#offshoring

CFO just announced that we are going to cut US finance jobs (both voluntary and CPM) to increase HC in lower cost center like Costa Rica. And apparently only targeting to US finance employees. How is that ok especially when the company took government fund (source from our paycheck) to increase OVERSEAS jobs?

https://www.reuters.com/business/intel-invest-12-bln-costa-rica-over-next-two-years-2023-08-30/

All Tier 2 HR employees with the exception of Benefits are being let go and the work is moving to Costa Rica...go figure just look at the exchange rate. Rumor has it Tier 3 will be next. What a joke. Marvin will ruin this company just like he did with JC Penny.

https://ticourbano.com/2023/07/18/sysco-expande-su-centro-de-soporte-global-en-costa-rica-con-una-inversion-de-5-millones/

https://ticourbano.com/2023/07/18/sysco-expande-su-centro-de-soporte-global-en-costa-rica-con-una-inversion-de-5-millones/

Exhibit A: The ramp-up of operations in Costa Rica.

https://www.businessinsider.com/us-companies-are-nearshoring-cheaper-workers-from-latin-america-layoffs-2023-5

By: Britney Nguyen
May 11, 2023, 2:27 PM CDT

As US companies continue laying off workers amid a downturn in the economy, some are also hiring employees — but they're looking not far from home.

It's called "nearshoring," and in this case it's companies zeroing in on workers from Latin America who can work in a time zone close to the US — and for less money than US-based staff.

Deel, a global human resources company, told Bloomberg that it estimated 3,000 US companies have used its platform to hire workers in Latin America in the first quarter of this year.

"If for the price of 10 engineers in the US, we can hire 100 engineers in Brazil, there's definitely something to think about there," Alex Bouaziz, CEO of Deel, told Bloomberg.

Companies that work with Deel pay an average annual salary to full-time contracted staff of $74,000 in Latin America in areas like engineering and product design, Bloomberg reported. US software developers earn a median salary of $127,000, Bloomberg said, citing Bureau of Labor Statistics data.

Deel said in the first quarter of this year, it's seen a 50% increase in US companies hiring workers from Latin America when compared to the same quarter last year. Most of the workers come from engineering hubs in Argentina, Mexico, and Brazil, according to Deel.

Deel's 2022 State of Global Hiring Report shows that Latin American countries were at the top of the list from where global companies were hiring. The firm's report uses data from its own 260,000 worker contracts across 160 countries and also draws from other external global data points.

This goes out to the technology team at PetSmart. Your new EVP/CITO is bad news. Trust your own gut on GF's character. He comes in, and destroys any morale or comradery that exists, and then outsources whoever is left before moving on in 2-4 years to do it again somewhere else. Do not trust him, he is not there to help or support you.

Get out quickly and find something new. GF is a harbinger of bad news for the organization, but especially for the people currently working in IT. Look at what he did to the IT department at Express. All those jobs are now in Costa Rica. Best of luck to all of you.

Peter Gibbons is listening to this Outsource group named the Kearny Group on making cuts to manufacturing plants. He honestly has no idea how bad he is destroying value and capacity. Mike Roman isn't leading sh-t and would not know what leadership is without hiring some consultants on how to think or reading a book. This CEO has wasted more damn money on consultants and conferences, and useless golf tournaments than all leadership teams combined. I understand that 2023 is going to be a tough year from Financials perspective but this is terribly short sighted to start gutting the plants. Why Gut manufacturing plants when you have three times as many managers than you need with Spinco and 3M Center, honestly and layers upon layers of fat and overhead. Honestly they would not know how to measure KPI, productivity from the leadership team if a frozen fish hit them up side the head. You cannot outsource all work or move it all to Costa Rica even if you save a few pennies. At some point 3M is still a material science company that needs to supply its own products. If these bozos would actually invest in some real equipment and automation, these cuts would make sense but we dulling apart sh-t everywhere you look, and beyond dated production lines They will not even buy automated slitters, and rely on outsource company's and pay through the nose for all the die cutting, and slitting needs. There is no vision with this. Leadership never looks in the mirror.

