Posted on 02/04/2003 3:44:14 PM PST by Mini-14
MetLife Inc. is eliminating 93 information technology jobs at GenAmerica Financial offices in St. Louis.
The work handled here will be outsourced to Cognizant Technology Solutions Corp. Cognizant, a Teaneck, N.J., software developer and service provider, is expected to shift much of the programming and other functions to workers in India, according to GenAmerica employees who spoke on the condition of anonymity.
In a statement issued to the St. Louis Business Journal Jan. 22, MetLife confirmed the job eliminations, which it said were part of an integration to further increase IT's ability to respond to the company's business needs.
The 93 workers affected by the change make up about two-thirds of the IT staff in St. Louis, employees said. Most of the approximately 150 workers in the IT division were veterans of General American Life Insurance, a subsidiary of GenAmerica Financial, who stayed after General American sustained a liquidity crisis in 1999 and was bought for $1.2 billion in early 2000 by MetLife.
As of Sept. 30, about 1,000 fewer people were on the MetLife payroll in Missouri than the 2,200 who worked for General American at its peak in 1997, according to the Missouri Department of Economic Development.
Sources said workers who got pink slips are in the individual information technology division, supporting systems associated with sales and service of traditional and universal life insurance policies. IT workers who were not affected by the layoffs provide support to the compensation systems for GenAmerica's independent agents.
The workers were told in October their jobs were being eliminated. The first round of layoffs, involving about a dozen programmers, took place Jan. 3. Jan. 31 is the last day of work for another 17 people, with the rest being let go in February and March, workers said.
Some of the 93 GenAmerica employees spent part of the last few weeks training workers from India, who were flown to St. Louis to learn the jobs, sources said.
In its statement, MetLife said positions were available for the GenAmerica workers in Scranton, Pa.; Boston; and Bridgewater, N.J.; and that the workers were eligible to apply for other available positions in the company. The company said it could not comment on how many individuals relocated.
In an earlier press release, issued Dec. 17 by Cognizant, Daniel Cavanagh, executive vice president of IT for MetLife, said, "By outsourcing the support of various application portfolios to Cognizant, we have been able to provide more opportunities for MetLife IT associates to expand their experiences and abilities, and increase the overall productivity within IT."
MetLife also said it planned to add about 100 jobs in 2003 in St. Louis, at its Retirement Plans Group, which handles 401(k) business for small and medium companies. The group, formed through the consolidation of the retirement divisions of MetLife, GenAmerica and New England Financial, currently has 226 employees, up from about 180 a year ago, MetLife said.
For those competing with MetLife, this is a cool thing because those competitors will be able to pay tiny fees to various low-level Indian grunts to gain access to all of that competitive data. Of course, if that's your personal medical history that MetLife just shipped to India, then this move sucks (big time)...
Predictions are a dime a dozen, but I think that programming will be the sweatshop job of the 21st century.
The truly brilliant and the innovators will find lucrative work as always, but I (being one of the merely competent) am looking to change careers and would advise anyone whose children are considering programming to think again.
The only programmers that are getting jobs today are Indians. Some of these sweatshops are paying these people next to nothing.
There will be many desperate PHBs holding disasters they are not equipped to handle.
The truly brilliant and the innovators will find lucrative work as always, but I (being one of the merely competent) am looking to change careers and would advise anyone whose children are considering programming to think again.
Good post. The writing has been on the wall for at least a decade: don't go into programming if you want job security.
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