July 30, 2001—A July report from the EMERGENCE project, led by the UK-based Institute for Employment Studies (IES), found that 43 percent of European employers are using information and communications technologies to outsource business services—a practice IES calls “eOutsourcing.” Contrary to popular perceptions, the report said, employers are more likely to choose a supplier in another European region than to go to India or the Caribbean for cheap labor.
Some of the report’s other key findings were:
- 5.3 percent of employers surveyed use electronically linked subcontractors in another country.
- 15 percent have an outsourced call center; 11.1 percent of these cases have a direct telecommunications link to the main office.
- Fully home-based teleworking by employees is comparatively rare, practiced by only 1.4 percent of employers. However, 9.9 percent of employers use the new technology to allow workers to rove from one location to another or alternate between home and office, while keeping in touch with base via a modem. A similar proportion (11.4 percent) use freelancers who deliver their work electronically.
- Across Europe, more than 11.5 million businesses are already involved in supplying information-based services using the new technologies.
- 60 percent of the establishments using eOutsourcing use it for software development and support. The second most common telemediated function, at 38 percent, is creative work such as design, editorial work, and multimedia content generation. This is followed by management, training, and human resources functions at 19 percent, and customer services at 18 percent.
For more information, contact IES.
