Since its founding in 1975, Vanguard Group has grown into the largest for-profit employer in Philadelphia’s western suburbs. Vanguard has displaced the region’s shrunken banks and insurers as its major financial employer; a career there has meant a future in a growing organization that invests more than $5 trillion in other people’s money, among the biggest in its business.
Wednesday marked a break in that history. Staffers say it was the deadline for 1,300 of them to move to Infosys, an India-based outsourcing contractor; or leave to search for new jobs.
The workers track 401(k) retirement plans for five million Americans at thousands of employers. Infosys is replacing Vanguard’s aging mainframe-computer-based record-keeping system with a remote, cloud-based platform. To smooth the transition, Infosys has promised ex-Vanguard workers will enjoy similar pay and benefits, in as-yet undisclosed nearby locations, at least over the next year.
But most of Infosys’ 240,000 global staff are based in India, and IT industry veterans and labor observers say it’s inevitable that much of the work will eventually be transfered there, enabling both companies to save due to India’s lower wages.
They will move to “comparable positions” at as-yet-identified Infosys locations “in close proximity to Vanguard’s offices” in Malvern, Charlotte, N.C., or Scottsdale, Ariz., under their current boss, Martha King, who is also transferring to Infosys, according to the company. Between the three sites, Vanguard now has about 18,000 employees.
According to Vanguard workers, the company also outsources information technology services. As many as 600 contractors for India-based Tata Consultancy Services (TCS) work on Vanguard projects at buildings along Morehall Road and other sites near Vanguard buildings; other TCS staff in India also work on Vanguard IT.
But “Vanguard employees who will be re-badged as Infosys employees better start looking for new jobs as soon as possible because almost all of them will be let go after the 12-month commitment expires,” predicts Howard University associate professor Ron Hira, who has studied “offshoring” and foreign tech worker visa programs since the early 2000s and testified in Washington on the impact of the H-1B visa program on U.S. workers.
Hira noted that IT transfer projects are often slower and more complicated than partners expect. And he said outsourcers typically “displace older workers who have built up benefits” with recent college graduates who account for many outsourcing hires.
“The stock market is doing well. Vanguard is doing well. Why is it offshoring all of these middle-class jobs? Why didn’t it invest in its workers?” Hira concluded. “This is a microcosm of what’s wrong with the economy.”
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