
"The Indian subsidiary will fight hard to get a portion of the pie," he said.
Laud said Siemens Information Systems, which has a development center in Bangalore, India's technology hub, hoped to get software development work for Siemens' customers in the telecommunications, health care, transportation and energy industries.
He said China is the "dark horse" in the software outsourcing industry, and might get a chunk of the jobs too.
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