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Nortel to Boost Chinese R&D Operations
By Mark Evans | July 18, 2007
In a cost-cutting move that also takes advantage of China’s growing pool of engineering talent, Nortel plans to boost the number of engineers in China.
Jackson Wu, who heads up Nortel’s Chinese operations, told Bloomberg News that “a significant portion” R&D jobs will move to China because “the difference in costs is just too big”. He declined to be specific about many more positions would be created in China, where Nortel now employees 2,000 engineers.
In the past year, Nortel has boosted its operations in China, including a new centre of excellence in Shanghai that will enhance the company’s ability to provide supply chain operations and procurement in China. To give you a sense of how much business Nortel is doing in China, the company will source more than $1-billion of supplies from China this year.
Topics: R&D |
July 18th, 2007 at 5:19 pm
Nice to see the execu-lemmings are still in charge.
July 18th, 2007 at 6:51 pm
Its too bad China doesn’t play by the rules of of an open and free market. If they released the peg between the yuan and the dollar and let their currency freely float like the most other market based economies then they wouldn’t be so low cost. I think its safe to conclude Nortel is in a cash crunch with comments like this. The only part that remains is how quickly will most R&D jobs be transitioned to China.
July 19th, 2007 at 6:41 am
There’s an article - the cover story, in fact - in the a recent issue of The Atlantic magazine that looks at China and the economics of outsourcing. It’s a good and educational read.
July 19th, 2007 at 8:17 am
After China, I hear they can find low cost workers in North Korea.
July 24th, 2007 at 1:35 pm
As Nortel has previously announced it was shedding 2,900 jobs and moving 1,000 more, including research and development positions, to low-cost countries like China, Turkey and Mexico, isn’t this just a repeat of information??
July 31st, 2007 at 1:16 pm
The managerial pinheads dont take into account the cost of training all the new employees or moving the current equipment to China, all they see is “for x amount of dollars I can get x amount of employees”, never mind that they are alienating their customer base, who may have had a rapport with the existing R&D staff,..but this is how it will go,..first to China,..then China will become too expensive,..then say Vietnam,..until that becomes too expensive, then the Phillipines,..and on and on,. until finally they wind up outsourcing the work to Prison labor here in the States,..where I may finally get a chance to get my old job back,..