Originally posted by @pew+1kJOPTc2.

I have been working for this group for some time. Just recently I decided to look for another job and I have to say that most of the things said in these threads are true. Just a few facts:

• in 2018 almost 50 % of the staff was layoff and the roles moved to Costa Rica.
• 4 years of the Costa Rica office open showed many clients that the quality has decreased and employees there are not going to be able to take complex tasks. Between closed doors everybody talks about the lack of professionalism in Costa Rica, poor work ethic and the preferential treatment they receive.
• The group used to have top talent across all levels. In 2021 the Muni Manager left, excellent professional with years of experience in Wall Street and Bloomberg. Shortly after two other senior managers left, one a former executive from JP Morgan and MIT educated. Then another raising start from an Ivy League left after being groomed for almost a decade.
• The biggest problem with the group is the longevity of one of the Directors who is the architect of the moves to Costa Rica and Fort Mills. He has multiple HR complains and no one trusts what he says.
• Another problem is the influence the former head has on this group. She has to make sure her decisions are protected and she push for a weak replacement who is a yes man. He is never in the office, and during his tenure many people has resigned.
• People keep quitting. A few people a month.
• Just 2 weeks ago 2 more resignations - and these two were recently promoted.
• Salaries are very low, check the comparisons against competitors (base)

Evaluator - 70-85 versus 120-145 Bloomberg, markit,ice
Senior Evaluator: 90-120 versus 150-180 Bloomberg, markit, ice

What is happening: A layoff in NYC is coming and Fort Mills will be the new center. That happened in 2018. A couple of roles opened in Costa Rica and then a massive layoff.

The weaker the staff the more power the director has. The more needed he is. Not too hard to understand.

https://www.bizjournals.com/milwaukee/news/2022/10/26/fiserv-to-sell-sis-business-costa-rica-operations.html

Frank sold the Fiserv Costa Rica division to infinite group located in Maryland. As part of the deal, the former Fiserv associates will remain on Fiserv current engagement for a couple of years as outsourced IP, no more on Fissev’s payroll.

Next, banking division is on the way out. FB top priority is quarterly earnings, he does not give a sh-t about a single client. Just show uptick in revenue through layoffs and selling groups. This is what he did all his life. He doesn’t know how to grow revenue through customer satisfaction , and organic growth.

Expect the banking group to be out by next month to a private equity firm.

VP

Just wondering. I come here once in a while to check on an old company I once worked at where I met a lot of nice people that I never keep in touch with but still care about. I was young and idealistic back then and thought I would make a career there. It turns out that I didn’t get picked for management for whatever reason and then I saw jobs get outsourced around me to India or Costa Rica, or somewhere else. I ended up leaving discouraged but at least now I make way more money than I ever could have at Emerson. I still have a place in my heart for the company but also some resentment for many of the same reasons I often see expressed here. So I guess for me it serves as a form of validation. In some ways I see it as emblematic of the death of one the last American manufacturing companies, consumed by the greed of an inner circle of hypocritical leaders who are really just out for themselves.

The discussions so far have been focused on the US workforce. Would anyone have information of what BC did with offshore offices and teams in CA and Symantec after those acquisitions? Our teams are large in Costa Rica and India (primarily, Bangalore) and we wonder what will happen to us. We have very nice offices in these locations so I also wonder how long it would take to take over or dismantle these children organizations, assuming this is what will happen. Thoughts, please?

SVP of Global Support Karen Egan was in Broomfield colorado area last week and had secretive meetings at the Omni hotel nearby with other front-line tech support managers. What's THAT all about?

Recent job reqs for tech support have all been in "low-cost centers" (Costa Rica and Bangalore) for backfilling positions.

How long until $VMW decides to just ship support to low cost centers completely (and use Atlanta for federal support since it's considered "lower cost") and ditch Broomfield just like they did with Burlington a few years back?

Managers must think that employees don't look at the internal job openings and see where the new openings are based.

