Transatlantic cable
November 2014
31
of exporting call centre jobs to India, the Philippines, Mexico and
other countries, American companies are now bringing those
jobs home.
American rms seeking to reduce labour costs began sending
call centre jobs overseas years ago. The reverse trend, industry
watchers told the
Free Press
, is being driven by rising labour costs
overseas, changes in technology, and by customers unhappy
with the service from the call centres. (“Call Centre Jobs Coming
Home from Overseas,” 3
rd
August)
Chairman Matt Zemon of the non-pro t group Jobs4America
(Chapel Hill, North Carolina) said that about 180,000 call centre
jobs were created across the USA in 2012 and 2013. This year,
according to a Michigan Economic Development Corp estimate,
at least 1,400 call centre jobs have been created in Mr Witsil’s
home state.
One company, S&P Data, said it plans to add 420 employees
at its call centre in Troy. Dialog Direct, which employs about
800 people at its Detroit-area headquarters in Highland Park,
announced it is planning to add 500 more – 300 there and 200 in
its Grand Rapids o ces.
Keontay Kelley, a Dialog Direct employee in Highland Park, said
that in his experience callers appreciate that the centre is in the
USA. And Doug Kearney, Dialog Direct’s president and CEO, said
that he expects more growth in the industry over the next few
years as customers in greater numbers turn to social media –
presumably for peer-group guidance. An estimated ve million
Americans are currently employed in call centres.
Paul Stockford, the director of research for the National
Association of Call Centers (Hattiesburg, Mississippi), a non-pro t
membership group, also expects the number of call centres in
the USA – currently about 66,000 – to grow. Companies are still
using overseas centres to handle sales calls involving low-price,
low-margin items and also to address customers seeking
technical help. But, Mr Stockford said: “The higher the value of
the customer, the more likely the job will be in the USA.”
It is a fact of commerce that, if a customer is confused or
dissatis ed, it could cost the company a sale. For a purveyor
of big-ticket items – say, plane tickets worth hundreds, even
thousands, of dollars – this could mean a major loss.
Mr Witsil, the Michigan business writer, observed that United
Airlines has a reservations call centre in Dearborn.
Not every planned repatriation of call centre jobs produces
a success story. In late 2011, as AT&T was seeking to buy
T-Mobile, the communications giant announced it planned
to bring back 5,000 call centre jobs that had been sent
overseas. It was the largest such e ort by an American
company since 2008.
But the bid for T-Mobile was abandoned. Said AT&T: “The
[call centre] initiative didn’t happen.”
Steel
The US Department of Commerce on 2
nd
September set
preliminary duties of up to 110 per cent on imports of
carbon and alloy steel wire rod from China after ruling that
the products were being sold below cost in the American
market. Standard duties of 110.25 per cent were set, but
some Chinese companies faced a slightly lower rate of
106.19 per cent.
Commerce had already set preliminary anti-subsidy duties
of 81.36 per cent for Hebei Iron & Steel and 10.30 per
cent for Benxi Steel and all other producers and exporters
in China, which continue in force. Commerce was to make
a nal decision on the anti-dumping duties by the end of
the year.
The complaint about imports of hot-rolled carbon steel
and alloy steel rod from China, which totalled $313 million
in 2013, was made by ArcelorMittal USA, Charter Steel,
EVRAZ Pueblo, Gerdau Ameristeel, Keystone Consolidated
Industries, and Nucor Corporation.
One of the complainants above – Colorado-based EVRAZ
Pueblo, a unit of EVRAZ North America (Chicago) –
manufactures rails and pipe as well as wire.
Company o cials expressed satisfaction with the 22
nd
August decision by the US International Trade Commission
to impose tari s on steel pipe imported from six countries,
saying it will have a positive impact on the Pueblo plant.
Parent company EVRAZ North America is itself a unit of the
Russian steel and mining company EVRAZ plc.
The countries found to have sold material below cost
in the American market, at the expense of domestic
producers such as US Steel (Pittsburgh) and TMK-IPSCO (the
Houston-based unit of Russia’s OAO-IPSCO), are South Korea,
India, Taiwan, Turkey, Ukraine and Vietnam.
While grati ed by an action that, he said, ‘will ensure a more
competitive and fairer…market for American manufacturing
and American workers’, US Steel CEO Mario Longhi pledged
continued evaluation of options ‘including further litigation’
against Saudi Arabia, Thailand and the Philippines – the
three exporting countries examined but not penalised by
the ITC.
Possibly auguring an unsettled climate in the USA steel
plate market through the end of the year, an attempted
late-summer round of price increases by several major plate
producers was met with resistance from some service centre
and downstream customers. Buyers had largely accepted the
round of price increases announced in June.
American Metal Market
construed the proposed increases
as raising the price of steel plate to $44 per hundredweight
($880 per ton) from $43 per cwt ($860 per ton).
AMM
sources
noted that the later hike – and questions about its necessity
and timing – may have disrupted order entry (“Buyers
Bristle,” 29
th
August)
Energy
A tip from the German solar energy
industry to its American counterpart: avoid
jolting customers with frequent rate hikes
The non-pro t Solar Energy Industries Association (SEIA),
established in 1974, is considered the voice of the USA solar
energy industry. Recently SEIA released a study, prepared for it
by economic consultants with the Brattle Group (Cambridge,
Massachusetts), which examines Germany’s solar support
programmes. The ndings are instructive.
Currently, Germany has 35GW [gigawatts] of installed solar
capacity – representing about seven percent of the nation’s
