UK energy firm to off-shore jobs to India

NPower, one of the UK's leading energy providers, is expected to announce plans to off-shore thousands of call centre jobs to India as part of its cost-saving efforts.
The decision to outsource its call centre operations is likely to impact 2,000 staff with job losses of around 1,000.
According to the 'Daily Telegraph', the bulk of the workers are being transferred rather than being made redundant as the company outsources its front-line call centre operations to a third party in the UK with the back-office operations off-shored to India.
Neither Npower nor the workers' unions, Unison and GMB, are making an official comment on the news at the moment.

However, emails from the company's HR manager to union leaders three weeks ago had warned that the "coming months would be challenging for all parties".
The restructuring will follow a string of cost-saving announcements from Npower since RWE, its German owner, announced plans to axe 6,750 jobs across Europe earlier this month.

The UK's energy industry regulator, Ofgem, had recently said that profits at the Big Six energy suppliers rose 75 per cent last year as shivering Britons turned up the heating to cope with one of the coldest winters on record.
Outsourcing continues to be a trend among firms looking at streamlining operations.

Recent reports indicate that British firms such as Thomas Cook, eBay, Sky, Seatwave and Zumba Fitness have all outsourced aspects of their customer services closer home to Bulgaria.
However, India still remains a major back-office destination for Europe.