October 11, 2007

So at this point during Bernanke's dollar destruction debacle, do Canada and Europe start outsourcing their jobs to the US?


Good news realtors, mortgage brokers and most of Phoenix! Your call center jockey jobs might coming back to America if this dollar freefall keeps up!

An international company is adding 300 call center jobs in Fishers, making it one of Hamilton County's largest employers.

The new employees for the outsourcing conglomerate, Teleperformance USA, will be paid about $9 an hour to answer customer phone calls for a telecommunications company.
The expansion will bring the number of employees at the Fishers site to 525 and increase the payroll to $11.5 million.

"We like the Fishers community and are committed to it," said Teleperformance USA spokesman Mark Pfeiffer.

Teleperfomance USA, a subsidiary of SR Teleperformance, of France, has 12,000 employees at 42 centers in the U.S.

21 comments:

Anonymous said...

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Watch the corners of the new bills,

they will tear you up!





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Anonymous said...

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Do they make a bill with Clintons face on them?

I could really shit on him!

Like he did us!


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brokersleaveyoubroke said...

In a related story, Sun Communities is doing great. Their stock is up and their dividends are way up.
Sun Communities operates about a hundred trailer parks around the country and business is booming. People trading in their mcmansions for something a bit more affordable.

Mammoth said...

The company where I work was purchased by a corporation 1 year ago, and it is this corporation’s strategy to move all of its manufacturing up to Canada.

It will be interesting to see how the exchange rate will play into this, now that we are receiving price quotes from this Canadian firm.

Also, with their economy tied so closely to ours (i.e. witness the growing slump in their lumber industry), methinks that Canada is on the edge of the precipice just as we are.

Not all Canadians work in the oil/gas/gold industries, and their housing bubble is also likely to experience a burst before too long.
-Mammoth

Unknown said...

The destruction of the dollar is good news... All the outsourced jobs and manufacturing will be back. We'll be the #1 sweetshop employer in the world!

Anonymous said...

The main things being discussed up here in terms of opportunities are:
(1) buy premimum technology from US while it's cheap, due to currency rates
(2) acquire US companies while they're cheap, due to currecy rates

This volatile exchange rate is bad for both US and Canada, because its moving too fast. In Canada, it is a horror show for (i) tourism companies and (ii) net exporter companies, which are the majority of us.

If the US gets in big trouble, Canada will be in big trouble, too, because we export more of our stuff to the US than anywhere else.

And whatever the US interest rates are, it is impossible for Canada to have interest rates that are widely different for more than a year or so -- we can rarely be more than 250 basis points apart for any appreciable length of time.

If the US magically disappeared tomorrow, many countries would be impoverished; Canada, however, would cease to exist entirely.


P.S.: My full handle should really be as follows, but space does not permit in the name field:

bryce in canada(Vcvr&Clgry & Edmntn & Victoria bubbls)

P.P.S.: Vancouver and Calgary are the most ridiculous and most notorious bubbles up here, so I stick with those two cities in my handle.

P.P.P.S.: Keith, for some variety, do a piece on Vancouver one of these days:
Median Price/Median Income = 6.6; Affordability Index = 70% of pre-tax income; and
mortgage interest/payments are not tax-deductible.

Mammoth said...

Bryce,

The Canadian firm I was referring to in my post, is located in Burnaby (near Vancouver)

Anonymous said...

They had 12,000 employees already. The addition of 300 most likely had nothing to do with the dollar.

Anonymous said...

bryce,

As an ex-Canuck myself I agree with your analysis very much. Yet given all that it is amazing to me how much hatred of the US there is in Canada. You'd think Canadians would appreciate and have at least some polite respect for the country that keeps it in existence,not to mention gives it a free militarily.

And this isn't about Iraq or Bush. The same attitudes were around 20+ years ago when I still lived in Canada.

Anonymous said...

Clinton's not the source of this problem.. neither Bill nor Hillary.

Clinton didn't print money like it was going out of style.. that's purely Bush. Money supply has inflated 300% since the beginning of the Bush term.. that's only a part of the reason your purchasing power has decreased.

Clinton didn't give the tier capital exemptions - letting your deposits instead of their profits act as the call on banks' bad leveraged positions - that's another Bush move.

Finally, Clinton didn't get us into occupying foreign soil, a move which has zero economic benefit to US citizens - unless you're an exec of a company playing in the military-industrial-complex arena.

Rush is 100% wrong about this.

Anonymous said...

"Keith, for some variety, do a piece on Vancouver one of these days:
Median Price/Median Income = 6.6; Affordability Index = 70% of pre-tax income; and
mortgage interest/payments are not tax-deductible."

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Sounds like a bargain compared to LA, and I bet the quality of life is better, if you don't mind the rain.

How much of the Vancouver home price premium is based on Asians with money having bid up prices?

Anonymous said...

Wow, working for a French company for 9 bucks an hour! That's living the life!

