Bitter in Ohio: LexisNexis Offshore Outsourcing More White Collar Jobs to India

As part of it's announced strategy to move all possible work out of the United States to India, Reed Elsevier, the Anglo-Dutch publishing giant and parent company of Lexis Nexis continues to eliminate positions at the Dayton, Ohio Lexis Nexis "campus" site. Elsevier and Lexis Nexis white collar workers continue to receive news of job cuts. Occassionally, the news leaks out to the press and then LexisNexis and RE "spokespersons" attempt to minimize the apparent impact, reassuring everyone that displaced workers will receive severence money and placement assistance. The truth is, of course, quite different from the "spin" of corporate public relations specialists...

One correspondent noted,

"Lexis is dumping all of us, all our [work] is now transferred to India.
All of building 8 will be notified and terminated starting June 23
Plus they are laying off an undetermined number from campus, got a bunch last week and more to come.
Only 3 analysts will survive and they will be required to travel to India and spend time training those people."

Of course, severence money and job placement assistance mentioned in the article below is, no doubt, contingent upon employee non-disclosure of offshore outsourcing details and cooperation in facilitating the offshoring to India - i.e., training Indian replacements and transferring knowledge... It is unlikely that the press and the public will ever know the full extent of the job cuts. I also doubt that people will realise that LN will attempt to coerce Americans into traveling to India to train foreign replacement workers.

Even the announced numbers of American workers displaced is deliberately understated. For example, the announced figure of "250" in the article headline below does not reflect the "38" announced (somewhere) last week at the Elsevier group at this Dayton location. The overall numbers of jobs being cut is always (and intentionally) a moving number.

One should anticipate future job cut announcements which when reported in the press, will omit all mention of previous job cuts or the destination of the jobs (India).

As these job cuts at LexisNexis illustrate, politicians, members of the press, "business leaders", and economists continue to misrepresent the nature of the job losses in Ohio and America. American white collar workers continue to lose their middle class jobs due to offshore outsourcing. Unlike the manufacturing jobs, most of these white collar jobs are going to India (facilitated by Indian "guest workers" in the U.S. on "business visas"). The "knowledge age" jobs -- not "industrial" or "manufacturing" or "union" jobs -- throughout Ohio, Pennsylvania, Indiana and Illinois are going offshore. These are the jobs which Newt Gingrich and Bill Clinton assured us were the future in the wake of NAFTA.

I wish the press would move beyond their stereotypes of the midwest and focus on the fact that high tech and other white collar jobs are moving offshore...

LexisNexis to cut up to 250 jobs through 2009

By John Nolan

Staff Writer

Monday, April 14, 2008

MIAMI TWP., Montgomery County — LexisNexis plans to eliminate up to approximately 250 jobs between now and early 2009 at its suburban Dayton campus, according to a company announcement Monday, April 14.

The company disclosed that the information technology division of its parent company, Reed Elsevier, announced plans last week to phase out 38 positions from now through May 10 at the suburban Dayton operation, where about 3,000 people are employed. It is the company's single largest operational site in the United States.

And on Monday, LexisNexis said it will transfer the work of 215 Dayton-area positions to outside suppliers, part of a total of 290 positions whose work will be turned over to outside suppliers between now and early 2009 in order to cut costs.

Those reductions will affect data collection, conversion, editing and business systems operations, LexisNexis said. The cuts are necessary in order for the company to remain competitive and make investments to meet customer demands, management said.

All of the affected employees will receive severance benefits and help finding new jobs, the company said. It is possible that some employees might be redeployed within the company, management said.

"Guided by the long-term needs of our business, we regret that some of our employees will be leaving LexisNexis," Sue D'Agostino, the company's vice president for corporate communications, said in a statement.

Reed Elsevier said in February that it intended to achieve about $481 million in cost savings during the next three years.

The electronic publishing company provides information services to legal, corporate, government and academic customers.

Contact this reporter at (937) 225-2242 or jnolan@DaytonDailyNews.com.

NOTE: The overall numbers of American workers being cut is likely far higher than the "250" noted in this article. 1,000 job outsourcings to India from the Dayton, Ohio location seems likely...