Outsourcing boom creates worker shortage

NEW DELHI, Dec. 25 (UPI) -- India's outsourcing boom has created a chronic shortage of skilled workers, threatening to send future jobs to competitors like China and the Philippines.

ABC reports call centers and outsourcing firms are growing fast, but their HR departments say because of the shortage, many young Indians they interview are unemployable mainly because of their poor English.

A Bombay-based call center manager showed a letter written by an employee that said: "I am in well here and hope you are also in the same well."

The report said India's outsourcing industry employs about 350,000 people but will face a shortfall of 500,000 workers in the next few years, a study by by McKinsey & Co. says.

"If the industry has to go on paying higher and higher salaries to retain the staff it has, costs will rise and India will lose its biggest advantage -- cheap labor," said Saurabh Wig, a former call center sales manager.

The problem with the skilled worker shortage in the second-most populous nation in the world is not quantity but quality, the report said. Many of the 3.6 million graduates churned out every year by Indian universities are considered mediocre, the report said.