Did anyone else find the SH session on the Change Stream demotivating today? Apparently all of our products are currently horrible and difficult for our sales people to understand and sell, then why are we beating all forecasts for WL and PL? Only the Change steam will save us now. Also, what a great idea for everyone to stretch and do 120%, what genius! Glad Covid and dealing with kids forced back into homeschooling is no longer a concern (it is). It was pretty slick to say we actually increased headcount in 2021, when we fired across US and UK only to hire in low cost countries like India and now Mexico. Not sure if anyone else caught it, but I heard they aren't sure about Costa Rica. Translation, if you work in Costa Rica TR you won't for much longer. I could go on and on about McKinsey, Facebook, Amazon and the Digital/Change experienced know nothing hires, but I better grab a glass of wine and relax.

I am in Costa Rica and not much information is given to us. Is TSS going to the new company?

The employees are being told that they need to stay until March 31,2021 before they can receive the package. With the call center in Costa Rica and the support center moving to Mexico City, there will not be much left in the US except for some backend operations that will eventually be outsourced. This company is on life support and there is nothing to suggest a turnaround. Customers are very nervous doing business with this no vision company.

There were layoffs in Europe and Costa Rica this week (at least from what we know,) any ideas what might be next? Will it happen next week?

More long time employees losing their jobs so they can be shipped to Costa Rica.... geez unreal these people have given TR so much & this us what they get .... incredibly sad times & financial heartbreak ... Merry Christmas sure

When I was at Motorola from 1999 to 2003, I worked in the North American call center. The entire operation, with the exception of calls that had to be escalated, was outsourced to Costa Rica and Argentina.

Thousands will be mercilessly kicked to the curb.

What's going on?, no posts about the layoffs going on in Penang and Costa Rica?, and most likely other sites too?

In the name of focussing investment in new areas of business, Akamai eliminated 120 positions primarily in US. The real motive of the layoff was to move the jobs to low cost countries like India, Costa Rica and Poland. Akamai is still hiring and retaining workers in US on immigrant visa to depress the wages and laying off American citizens. Akamai has struggled to grow like other internet companies for several years. Where are those Democrats and Republicans in Government protecting American jobs?

This week, Syniverse has internally announced laying off 15 % of its

employees, worldwide. That means 300 employees are affected. The

layoffs mainly happen in the US (Tampa, Florida) and India,

although other locations are affected, as well.

In related news, just a few months ago, Syniverse internally

announced to close down its mobile roaming data clearing house (DCH)

development center in Rüsselsheim, Germany until the end of 2018.

This amounts to laying off another ~ 65 employees.

This follows the previous layoff of ~ 40 Syniverse operations

engineers in 2016, also in Rüsselsheim, the 2017 shutdown of the

Syniverse A2P office in Würzburg, Germany (~ 60 employees), and

the constant layoffs in other Syniverse offices around the world

Syniverse is well known for since it's owned by the Carlyle Group

(a private equity corporation).

As always, Syniverse management plans to off-shore the work done

by the laid off engineers to remote locations like India and

Costa Rica. It's confident that this disruptive reorganization

doesn't impact the service-level agreements with existing

customers and magically leads to a path of ultra growth and rapid

innovation (executed by newly hired and inexperienced engineers).

Giving the history and current developments, it's likely that

Syniverse will also shutdown its last remaining office in

Germany, Bonn in the next 1 to 2 years. Followed by Europe

Headquarters in Luxembourg in 2 to 3 years.

While we avoid taxation by putting your jobs in Costa Rica, Puerto Rico, and India? Can HPE count on your support?

Stryker is outsourcing A/R department to Costa Rica. The whole process should be completed by the end of 2019.

Sales are falling off a cliff. What to do? I know, take an employee engagement survey. More than 1900 employees responded, and what do we learn?

Employees in India are happy. We're hiring lots of them and they get big raises at review time.

Employees in the US are miserable. While we're hiring more sales VPs every other group is getting laid off as their jobs get sent to India and Costa Rica. Raises at review time are less than half those in India.

Employees in Costa Rica? trick question, they're contractors and not part of the survey.

