Two-way jobs traffic as Indian firms set up in UK

Fast-growing Indian companies in the United Kingdom have pumped in about £300 million into the British economy to date and their investment levels may increase as India becomes more prosperous, Sunil Mehta, vice-chairman of the National Association of Software and Service Companies, has said.

According to Mehta, 441 Indian firms have set up operations in the UK by the end of 2002, most of them in the information technology arena.

A survey by Nasscom and Evalueserve indicated that the passage of jobs between India and the UK is not a one-way street.

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Mehta believes that about 12,000 jobs have moved from India to the UK, mostly in the services and IT industries.

Among leading Indian companies in the UK is Wipro Technologies, which provides British companies with business processing operations in India.

Wipro has grown rapidly as British and American companies increasingly rely on its services to shift jobs overseas. The report states that Wipro employs 590 people in the UK and that its European revenue in 2002 reached £121 million.

Also highlighted are the operations of Infosys, another Indian IT company that has made rapid progress on the back of companies moving jobs to India.

Infosys Technologies opened in the UK in 1996. According to the company's latest accounts, its European revenue reached £75 million in 2002. The company has 450 employees in the UK.

The third Indian company is the Tata Consultancy Service, which has been in the UK since 1975. Its clients include Bank of Scotland, British Telecom, and Transco.

Tata has 1,000 employees in the UK.

Despite the report's positive outlook, there is still concern among the UK opposition parties that jobs being moved offshore will have a long-term detrimental impact on the employment market in the UK.

Unions, particularly those whose members work in the financial sector, are becoming increasingly anxious to curtail the job losses.

According to a research commissioned by Nasscom, Britain will face a massive skills shortage by the end of this decade.

Britain's ageing population and slow birth rate will leave the country short of 700,000 workers in health and social care, retailing and financial services by 2010.