Offshore call centers targeted

At least one state representative wants to find a way to get some offshored state work back to Utah, while a senator has been kicking around the idea of giving Utahns a "right to know" that they are speaking to someone at a call center in India.

The issue of eFunds offshoring some state government contract work to its call center in India has been discussed at a couple of Utah Technology Commission meetings, but the matter moved on Wednesday to the Workforce Services and Community and Economic Development Interim Committee.

The India center handles calls about the Utah Department of Workforce Services' electronic Horizons welfare benefits cards as part of eFunds' $8 million contract with the department. It handles about 6,500 calls monthly that are advanced from an automated call system. EFunds is in the second year of a five-year contract with the state, and the call-center work involves the equivalent of eight jobs.

Rep. Steve Mascero, R-West Jordan, acknowledged that the department has worked hard to manage public dollars efficiently but said he wants to "try to find ways of returning those jobs back to the state of Utah."

Estimates for moving the call-center work back to the United States have ranged from $63,000 per year to more than $1 million, the latter being the amount New Jersey faced in a back-to-the-United States jobs move.

But Mascero said having the jobs in rural Utah has a multiplier effect on the state economy, "and that is never really analyzed in a lot of the cost analyses that we look at."

Smart Sites, where private businesses set up some operations in rural Utah, should be an option, he said. A department official has said Smart Site companies typically want to have jobs paying more than the $7 per hour typical of call-center wages.

"I can tell you, you go into some of these rural counties, you give them a $7 or $8 or $9-an-hour job to a farmer that's barely getting by and needs a second income, they will snatch it up," Mascero said. "So, I'm thinking the economy benefits of bringing some of those jobs back is more than simply the cost analyses that are showing up in these reports."

Putting the jobs in rural Utah might have a large up-front cost but would have long-term benefits in counties where unemployment rates have reached 15 percent or 16 percent, he said.

"I simply want to find a solution for bringing those jobs back rather than have them overseas," he said.