H16272
Headlines : InternationalIndia's outsourcing industry takes toll on workforce
Often working evening shifts, dealing with angry and rude callers from Europe and the U.S., outsourcing is negatively impacting many Indian workers.
In a survey of 1,749 outsourcing industry workers, 32 percent complained of sleep disorders, 25 percent had digestive troubles, and 20 percent reported eyesight problems. Currently one in ten Indians aged 35 years or more is prone to heart attack. Projections suggest that 35 percent of deaths among India’s working age population over the next 25 years will be attributable to heart disease. The figure is 12 percent for the U.S.
Not addressed is the process whereby capitalists seek out the cheapest labor available to get the job done, irrespective of and largely without paying for the psychological, sociological, biological, and often environmental consequences of outsourcing.
[Posted By egalitarian77]Republished from CNN.com
NEW DELHI, India (AP) — The job came with a good salary, and good perks. But, 26-year-old Vaibhav Vats will tell you, it was doing him no good. His weight had grown to 265 pounds and he was missing out on social life as he worked long overnight hours at a call center. Eventually, he quit.
“You are making nice money. But the tradeoff is also big,” said Vats, who spent nearly two years at IBM Corp.‘s call center arm in India, answering customer calls from the United States.
Call centers and other outsourced businesses such as software writing, medical transcription and back-office work employ more than 1.6 million young men and women in India, mostly in their 20s and 30s, who make much more than their contemporaries in most other professions.
They are, however, facing sleep disorders, heart disease, depression and family discord, according to doctors and several industry surveys.
Experts warn the brewing crisis could undermine the success of India’s hugely profitable outsourcing industry that earns billions in dollars annually and has shaped much of the country’s transformation into an emerging economic power.
Posted by egalitarian77
1.6 million young men and women in India, mostly in their 20s and 30s
this a little more than a tenth of one percent of India’s total population, very insignificant population-wise, and something tells me their stress problems are nothing compared to the hardship that the hundreds of millions of improvrished Indians face every day