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WORLD WATCH
But speaking ahead of the CBI's national conference in Birmingham, Jones launched a robust defence of globalisation and outsourcing, saying it boosted productivity and profits, enabling companies to create better-paid highly skilled jobs. More jobs to be offshored According to a survey of 150 firms carried out by the CBI, more than half say the pressure to move jobs abroad has increased in the last two years. However, Jones repeatedly refused to be drawn on whether he would sanction cutting jobs at the CBI's London headquarters and moving them overseas. A third of those surveyed said they had already moved some activities overseas and almost a quarter said they were considering doing so in the future. Of those who had taken the step, almost 90 per cent said it had been successful. The vast majority, more than nine out of 10, said the move was designed to cut costs, with the bulk of the outsourcing involving manufacturing jobs. But the survey said firms were increasingly moving service functions such as R&D, IT, financial services, accounts and human resources, overseas. Need to boost skills "The day will come very shortly when there won't be work for unskilled people, I would say within the next 10 years," Jones said. "This is coming down the track and certainly within a scholastic generation." Ian McCafferty, the CBI's Chief Economic Adviser, said UK companies had created roughly 400,000 jobs overseas over the last decade. He said this had led to 250,000 job losses in Britain, but that half a million jobs had been created over the same period. "It is short-sighted simply to see this as a bad thing," Jones said. "Offshoring means greater productivity and more efficient goods and services. It also means UK jobs will be of higher quality, more skilled and in many cases more secure." But he said the 3.5 million people who were functionally illiterate in the UK would find it impossible to get work within 10 years. "We have to equip these people," he said. "We need something done urgently at the secondary level and something urgent done for the workforce so that businesses can be socially inclusive." Red tapism to blame The survey showed red tape was a growing reason for outsourcing. Jones said the rising cost of compliance with regulations was "starting to drive firms abroad". But he conceded that bureaucracy in countries such as India was immensely more complex than in the UK. The TUC said jobs were not offshored because Britain was over-regulated. It said the union movement would resist decisions to move jobs offshore if the business case was not made. Labour concerns The CBI will use the conference to voice businesses' growing "frustration" at the failure of the European Union to push through economic reform. Asked what business wanted to hear from Labour, Jones said: "The message to Gordon Brown from every single person will be — whatever you do, don't harm the macro-economic stability of low inflation, low unemployment and sustainable growth." — By arrangement with The Independent
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British companies will
move all the unskilled labour they can overseas, warned Digby Jones, the
Director-General of the CBI, on Sunday. He said the government
urgently needed to boost skill levels to ensure the economy continued to
create more jobs than it lost overseas.