Christmas carols are on the anvil in the United Kingdom to protest against jobs that are being shifted to India and other low-wage nations.
Insurance sector employees, whose jobs are on the line due to outsourcing, are joining a Christmas choir for a musical protest, said a BBC News report.
BBC News reported that members of the Amicus union of workers plan to stage a carol service before the London office of insurance giant Aviva, which plans to shift about 2,500 jobs from the UK to India.
"Amicus said research showed most people considered whether a firm had switched jobs to countries such as India before they bought insurance or products," reported BBC News.
"Amended versions of carols will be sung to highlight the loss of jobs," the report added.
Most companies are outsourcing customer service and back office operations to nations where services and human talent are of good quality and the costs are very low.
Companies said that by moving call centres and customer service operations abroad, they benefit from lower wages and a better-educated workforce, said BBC News.
"But some observers have questioned the benefits of moving telephone jobs overseas, and there has been an angry backlash from unions whose workers are affected," , said BBC News.
"People choose their Christmas presents very carefully, and our research has shown they also put as much thought into choosing insurance policies and that companies without thought to the future will be penalised by UK shoppers. "We want companies to be open and transparent about their business decisions," BBC News quoted Amicus national officer David Fleming as having said.
Amicus said its research had shown 200,000 UK jobs will be lost by 2008 as part of an 'exodus' of two million jobs from Western economies to India, said BBC News.
In November, British insurance firm Norwich Union told staff it would cut 2,350 jobs in the UK and export the work to India, said BBC News.
Parent firm Aviva said operating costs in India were typically 30-40 per cent lower than in the UK and that the move would also help it provide 24-hour services, said BBC News.
Other firms looking at moving customer service jobs abroad include Lloyds TSB, which has a call centre in Newcastle, and National Rail Enquiries.
