Next in Line - Outsourcing to Pakistan

In the 1990s, American businesses began outsourcing computer, telephone, and information technology jobs to India to cut their cost of labor. With a large, educated, and English-speaking population that works cheap, why not? From a balance sheet perspective, Indian workers are a real bargain. In a country that has a per capita yearly income of less than $500, call center employees earn from $3,000 to $5,000 per year with benefits. Therefore, working at a call center is an attractive employment alternative and applicants wait in line to be interviewed.

The practice of outsourcing computer and telephone work has become a global phenomenon worth an estimated $600 billion worldwide and the trend is for it to continue growing bullishly. And, although India is recognized as the largest recipient of outsourced telecommunications, many other countries are also providing workers for outsourced jobs. China, Malaysia, Singapore, and Russia are benefiting, just to name a few.

Interestingly, one country that hasn't taken advantage of the growth in global outsourcing is Pakistan, India's next door neighbor. The primary reason is that the government of Pakistan has not been actively pursuing the development of features that would attract foreign companies that outsource. In particular, the teaching of English has not been emphasized and government regulations have been a consistent impediment to growth in the outsourcing industry. However, that's all changing.

Enter Farukh Aslam, Chairman of the Call Centres Association of Pakistan. He describes the state of Pakistan's information technology and call center outsourcing as "nascent" with only about 1,000 people employed by two dozen companies. After spending about twenty years in the U.S. being educated and working, Aslam returned to Pakistan in 2000 to find the country lacking vision and leadership in business development. He spent two years working to help streamline laws so that companies could operate and, as a result, he predicts that the Pakistani call center industry will employ 10,000 workers by next year. The problem of English proficiency is a long term project that's being addressed so that future jobs will have qualified applicants. Aslam is urging the government to teach English to every student, not just the offspring of the wealthy.

Investors believe that Pakistan has strong potential to provide low-cost information technology services which could potentially be the largest foreign exchange earner for the country.

One last note, Americans working in the call center industry making $30,000 per year or more are not going to be around long when their company realizes that people in India, or Pakistan, will do the same jobs for $3,000 per year. A backup plan is recommended.