Personnel Today
  • Home
    • All PT content
  • Email sign-up
  • Topics
    • HR Practice
    • Employee relations
    • Learning & training
    • Pay & benefits
    • Wellbeing
    • Recruitment & retention
    • HR strategy
    • HR Tech
    • The HR profession
    • Global
    • All HR topics
  • Legal
    • Case law
    • Commentary
    • Flexible working
    • Legal timetable
    • Maternity & paternity
    • Shared parental leave
    • Redundancy
    • TUPE
    • Disciplinary and grievances
    • Employer’s guides
  • AWARDS
    • Personnel Today Awards
    • The RAD Awards
  • Jobs
    • Find a job
    • Jobs by email
    • Careers advice
    • Post a job
  • Brightmine
    • Learn more
    • Products
    • Free trial
    • Request a quote
  • Webinars
  • Advertise
  • OHW+

Personnel Today

Register
Log in
Personnel Today
  • Home
    • All PT content
  • Email sign-up
  • Topics
    • HR Practice
    • Employee relations
    • Learning & training
    • Pay & benefits
    • Wellbeing
    • Recruitment & retention
    • HR strategy
    • HR Tech
    • The HR profession
    • Global
    • All HR topics
  • Legal
    • Case law
    • Commentary
    • Flexible working
    • Legal timetable
    • Maternity & paternity
    • Shared parental leave
    • Redundancy
    • TUPE
    • Disciplinary and grievances
    • Employer’s guides
  • AWARDS
    • Personnel Today Awards
    • The RAD Awards
  • Jobs
    • Find a job
    • Jobs by email
    • Careers advice
    • Post a job
  • Brightmine
    • Learn more
    • Products
    • Free trial
    • Request a quote
  • Webinars
  • Advertise
  • OHW+

Personnel Today

Where are all the jobs?

by Personnel Today 1 Jul 2002
by Personnel Today 1 Jul 2002

Progressing from the land to the office isn’t always all it’s cracked up to
be, as Vance Kearney discovers

I can’t say that I am ageing well, with four kids, one close to graduating
in computer science just as the boom becomes a bust – and I’m thinking about
bouncing grandchildren on my knees.

My grandfather worked on the land as a tied agricultural labourer and my dad
was a toolmaker. The few people left who know what that is will tell you it is
the elite of the engineering craft trades. Here I am now, head of HR for a
successful global multinational in Europe. It seems the family has progressed
well from the land to the office, from poverty to relative riches. Yes, life
and Larry Ellison have been good to me.

Can you remember the bad old days when we were all in coal mining,
shipbuilding, steel production and manufacturing? That was dirty old work,
wasn’t it? Luckily that all went to the Far East. The West was too expensive.
Those businesses couldn’t support our economic and social needs, and today we
are all far happier as knowledge workers with our service industries,
air-conditioned offices and Starbucks.

We never had it so good, what with full employment, generous state pensions
and welfare states and good health and education services, despite what the
papers say. Until now, that is, when it all became too darned hard.

Hands up all employers that like employing people in Europe – and don’t tell
me you like 50 per cent payroll taxes, and 30 months pay to lay people off,
every decision challenged in a workers’ court or a workers’ council. What are
you, masochists? I know it keeps us HR types busy, but get real – this is utter
lunacy.

But fear not, it’s going to get easier. Not because governments will wise up
(no-one gets elected by facing hard facts) but because all the jobs are going
away. Don’t you believe me? Where’s the fastest growing centre for shared
services and back-office functions (such as HR and finance)? It is Bangalore.
What’s the predicted global market for back-office outsourcing? $200bn in five
years. Where can you deliver most of the functions we excel at in Europe and
the west: financial services, travel and distribution, publishing, technology
and media? India again. An almost limitless supply (by European standards) of
highly educated talent just itching to take over the work we do best.