Huge numbers of US employees are what the survey calls "actively disengaged", ie their daily activities actually subvert the best interests of the company. Why would any new customer sign up for that?

The layoffs are still happening. They are just smaller in number so they fly under the radar. They actually have a blanket RIF for the year and they are bucketing everyone into it. There are at least 12 people laid off after every quarter end and they are even starting to lay off the offshore resources in Pune and Costa Rica. That might not sound like a lot but when you look at what used to be teams of 100 and they are now around 30 that tells you everything. They have cut so far they are now cutting bone. Essential people needed to get the jobs done are being let go to the point the remaining can't keep up. People know the CCC+ bond rating is a company killer and are now trying to get out before the hammer hits them.

Short sighted decisions by Citrix leadership are leading to terrible technical support.

I have had several unresolved tech support cases open for months.

One of the cases was initially being worked by a support tech who was fired in October. This support tech was one of the most experienced people in the company, and was actively working with the engineering team as the problem was pretty complex.

I don’t know for sure, but I have some indication that this person (who is US based) was fired in order to hire lower cost staff in India or Costa Rica.

Now I have no idea who is even working these cases any more. Whenever I ask I get no response on my tickets. No one cares.

Moving off of Citrix products in these scenarios is too costly as the customers have already spent too much on the implementations. But I will never recommend Citrix products to a new customer.

http://qcostarica.com/intel-downsizing-in-costa-rica-cutting-200-jobs/

http://www.nearshoreamericas.com/intel-downsize-operations-costa-rica-firing-200-employees/

https://www.thelayoff.com/t/S31dwxN

/sarcasm

Operation Outsourcing is great we should double down on it, although instead of India and Costa Rica we ought to think outside the box and maybe go with a war-torn countries motif to keep things interesting

//sarcasm

Is this rumor true ?

Intel has announced record revenues and profits. But IT is laying off employees! Announcement has been made of 200 job cuts in Costa Rica. I am sure there will be impacts at other sites as well. Get serious and please post any news or rumors so that anxious IT employees can get an idea of what's happening - Admin

Laid off in May after almost 18 years. Oh and who is doing my work now... someone in Costa Rica they hired full time 1 week before laying me off...gotta love it...not

Layoffs in finance across the board. Up to 30% and much of the work is moving to Costa Rica

Found this in another thread, anybody knows more about this? I am assuming this is not relating to rumors flying around due to expected Intel's quarterly results announcement.

http://www.charlotteobserver.com/news/business/banking/article179747451.html

Now hiring — Wells Fargo seeks overseas call center workers as it slashes US jobs

Wells Fargo has been quietly bulking up its call-center operations in the Philippines, adding positions in the southeast Asian country where it has long kept offshore jobs.

The move by the third-largest U.S. bank by assets is occurring even as other companies have done the reverse in recent years – transferring call-center functions back to the U.S. It also comes as Wells Fargo continues to reel from a sales scandal that erupted in 2016.

Wells Fargo has had operations in the Philippines since at least 2011, including information technology and other roles, but had not received much attention in the U.S. for its more recent expansions in the island republic.

This spring, however, the bank said the operation had grown from less than 100 to more than 4,000 over six years. Wells also said it was building another location that could seat more than 7,000.

The issue came to light this month during a Senate hearing on the sales scandal, when Sen. Joe Donnelly questioned CEO Tim Sloan about cutting American call-center workers while beefing up operations in the Philippines.

“I’ve learned that Wells Fargo has eliminated several hundred jobs here in this country recently, and more in recent years,” Donnelly, an Indiana Democrat, told Sloan. “At the same time that you were letting these people go, you were adding on positions in the Philippines. How is that making it right by your people here that work for Wells Fargo?”

Sloan defended the practice. He said positioning employees worldwide helps the San Francisco-based company serve customers around the clock. The CEO also pointed out that, of Wells’ roughly 270,000 employees, more than 90 percent are in the U.S.

“The reason for that is it’s where most of our business is done,” said Sloan, noting Wells has 15,000 open U.S. positions. “We love doing business in this country.”

