Australian bank to offshore 400 jobs to India

The bank has shortlisted technology companies Infosys and Oracle to develop its billion-dollar, next-generation platform, which will form the key pillar in the bank's technology transformation plan, dubbed Program NEOS.

NAB chief information officer Michelle Tredenick told technology staff this week that it was ramping up its offshoring initiatives as part of Program NEOS, in an email quoted by The Australian daily.

"As we've indicated over the last few months we intend to progress our offshoring activity, and earlier this year we expanded our use of offshoring partners (Satyam and Infosys)."

The "ITO wave one" program was announced in March. About 264 technology jobs were earmarked for transfer to technology outsourcers Satyam and Infosys by October.

The bank started the second round of its IT outsourcing program, "ITO wave two", and over the next six to eight weeks would examine offshoring up to 148 jobs from its technology and wealth management divisions.

About half of them are full-time jobs, with the rest being contractual.

The review will target Melbourne-based teams overseeing business and retail payments, Siebel finance and accounts services, and wealth management's Sydney-based mainframe team.

As part of the first wave, 100 positions were sent to India, between 10 and 15 staff have accepted redundancies and another 30 per cent have requested voluntary redundancy.

NAB spokeswoman Kerrina Lawrence said that the majority of staff affected by the outsourcing arrangements had been redeployed to other divisions.

UK allows Indian professionals to return

Over 5,000 highly skilled migrants, most of them Indians, left Britain following the changes that were challenged in the High Court. The court ruled on April 8 this year that the November 2006 changes could not be applied retrospectively.

Amit Kapadia, executive director of the HSMP Forum that successfully led the legal challenge, said: "We are happy to have fulfilled our commitment in ensuring those affected by the November 2006 illegal changes are able to return back to UK with due honour.

"Even the time they spent in their home country after the changes would be counted towards the settlement criteria on their return to UK."

He said the forum will closely monitor the implementation of the court's judgement and would work with officials to ensure that all affected professionals were treated with respect and dignity in restoring their status as highly skilled migrants in the UK.

Kapadia added that the government's positive decision announced on Thursday was a "great achievement" in the context of new measures being implemented to curb immigration from outside the European Union.

Thousands of Indian professionals had to leave Britain since they did not qualify under the new criteria introduced in November 2006.

Many who applied for extension to stay were refused, and were instead served deportation orders. Many more chose not to apply since they could not meet the new criteria, and returned home.

Inflation soars to 11.89%, IIP slips to 3.8%

The rate was also above a median forecast of 11.75 per cent in a Reuters poll of analysts, and is the highest since annual numbers in the current series became available in April 1995.

Inflation for the week ended May 3 was revised upwards to 8.73 per cent from 7.83 per cent.

The annual inflation rate was 4.42 per cent during the corresponding week of the previous year.

The wholesale price index is more closely watched than the consumer price index, which is published monthly, because it covers a higher number of products and is published weekly.

Industrial growth slips to 3.8%, at 6-yr low

India's industrial output rose 3.8 per cent in May from a year earlier, sharply below the previous month's downwardly revised 6.2 per cent, data showed on Friday.

The figure was well below a forecast for growth of 7.2 per cent in a Reuters poll of economists. Output growth has fallen from the double-digit levels seen early last year as tight monetary policy and a stronger rupee lowered demand.

Manufacturing production rose 3.9 per cent in May from a year earlier, compared with a provisional 7.5 per cent in April.

Industrial output rose 8.1 per cent in fiscal 2007/08 (April-March), compared with 11.6 per cent in 2006/07.