Pennsylvania Investment Firm Outsourcing 1,300 U.S. Jobs to Infosys

MOHALI, INDIA: TO GO WITH "INDIA-IT-OUTSOURCING" Indian employees of the Quark call center
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The Vanguard Group, one of the largest financial employers in Pennsylvania, is outsourcing about 1,300 of its American staff to the India-based outsourcing firm Infosys.

This week, the Vanguard Group is outsourcing more than a thousand of its American staffers to Infosys, according to the Philadephia Inquirer. If staffers do not take jobs at Infosys, they must leave to search for a new job.

Industry insiders admit that the U.S. jobs will eventually be outsourced to India and staffers who are getting the boot have said they have been offered bonuses to keep quiet:

But most of Infosys’ 240,000 global staff are based in India, and IT industry veterans and labor observers say it’s inevitable that much of the work will eventually be transfered there, enabling both companies to save due to India’s lower wages. [Emphasis added]

Vanguard is offering a bonus equal to 25 percent of workers’ Vanguard pay, in exchange for waiving any future claims against Vanguard if things don’t go smoothly with the new employer, according to workers who asked for anonymity because they were not authorized to speak for the company. Vanguard spokeswoman Emily Farrell said the company would not comment on details of the plan. [Emphasis added]

Staffers told the Inquirer that Vanguard is already involved in outsourcing American IT jobs — noting the company’s partnering with India-based outsourcing firm Tata Consulting Services to transfer at least 600 U.S. jobs.

This month, Infosys announced their partnering with the Vanguard Group:

Approximately 1,300 Vanguard roles currently supporting the full-service recordkeeping client administration, operations, and technology functions will transition to Infosys. All Vanguard employees currently performing these roles will be offered comparable positions at Infosys in close proximity to Vanguard’s offices in Malvern, PA, Charlotte, NC, and Scottsdale, AZ. Transitioning employees will receive the same salary, comparable benefits for a transition period of 12 months, plus meaningful incentive opportunities. Infosys is dedicated to this business and the transition offers prospects for long-term career growth and development. [Emphasis added]

The outsourcing-offshoring business model allows employers to escape fault when staffers eventually have their jobs outsourced to imported H-1B foreign visa workers or offshored altogether to a foreign country. Staffers are offered new jobs and if they do not accept, they often are unable to get unemployment benefits because they were not technically laid off.

Infosys and Tata are two of the top three importers of H-1B foreign visa workers to the U.S. — displacing likely thousands of Americans from their high-paying white-collar jobs every year.

This year, for instance, Infosys attempted to bring more than 21,400 H-1B foreign visa workers to the country to take U.S. jobs. Tata, similarly, sought to fill more than 11,800 U.S. jobs with H-1B foreign visa workers.

Initially, American workers are transferred to work at outsourcing firms after years of working for their employers directly. Eventually, those Americans are replaced by imported H-1B foreign visa workers and the jobs are usually sent to India after a few years following the start of the outsourcing scheme.

Such schemes help drive up corporate profit margins while hugely cutting labor costs. Less American workers and more outsourced foreign labor equate to salary cuts and slashed benefits, offering big profits for executives.

The outsourcing and offshoring of American jobs to foreign countries is a business model that has been used by multinational corporations with little to no government repercussions. Corporations like AT&THarley-DavidsonRalph LaurenNikeIBM, and others have all laid off Americans in order to send their jobs overseas.

There are about 650,000 H-1B visa foreign workers in the U.S. at any given moment. Americans are often laid off in the process and forced to train their foreign replacements, as highlighted by Breitbart News. More than 85,000 Americans annually potentially lose their jobs to foreign labor through the H-1B visa program.

John Binder is a reporter for Breitbart News. Follow him on Twitter at @JxhnBinder.

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