There are as many software developers in Hyderabad as there are in Europe.
We lost manufacturing and the service sector will go the same way as telecoms
and the internet make physical locations irrelevant. Read the article Back
Office to the World Bangalore, Delhi and Mumbai in The Economist, 3 May, if you
think I have a screw loose.

So, as Europe’s social agenda moves ahead on a wave of popular electoral
support, while the governments of Europe promise pensions they can’t pay for
and employment rights that no one can afford, I have some advice: invest that
bulging severance cheque wisely; your grandchildren may have to live on it.

Sign up to our weekly round-up of HR news and guidance

Receive the Personnel Today Direct e-newsletter every Wednesday

OptOut
This field is for validation purposes and should be left unchanged.

The Economist article is available to subscribers at http://www.economist.com/displayStory.cfm?Story_ID=610986

Vance Kearney is vice-president of HR for Oracle-Europe, Middle East and
Africa. However, the views represented here are solely his own

Personnel Today

Personnel Today articles are written by an expert team of award-winning journalists who have been covering HR and L&D for many years. Some of our content is attributed to "Personnel Today" for a number of reasons, including: when numerous authors are associated with writing or editing a piece; or when the author is unknown (particularly for older articles).

previous post
Call centre initiative gives staff recognisable qualifications
next post
Britons turn to drink to relieve stress

You may also like

Forward features list 2025 – submitting content to...

23 Nov 2024

Features list 2021 – submitting content to Personnel...

1 Sep 2020

Large firms have no plans to bring all...

26 Aug 2020

A typical work-from-home lunch: crisps

24 Aug 2020

Occupational health on the coronavirus frontline – ‘I...

21 Aug 2020

Occupational Health & Wellbeing research round-up: August 2020

7 Aug 2020

Acas: Redundancy related enquiries surge 160%

5 Aug 2020

Coronavirus: lockdown ‘phase two’ may bring added headaches...

17 Jul 2020

Unemployment to top 4 million as workers come...

15 Jul 2020

Over 1,000 UK redundancies expected at G4S Cash...

14 Jul 2020

  • Preparing for a new era of workforce planning (webinar) WEBINAR | Employers now face...Read more
  • 2025 Employee Communications Report PROMOTED | HR and leadership...Read more
  • Prioritising performance management: Strategies for success (webinar) WEBINAR | In today’s fast-paced...Read more
  • Retaining Female Talent: Four Ways to Reduce Workplace Drop Out PROMOTED | International Women’s Day...Read more

Personnel Today Jobs
 

Search Jobs

PERSONNEL TODAY

About us
Contact us
Browse all HR topics
Email newsletters
Content feeds
Cookies policy
Privacy policy
Terms and conditions

JOBS

Personnel Today Jobs
Post a job
Why advertise with us?

EVENTS & PRODUCTS

The Personnel Today Awards
The RAD Awards
Employee Benefits
Forum for Expatriate Management
OHW+
Whatmedia

ADVERTISING & PR

Advertising opportunities
Features list 2025

  • Facebook
  • Twitter
  • Instagram
  • Linkedin


© 2011 - 2025 DVV Media International Ltd

Personnel Today
  • Home
    • All PT content
  • Email sign-up
  • Topics
    • HR Practice
    • Employee relations
    • Learning & training
    • Pay & benefits
    • Wellbeing
    • Recruitment & retention
    • HR strategy
    • HR Tech
    • The HR profession
    • Global
    • All HR topics
  • Legal
    • Case law
    • Commentary
    • Flexible working
    • Legal timetable
    • Maternity & paternity
    • Shared parental leave
    • Redundancy
    • TUPE
    • Disciplinary and grievances
    • Employer’s guides
  • AWARDS
    • Personnel Today Awards
    • The RAD Awards
  • Jobs
    • Find a job
    • Jobs by email
    • Careers advice
    • Post a job
  • Brightmine
    • Learn more
    • Products
    • Free trial
    • Request a quote
  • Webinars
  • Advertise
  • OHW+