UPDATE 2ATT CEO says hard to find skilled U.S. workers
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SAN ANTONIO, Texas, March 26 (Reuters) - The head of the
top U.S. phone company AT%26amp;T Inc (T.N: Quote, Profile, Research) said on Wednesday it was
having trouble finding enough skilled workers to fill all the
5,000 customer service jobs it promised to return to the United
States from India.
“We’re having trouble finding the numbers that we need with
the skills that are required to do these jobs,” AT%26amp;T Chief
Executive Randall Stephenson told a business group in San
Antonio, where the company’s headquarters is located.
So far, only around 1,400 jobs have been returned to the
United States of 5,000, a target it set in 2006, the company
said, adding that it maintains the target.
Stephenson said he is especially distressed that in some
U.S. communities and among certain groups, the high school
dropout rate is as high as 50 percent.
“If I had a business that half the product we turned out
was defective or you couldn’t put into the marketplace, I would
shut that business down,” he said.
Gone are the days when AT%26amp;T and other U.S. companies had to
hire locally, he said.
“We’re able to do new product engineering in Bangalore as
easily as we’re able to do it in Austin, Texas,” he said,
referring to the Indian city where many international companies
have “outsourced” technical and customer support workers.
“I know you don’t like hearing that, but that’s the way it
is,” he said.
Stephenson said neither he nor most Americans liked the
situation, and the solution was a stronger U.S. focus on
education and keeping jobs. Business needed to help, such as
AT%26amp;T’s repatriation of service positions and education grants,
he added.
(Reporting by Jim Forsyth; Editing by Gary Hill)
