Financial Express

Prime Minister: 10 million BPO jobs by 2011

October 06, 2006
 

Prime Minister Manmohan Singh said Indian companies could generate more than 10 million new jobs in five years from the global outsourcing business. India accounts for around half the $40 billion in work that is sent overseas, mainly by US and European companies, each year, providing 1.3 million jobs, according to National Association of Software and Service Companies.
 

‘‘New business and service relationships are being forged across continents in a manner unimaginable even a decade ago,’’ Singh told a seminar on trade in services in New Delhi on Thursday. ‘‘I do not see any limits to these dynamic processes.’’
 

Microsoft Corp., International Business Machines Corp. and local software companies such as Tata Consultancy Services Ltd. are hiring more people in India to manage back-office operations and develop software programmes for companies such as General Electric Co., which are sending contracts to countries like India to take advantage of cheaper labour costs.
 

Singh forecast that by 2010, Indian companies could get half the $110 billion in business that will be off-shored. That will create more than 10 million jobs and boost growth in the country’s $775 billion economy by one percentage point each year, Singh said.

The additional jobs will further speed growth in the world’s second-fastest-growing economy. The government is seeking to boost expansion to 10% in the next decade from the average 8.1% of the past three years.

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