Wells declined to provide details on growth across its Filipino operations. But it said its call-center presence there is equivalent to the size of its U.S. call centers. In Charlotte, the bank has a call-center operation in the University area.

Decades-old practice

Offshoring call-center jobs is not new for American companies.

Decades ago, many firms flocked to set up such operations overseas, where labor costs tended to be cheaper. India, the Philippines and even Ireland became hot spots for those jobs.

But such moves have slowed since the Great Recession, when many industries ramped up efforts to hang on to their customers in a struggling economy, according to Paul Stockford, research director for the National Association of Call Centers. In the past, American callers have had frustrating experiences dealing with heavily accented foreigners in call centers.

Most U.S. airlines, for example, have brought their call-center operations back from overseas, Stockford said. In addition, rising wages in many foreign countries have made it costlier to offshore jobs.

“I think Wells Fargo is not the norm at this point,” Stockford said. “With Wells Fargo, it’s difficult to understand.”

Among big U.S. banks, Charlotte-based Bank of America has detailed its efforts to relocate call center and other roles to the U.S. that interact directly with American-based customers.

According to the bank, the relocating is complete. It brought to the U.S. about 5,000 jobs from places including the Philippines, Mexico and Costa Rica during CEO Brian Moynihan’s tenure. The bank continues to maintain other jobs like information technology outside the U.S., especially in India, to support global businesses and clients.

The Communications Workers of America union has criticized Wells Fargo since the Senate hearing, saying the bank’s recent call-center layoffs in the U.S. continue a trend from 2011 and 2012. At that time, Wells laid off hundreds of call-center workers in states like California, Florida and Pennsylvania, the union said.

Richard Honeycutt, vice president for the union’s Southeast region, told the Observer such layoffs are short-sighted and a major problem for communities.

“It hurts working people who lose good jobs, it hurts communities that need a solid tax base in order to provide important public services, and it hurts customers who are not getting the service they pay for,” Honeycutt said.

Wells Fargo said that, when staffing new positions globally, it follows a rigorous process to ensure it is acting in the best interests of its customers, employees and shareholders.

“As a company that currently operates in 42 countries and territories around the world, we take a thoughtful approach to adding team members to our global workforce as the company focuses on improving our service and operating efficiencies,” the bank said.

Also in the Philippines, Charlotte Observer parent McClatchy maintains call-center operations that handle customer calls for most of the company’s newspapers, including the Observer. A spokeswoman said the operations are constantly under review to provide a high standard of customer service.

Layoffs hit call centers

Across the U.S. this year, Wells Fargo announced a series of layoffs affecting call centers, including one just this week in Bethlehem, Pa. Wells will close that center, where about 460 people are employed.

In a separate announcement in September, the bank said 120 employees would be laid off through closing a reverse-mortgage operation affecting a Fort Mill, S.C., call center. The month before, Wells disclosed plans to close a Vancouver, Wash., call center in a move affecting 72 employees.

Wells Fargo said none of those jobs are being transferred outside the U.S.

The bank said the decision affecting Pennsylvania was made primarily because of a drop in call-center volume. The Fort Mill closure resulted from Wells exiting the servicing of reverse mortgages, while the Vancouver move was in response to fewer foreclosures, Wells said.

The layoffs come as Wells is in the midst of centralizing functions and cutting billions of dollars in costs in the wake of the sales scandal. The bank was fined $185 million to settle claims that employees opened millions of accounts without customer authorization.

In May, Wells’ chief financial officer mentioned the company was looking at moving some work offshore as part of centralization. The bank recently reported having 2,600 fewer employees at the end of the third quarter of this year compared with the second quarter. In Charlotte, Wells has about 24,000 workers, its largest employment hub.

During his exchange with Wells’ CEO, Donnelly pressed him on whether the company had laid off American call-center workers then added people in the same roles in the Philippines.

Sloan acknowledged that Wells had, but said that the bank’s track record is to rehire about 70 to 80 percent of the people affected by such layoffs.

“Why would you in the first place send these jobs to the Philippines if they were being done here?” Donnelly asked.

