TIMES NEWS NETWORK[ SATURDAY, JUNE 04, 2005 10:44:48 PM ]
NEW DELHI: Here's a good news for the anti-outsourcing lobby, at least for those in Europe. The ITES sector in India will have openings for nearly 160,000 foreign language professionals by 2010.
What's more, only 40,000 Indians will be able to fill those vacancies. So, thousands of foreigners can look to India for employment, provided they they are willing to relocate.
An Evalueserve study published this week says the total market for language-sensitive work will be worth USD 14.4 billion by 2010. While the IT industry will account for 50 percent of the demand, the rest will be distributed among the BPO and KPO segments.
"These professionals will be required to meet the demand for language-sensitive work that will come to us from Europe and the Far East," says Mohit Srivastav, VP, Business Research, Evalueserve. "As not more than 40,000 trained language professionals will be available within the country, India will have to open its doors to foreigners."
The trend towards reverse brain gain started in the 1990s with companies like Evalueserve, Progeon, Tecnovate, and EXL recruiting foreigners. But as the demand moves north, more and more foreigners will head towards Indian shores.
Arian Guell, for example has come all the way from Spain. A graduate in business management, she has been working at Evalueserve for the past six months.
"It's part of the globalisation wave. I wanted to gain experience in working in India. Of course, the salaries cannot match up to what we get back home but it's good enough for Indian standards," says Guell.
Dana Cacic from Peru with an MBA from the US chose India "since it's the hot spot where all the action is."
What attracts them is not the compensation package alone. It's also the comfortable lifestyle, multiple growth opportunities and the exposure to a fast-growing economy.
Besides, with growing trade the experience of having worked in India greatly enhances job opportunities when they go back.
According to Srivastav, the demand for language-sensitive work will have a ripple effect on the Indian job market as well. "For every one job created for a foreign language professional, two new jobs will be created for Indian English-speaking professionals," he says.
As of now, the demand for German and French is the highest. Italian, Spanish, Dutch, Japanese and Korean are hot too. Portuguese, Swedish and Mandarin form the third tier.
"KPOs and IT companies are the biggest recruiters as most of those who come here, have either business or technical degrees," says Srivastav.
Foreign language professionals are needed primarily for collection of information, working on foreign language documents, voice-based tasks, training, transaction and migration processes, quality management or any other document outputs.
http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/articleshow/msid-1132650,curpg-2.cms