If people can’t go to where jobs are, jobs will go to where people are. That has been the driving logic of global outsourcing. While it holds true in the long run, barriers have to be crossed, before such a perfect labor market could be created.

It began with the US and UK as the biggest markets for outsourcing services, and India as the biggest supplier of those services. As non-English speaking countries such as Germany, France, and Japan emerge as big markets, we have yet to see a clear No. 2 among supplier destinations. That has given rise to some of these new markets looking at India for offshoring their services.

Yes, that is despite its inability to speak any foreign language other than English, and because of its expertise and maturity in executing processes. That has given rise to a demand for people who can speak these languages.

According to a recent report by Evalueserve, a research outsourcing company, the demand for foreign languages in the Indian offshoring industry will be close to 160,000 by the year 2010, and the size of the market for such language-sensitive work, will be approximately $14.4 billion by 2010.

Not surprisingly, the report predicts a shortage on supply-side. Which is why, it says, India will have to recruit approximately 120,000 ‘international’ multilingual professionals by that time.

Says Tim Bond, MD of Launch Offshore, a Global Recruitment Services Company that has already recruited over 50 British contact center staff, for several Indian contact centers, “The call center industry in India has matured as far as the UK and USA are concerned. But India has a lot more to offer given its infrastructure. That’s where providing services in non-English languages comes in. Right now, it’s the very beginning, and companies are planning such projects very carefully. A lot of them need to be convinced that foreigners can live and work in India for sustained periods of time.”

At this point, Bond says India should provide case studies of foreigners working in India to the clients to make them more comfortable. Bond adds, “We are seeing Indian BPO’s picking up European work as part of a pan European customer service process. Consolidation into one, or two call centers is becoming more common. We are seeing German, Spanish, French, and Italian, and mainly tier-one European countries on the demand side. In terms of supply, its India and Eastern Europe primarily with South Africa, and Portugal somewhere on the horizon.” Bond feels that when it comes to big outsourcing companies, India still makes the most sense. However, for small companies, Eastern Europe as a nearshore option could prove better.

Delhi-based consultancy firm Egon Sehnder gets about 20 resumes a month from foreign executives looking for jobs in India, and last year, CNN reported that Monster.com, India listed as many as 3,000 foreigners seeking work in India.

The Evalueserve report says that in 2003, the UK accounted for 78 per cent of the BPO total contract value (TCV) in Europe; and Switzerland, Benelux, Italy, Spain, the Nordics and Germany represented most of the remainder. During the first half of 2004, UK’s share of the BPO TCV dropped to 52 per cent, with Germany, Switzerland, and Benelux accounting for most of the remainder. The growth of outsourcing in Germany is particularly significant. According to Technology Partners International (TPI), by end of 2004, Germany had 13 per cent of the global outsourcing market, followed by USA and UK.