28
Oct
2003
J.P. Morgan Chase’s Answer to Lowering Operating Costs
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Category: Politics + Economy
Lay off 1,000 people in New York on Monday to open a new call centre across the continent in a Vancouver suburb in April.
J.P. Morgan Chase to shut U.S. call centre, moving jobs to B.C.
I’m surprised the second largest American bank would make such a move. It’s a vote of non-confidence in the U.S. economy.
Tuesday, 28 October 2003
Labor is expensive in the US (especially in New York and California). Instead of a non-confidence vote in the US, JP Morgan is trying to lower labor costs.
Tuesday, 28 October 2003
The spokesperson for JP Morgan stated that the main selling point for Surrey was its western time zone location. What about Washington State? Oregon? Interestingly, Batteria referred to its deep labour pool as a second criterion. If the bottom line was merely the cost of labour, they’d go totally offshore, because I believe Canada has relatively higher corporate taxation.
The Screen Actors Guild has been lobbying hard for years to stop the runaway productions to Canada for the same reasons — cheaper labour costs. It slams Canada often for “stealing” business.
The Canadian dollar as of Oct. 24 was worth 76.51 US cents. Exactly one year ago it was worth 63.89 US cents. (Yes, I should have gone to New York and San Francisco this year instead of last year.) I’m wondering what this will do to the labour costs argument.
JP Morgan Chase must be figuring either the dollar values will diverge again, or…? What about runaway productions? What I’m saying is it can’t just be about the cost of labour. It has to be related to labour skills and other factors, too.
Tuesday, 28 October 2003
True, maybe they’re just diversifying their workforce…