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Sri Lanka can give India a run in the battle for global outsourcing space, with local IT workers staying longer in a single job than their Indian counterparts.





Sri Lanka can give India a run in the battle for global outsourcing space, with local IT workers staying longer in a single job than their Indian counterparts. Survey findings released on Tuesday showed that turnover rates for the local IT workforce is a modest 6.







6 percent, falling from 19.8 percent in 1998.

India, our biggest competitor in the BPO stakes, is going the other way.

From little over six percent turnover levels in 2002, it is now over 17 percent, as workers move and shop around.

Retention is getting harder, with the top five IT companies in India actually losing over 8,000 people in the last financial year, the report showed.

"In India, there is a huge turnaround of sorts within companies.

The market is so buoyant where people can walk out of a job in three months and be sure of a new place and a pay rise," Former head of Private Sector Development at the ICT Agency, Reeza Zarook said.

Another competitor, the Philippines, has turnover levels in the information and communi