Outsourcing Toolkit

Union official voices concern over public sector IT jobs

Kable

Published: 07 Nov 2005 09:40 GMT

Graham Steel, senior national officer commercial sector for the Public and Commercial Services Union (PCS), said that automation and outsourcing are combining to create an "hourglass economy". There is likely to be a slight increase in the number of low skilled and highly skilled jobs, but those in the middle will have fewer opportunities.

He made the prediction in the PCS Commercial Break magazine, partly in response to the growth of outsourcing public sector processes. Some commentators think that up to a further 18 percent of the public sector could be outsourced in the next five years.

"Most of those in IT work at present are probably in the middling-type jobs," Steel told Government Computing News on 4 November, 2005. "They involve a combination of communication skills with fairly routine processing work on behalf of the customer.

"Automation of the work will take it away from people. Often the processing can be completely automated, and if it can't the basic processing function can be done by someone on a much lower wage in another country."

He said the people most likely to be affected are those who have knowledge of the IT systems they work with, but do not have a qualification or general knowledge of IT.

"The bulk of people doing IT work are in this category," he said.

Steel cited India and China as countries where companies could transfer such work, although he said there is considerable opposition to doing this for public sector jobs. The public is against it, the government is not encouraging it, and there are concerns over transferring sensitive data on individuals to operations overseas.

In the magazine article he said the PCS has to help raise the levels of skills among its members.

"There will be a demand for more design, management, coaching, communication and IT skills," he wrote. "Employers will have to invest more in skills development to recruit and retain people."