Anonymous said...

Mammoth and Ex-Canuck,

Hi M,
Yeah, I'm not so sure whether it'll be much of a cost difference at all manufacturing in Canada vs US for the next year or two. I'm surprised that they would want to move their labour to British Columbia because the labour unions there are ridiculous and probably the most powerful on the continent.

But, no doubt, there are other factors.

Hi Ex-Canuck,

The anti-Americanism that is so prevalent up here is truly sickening. I have always thought it was incredibly childish and I still do. Canadians, on the whole, are a bunch of whiny, petulant sucks.

I've lived in each of Ontario, B.C., and Alberta. There is less of the anti-Americanism in Alberta (but that's not saying much; there's still too much of it in Alberta).

Anonymous said...

RE: How much of the Vancouver home price premium is based on Asians with money having bid up prices?
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Hard to say. But I think that is one factor, yes. A lot of Asian money in that area.

Mammoth said...

Hi Bryce,

"But, no doubt, there are other factors."
------------
Yes - I suspect the corporate heads believe that if the product's manufacturing can be moved to Canada, then it is possible to move it to China.

THAT,I believe, is their ultimate plan.

Anonymous said...

Yes, evidently, Vancouver (ratio actually 7.7 not 6.6) is a huge bargain compared to L.A.(ratio 11.4), which is apparently Numero Uno in unafforadability; Vancouver ranks 13th. The whole state of California is evidently completely insane:

From Demographia Int'l Affordability Survey 3rd Edition, 2007 - data from Q3-2006:

25 Most Unaffordable Housing Markets
Market Median Multiple
1 United States Los Angeles-Orange County, CA 11.4
2 United States San Diego, CA 10.5
3 United States Honolulu, HI 10.3
4 United States San Francisco, CA 10.1
5 United States Ventura County, CA 9.4
6 United States Stockton, CA 8.6
7 Australia Sydney 8.5
8 United States San Jose, CA 8.4
9 United Kingdom London (GLA) 8.3
10 United Kingdom Bournemouth-Dorset 8.2
11 Australia Perth 8.0 23 United States Sacramento, CA 6.6
12 United States Riverside-San Bernardino, CA 7.9
13 Canada Vancouver 7.7
14 United States Miami-West Palm Beach, FL 7.6
14 United States Modesto, CA 7.6
16 United Kingdom Cardiff 7.5
17 United Kingdom Bristol 7.3
18 United States Fresno, CA 7.2
18 United States New York, NY-NJ,-CT-PA 7.2
20 Australia Hobart 7.0
21 New Zealand Auckland 6.9
21 United Kingdom London Exurbs 6.9
23 Australia Melbourne 6.6
23 United States Sarasota, FL 6.6
23 Canada Victoria 6.6

Anonymous said...

The $US/$CAD parity is a temporary thing. My 2010 the $CAD will be back to between US$0.80 and US$0.85 where it has been historically.

Anonymous said...

I agree CAD/US is temporary; I also agree that CAD's natural value is between 80 and 90% of the US.

But these are unnatural times... Canada is benefiting from a commodities boom in general and record oil prices in particular.

... and the US has serious, serious debt problems that it somehow amassed during a period of record low interest rates so the interest on that debt can be expected to climb upwards in the next few years. Back in 1990-1995, when Canada had a debt-to-GDP ratio of 70%, interest rates were much higher and things only got better (now it's at about 35%). USA is currently at about 62% and it looks like things will only get worse interest-rate-wise.

Yikes. But if you go down, we go down; sometimes less, sometimes more. But downwards, anyway.

So I wouldn't be surprised if it took until 2013 or so for the equilibrium to be restored. I would expect the CAD-US ratio to gradually return to the 80%-90% range slowly and evenly over the next five or six years.

Whether it reaches something ludicrous like CAD$1.00 = US$1.10 in the next few months is just temporary freakishness.

Anonymous said...

P.P.P.S.: Keith, for some variety, do a piece on Vancouver one of these days:
Median Price/Median Income = 6.6; Affordability Index = 70% of pre-tax income; and
mortgage interest/payments are not tax-deductible.
---------------------------------

Correct me if I am wrong, but there isn't such a thing as a 30yr fixed loan up there in there... isn't it something like a 7 year balloon on a 30yr schedule where you are forced to refinance every 7 years?

Anonymous said...

To the best of my knowledge, I THINK 30-year fixed DOES indeed exist up here. But I don't think it is done much.

By far the most COMMON approach is to amortize based on 25 or 30 years (and, these days, insane 35 or 40 year amortizations are available just like in the US...), and to commit to a term of 5 or 7 or 10 years at a particular interest rate, and then at the end of that term re-set the interest rate based on prevailing interest rates and commit to another term of 5 or 7 or 10 years at that interest rate.

Isn't that how it's normally done in the US, too??

Anonymous said...

Big difference between US and Canafa in mortgage is there is no tax deduction in Canada.