blog It’s been coming for a while, but Brisbane City Council has finally bitten the bullet and inked a wide-ranging IT outsourcing contract with Indian firm HCL. According to the Brisbane Times (we recommend you click here for the full article), some 55 jobs are set to go and staff are not happy. The Fairfax publication reports:
“Australian Services Union branch secretary Jennifer Thomas said the IT staff were ‘‘absolutely demoralised’’ after learning most of the 55 workers would lose their jobs.”
To be honest, we see this as a pretty normal exercise by the Brisbane City Council. In 2013, IT outsourcing, even offshoring, is bog normal, and most large government departments and agencies outsource at least a section of their IT operations. HCL might be being described here as an ‘Indian’ firm, but the truth is it has extensive operations in Australia and is a legitimate competitor to major IT services firms such as IBM, CSC and Fujitsu.
Of course, this doesn’t make the situation any better for the IT staff concerned, and we feel for them. Hopefully there is plenty of work in the Sunshine State to keep them occupied. In addition, we’ll be keeping a close eye on the Council to see whether the outsourcing negatively impacts on its extensive $353 million business administration platform overhaul. IT outsourcing and major project work don’t tend to go that well together, traditionally.
“…Hopefully there is plenty of work in the Sunshine State to keep them occupied…”. With the recent purges by the Qld State Government of 400+ IT contractors and an unknown number of permanent IT staff, somehow I don’t think so.
With the effects on the state economy of the cuts by the Newman gov’t, there aren’t many jobs available in Qld in general, if you’re not in the coal or gas industries.
I can accept the imperative for commercial organisations to seek to minimise operational costs by outsourcing. But when it comes to Government sending jobs overseas I cannot help but be disgusted. I hope the voters throw out every councillor that voted for this. Then the councillors will get the bitter taste of their own medicine.
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