IMPORTING LABOR ELECTRONICALLY -- CATCHING ON  

Several of my past columns pointed out the recent intrusion into the North American marketplace of imported electronic labor. When what's valuable today travels at the speed of light around our planet and beyond, it should soon be perceived as normal that those people with the required skills for the communications age can enter the global marketplace anywhere with impunity. The transition is already well underway.

Another new offer recently hit my screen .. this time from CyberSoft, Inc. in The Philippines, via their North American marketing base in San Francisco. Their prices start at US 75 cents per 1,000 computer keystrokes with a guaranteed accuracy rate of 99.95 percent. That kind of proficiency is simply not available here in North America. What does this mean? Computer data entry is time-consuming. It is also b-o-r-i-n-g, and carries a high rate of burn-out here.

In The Philippines most jobs become a matter of living or existing. Workers force themselves to learn more, faster and to make no mistakes. That makes Philippinos competitive in a world looking for the right attitude. CyberSoft, Inc. has learned how to make this attractive to North American software developers and other companies looking for low-cost data entry. This company has more than 200 highly educated and well-trained personnel, providing an inexpensive long-distance work force. CyberSoft, operates from the campus at the University of the Philippines in Manila.

Tied in with relatively low-cost modern skills, these groups use satellite communications, high-speed modems, facsimile machines and overnight express carriers to speed their finished products around the world.

A telephone company here, for example has to pay around $12 an hour to staff punching in data from say, the sales department that handles Yellow Page advertising, or for even white page listings. The general salary for the same work in the Philippines is about 15 percent of that charged in the U.S. and because such work has been commanding even higher rates in Canada, the current spread here is even greater. In spite of costly and strict quality control in the Far East, the savings to Western companies still run 50 percent less.

CyberSoft is progressing beyond straight data entry. Need a map digitized? Technical manuals, geological well logs or medical journal inputting? They're doing it all.

Canada currently has about 1.5 million people unemployed. Yet there are 800,000 jobs that can't be filled because the required skills are not held by our unemployed. Just as is being done in New York by the New York Life Insurance Company, which has to go offshore to Ireland because they can't find workers who can spell and who have the required computer skills.

More information: Daniel R. Guerrero, Marketing Director, CyberSoft, Inc. 165 Glenview Drive, San Francisco, CA 94131. Phone: 415/648-2539. Fax:415/647-1520.

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