Having learnt a lesson during Covid-19’s supply chain disruptions, many companies are futureproofing by nearshoring to spread that risk and diversify their sourcing strategy. Forget about the manufacturing and call-center jobs sent to China and India in the early 2000s; the latest trend involves white-collar jobs and workers in the U.K.
Making yourself indispensable won’t save the job of an American employee. To some becoming the employee with certain needed skills or knowledge might feel like insurance. But to some bosses, being overly reliant on individuals is risky.
In the face of rising wages and staff shortages at home, U.S. businesses are looking to a struggling UK economy across the pond for recruitment opportunities. Logical reason is, US and the UK share a common language, and outsourcing is fundamentally cheaper than the U.S. Post Brexit, as trade with the EU falters, British businesses see the U.S. as a chance to sell their services to a market several times larger than their own, often at higher fees.
While U.K. management consultants, financial-services firms and insurers have boosted exports by billions of pounds compared with before the pandemic. There are some key differences in work, starting with English preferring more of a relationship-driven approach to the workplace than Americans who are more about putting the work first. And, folks in the UK can be very indirect when compared to the US, where US professional may sometimes err on the side of being a tad too blunt.
As per Deutsche Bank Exports of services to the U.S. have brought in close to $90 billion for the U.K. in the year through last September, but does this mean that the UK is an option for American businesses to ‘outsource’ jobs? Perhaps in the short term, but how about the long-term view?
Not many British employees (most nations in fact) are prepared for the intense stress, long hours, and demands that U.S. companies have. They value their work-life balance vs the superficial idea of success that’s so ingrained in the U.S. culture.
In my opinion, select industries will benefit in the short term. The insurance industry, for example, has been boosted by the restructuring of global supply chains and demand for specialty policies covering natural disasters or pandemics, areas in which the London insurance market has expertise.
Warner Bros. who filmed their blockbuster ‘Barbie” mostly in the U.K., as they found salaries in the country are lower and labor contracts aren’t as strict as in the U.S., where many film-industry workers are part of powerful unions in Hollywood.
To reiterate, this isn’t the traditional outsourcing model of the 2000s, which saw the mass relocation of American manufacturing jobs to China or call centers to India and other parts of the developing world. It remains to be seen in long run, how U.K.’s cost advantage and the rise in remote working is allowing high skilled jobs to be done by people in Britain.
Shardul Bhatt 