UAL to move some jobs back from India to US

CHICAGO: UAL Corp, parent of United Airlines, said on Tuesday it will fill 165 customer relations jobs -- previously outsourced to India -- in the United States.

The move runs counter to the trend among U.S. companies of sending jobs overseas to save money. But UAL said the change is cost neutral to the company because U.S. workers who take airline reservations would respond to customer feedback as well. The jobs will be located in Chicago and Hawaii.

UAL, which cut 7,000 jobs last year and plans to cut 1,000 more this year, said the customer relations work outsourced to India a few years ago has been done by contractors.

In-house, U.S.-based employees would perform better because responding to customer feedback requires a greater understanding of the airline and its policies than is generally possessed by an outside contractor, a UAL spokeswoman said. UAL shares fell 7.76 percent to $8.20 on Nasdaq.