GM Bailout More Palatable With Cuts to IT Outsourcing
General Motor’s plan to slash its outsourcing and bring 90 percent of its IT services jobs in-house is a great thing for IT workers based in the U.S. And there's also the added bonus of potentially taking a bite out of the nation’s unemployment rate. But there’s even more potential upside. It could make the billions of dollars U.S. taxpayers loaned to financially strapped companies like GM, Citigroup and American International Group (AIG) more palatable. Remember the GM bailout? The motor city king took in over $50 billion in bailout bucks several years ago. And although it's paid the government back in cash and GM stock, the full payment is as only good as how well GM's stock is performing. Of course, the key to making the GM outsourcing switch an exciting deal is that it doesn't rob Peter to pay Paul. GM's outsourcing partners are HP/EDS, IBM, Capgemini and Wipro. It's unclear to what degree these companies assign the GM contract work to folks in the U.S., verses overseas. GM's decision to bring IT outsourcing in-house is in stark contrast to another bailout baby, Bank of America. The nation's second largest bank, which slurped up roughly $45 billion in bailout funds, announced last fall it was cutting 30,000 jobs. But now its apparently gearing up to hire lots of folks in the Philippines, says a Mother Jones article. These overseas jobs will be in the area of business support. Although Bank of America may be biting the hand that fed it, at least GM isn't likely giving tech taxpayers that same sense of lenders remorse.