To best serve customers, Sloan said, “it makes sense to have folks around the world so we can continue to be working through a 24-hour day and not run a night shift, for example, somewhere.”

“Do you think Americans are not capable of working a night shift?” Donnelly asked. “I can show you a whole bunch of folks in my state who work night shifts.”

Still popular

Even though some U.S. firms have pulled back on overseas call centers, offshoring remains a popular option for many other American companies, according to experts.

“The reason that companies are offshoring is that they are continuing to seek ways of cutting labor costs,” said Rosemary Batt, a professor at Cornell University who has extensively studied call-center practices.

But offshoring can carry risks, especially if the work will be handled by a contractor, Batt said.

Concerns arise about what controls contractors have to ensure customer data is safe, she said. In addition, contractors can be prone to high employee turnover and insufficient worker training, all of which can hurt customer service, she said.

Wells Fargo said its call-center operations in the Philippines are not outsourced but instead manned by Wells employees.

New federal rules would target companies that offshore U.S. call-center jobs, under legislation before Congress. The bill would require, among other things, the Labor Department to disclose all employers that relocate a call center overseas.

Supposedly, the layoffs begin this week (of October 9). That's the buzz here in HQ, and morale is really low. A big portion of sales will be targeted. Sadly, they have nothing to really sell because the products are slow in development and unstable, so non-existent. Product development itself is struggling and will also be targeted. Meantime, Sungard AS can't attract top talent because it has no money and no stock options to offer as a private company. It's onwards anyway to filling roles in India and Costa Rica, which our customers don't like dealing with. So it's all a death spiral. This place is out of control. Good luck to all.

Anybody knows more about the supposed layoffs this week? It's already Wednesday, and I haven't heard anything.

I have been working for IBM in Costa Rica for a year. We make $3USD an hour - this is not enough even for the basics. I know that people in the U.S.A. do not like us as jobs are lost but I can tell you that we do not have it here nicely too - it's hard for us too. Hard to tell anything else but that is the situation here - not good.

Rampant rumors across the organization, especially within the sales team are saying that MAJOR layoffs are coming very soon, probably early October (if not sooner). The Sales, Solutions Engineering, and Architecture teams were crucified at a recent quarterly meeting foreshadowing the next purge of these "non-performers" who the CEO feels is the reason the company is not making any money.

Prediction for the next round is up to 25% of sales will be gone with the remaining sales team left burdened with the current load and stress of picking up the slack, setting up those remaining for failure. Up to half (yes 50%) of the on-shore Solutions Engineers and Architecture teams will be cut. The jobs will be sent to Costa Rica and India to individuals thousands of miles away from their customers who haven't the slightest clue on how to service a customer, have major language barriers, and most importantly are not trusted by US customers. Solutions Engineers and Architects have been bringing off-shore resources "up to speed" for months in preparation.

Executive Leadership continues to bury their head and turning a blind eye to the lack of any competitive services (over-priced co-location and network), rapidly dying traditional recovery services, a lack of any meaningful Cloud offering (re-selling AWS on an unstable environment and lousy support services from India and Costa Rica) and consulting services run by a team of rejects. They fail to realize customers can see right though the BS and feel services provide by cheap off-shore resources are killing the company. Off-shoring 70% of your company "to remain competitive" is not the way to grow your business, it's a means to inflate cash on hand to prop up a dying business model and company. The company has now started to release senior "high-performing" team members to the bewilderment of long-time SgAS customers. Now starting to cut the only talented people who remained loyal prove no one's job is safe in this company. Employees have a legitimate right to fear the delivery of their next paycheck. The company has killed off any desire to sell, deliver, or make any extra effort to keep the CEO's fantasy alive. Stay tuned...January 2018 is setting up be an absolute blood-bath of cuts.

Yes, outsourcing 200+ jobs to Costa Rica, 225 to 250 or more will be affected.

I've heard this as well. It's been going around, so I am pretty sure it's no longer a rumor. What is still unknown is who and where exactly will be laid off. If anybody has any more info on this, please post here.