Jane of London is right on the money.

Mark, Winsford, England

Blair: more parliamentary time spent on foxhunting than on education. Jobs sent overseas. Any connection? But New Labour really means well, it does and really sincerely so.

John , Canberra, Australia

Transfer of jobs to India means job losses in the uk, I fail to see how that is a good thing.

Saturnine, Worthing, Sussex

So the Prudential is thinking about relocating senior, as well as junior, jobs to India. So you think it is not a bad idea? That our labour market is hollowing out like our indentikit towns?
Perhaps The Times would like to outsource your job too. After all, good journalists must be two a penny in India whereis you must be very expensive.

Its not the same when talking about your own job is it?

America has been going down this route longer than us. Good work constantly being sent to India, replaced with poorer work such as filling shelves in supermarkets. Has resulted in the deskilling on America to the point where Americans don't make anything anymore and the country is now massively in debt because they buy in everything and have nothing much to sell.

In technology in Britain, the numbers of students studying IT, while our techies have to teach India's graduates instead of our own graduates. So when there is war where will you get the software from?

Jane, London, England

But what do we have to worry about? last year homeowners have made more from capital gains on their houses than from their jobs. They cannot move our houses to India, so we are ok

Michele, Richmond, Surrey

Who says that corporations should have the best interests of our society at heart? They hold no special allegiance to any one country in this global economy. Their priority is to make money for themselves and their shareholders. That's capitalism.

Simon Aldred, Preston, Lancashire

It is widely accepted nowadayas that businesses have a duty of care and sensitivity to the socities they operate in not just their shareholders. This is obviously not acknowledged in this article. The commentator praises the Pru for wanting to send all jobs to India without looking at the impact of the Pru's social reputation in the markets it sells its products. Recently we hear of so many companies transferring jobs back to Europe as their customers express their dissatisfaction dealing with call center operators in India. Well, if the Pru's customers also object to this and show their dissatisfaction with moving their business, then this startegy will back-fire. I am sure that the Pru would have researched this well to ensure that it is not going to be an issue for them. To insinuate though that the social element of doing business is irrelevant when transferring all jobs to low cost countries whilst reaping the extra margins by selling the services to the western consumer is naive.

Gianni, Maidenhead,

"It's the long run that matters" is the correct title on the wrong article. Skills, experience, training facilities and research are all diminished as a result of the transfer to low wage areas. Examine Britain's pathology and imaging services. Once destroyed they cannot be re-created and once destroyed the price will be ruthlessly raised. Examine the case of Citicorp and Iflex.

Shareholders and owners alike care only for the bottom line and only rarely for people or countries.

The answer is to reward the long term approach, generate the skills to match the work and penalise those companies who profit from the modern day slave trade. The only reason wages are lower iin countries like India and Argentina is that companies can avoid tax, social security, pensions, software licences and safe working conditions. Add these to bottom line and it is more economic to keep the work in the UK and the slaves will stand a chance of better conditions in the long term.

Richard Herbert, Buenos Aires, Argentina

House prices are the root of all evil for the UK. Workers need higher wages to pay for ever increasing house prices. This in turn fuels the price rises and the uncompetitiveness of the British worker.

gary, dallas, texas

I am from india and i would like to point that the UK economy that is booming is because of free trade and globalisation. Job transfers are also part of this. We need to look at the broader picture, if the developing countries grow so will the developed. Definitely a educated Iraq, Iran or Palestine will not drain the economy of the West as it is currently doing. Think about the big picture and as mentioned the long term gain.

shiva, London, UK

I really couldn't care less where the Pru goes.

It miss-sold me a Pension when I had an occupational one.

It sold me an endowment policy that didn't cover what it was meant to.

It administers my Occupational Pension Scheme AVC fund and returns a growth of 2.5% per year - well below the RPI and Bank of England base rate. (you cannnot get at this money as they have locked it up in red tape so you can't transfer it out to a better fund)

My Mother and Father took out a Guaranteed 5 year Bond and the Pru tried to go back on it's guaranteed rate of return (because it had a few reverses in the Stock Market) They threatened legal action and the Pru paid up.

The worst financial company in the UK and I am amazed that the FSA allows it to continue operating.

India can have them.

viper217, Glasgow, Scotland

I agree with Andrew from Manchester. The benefit of jobs tansfer to other cheap labout countries goes to a small elite. What they fail to recognise is that as more jobs move to developing countries - the unemployment rate will rise in the UK then the economy will suffer. The eventual scenerio is that a vast pool of unemployed people will be unable to survive on depleted welfare payments and thus turn to crime.
This will mean that those business elites will be unsafe in the UK and thus need to move overseas. Perhaps that's their strategy.

Tony, Warwick, UK

It's another of these---"it may well be good foe you all in the long run" arguments. It may or it may not, however I do know at the age of 70, I do not have as much "long run" in me now as I did 50 years ago!

DAVID VINTER, LOUTH, LINCS. , UK.

Please remind me who said "Give the capitalists enough rope and they will hang themselves" was it Marx or was it Lenin? the result will be the same regardless.

akeroyd, whitby, yorks

I have always wondered how it is that companies like the PRU think that it makes sense to shift their operations to third-world countries while their market is here in the first-world. If the jobs go then surely their business will ultimately suffer as peoples spending power deteriorates.

If our salaries stagnate as a consequence of this shift then so ultimately will their business. I suppose they are adopting the Ostrich approach, assuming that someone else will provide the jobs and fat salaries needed to keep their business going. The newly rich Indians perhaps?, let's hope so.

John, Limerick, Ireland

Ah, I see, so, it is actually in our interests to see the wholesale transfer of jobs and, indeed, almost entire corporations to India and China etc. The stupidity and irresponsibility of this argument beggars belief. What business activity is there that can not be transferred to India or China, or anywhere else in the developing world, that can't be done more cheaply there? Exactly what activities should we invest our own human capital resources in, that won't be the next in line for transfer.

This is a recipe for cultural and economic disaster, and social unrest. I am sick and tired of hearing this nonsense. The only people in the West to benefit from this activity are a tiny minority in the business elite. So corporations can make any decision in the interest of their shareholders, even if this is directly harmful to the societies they want to operate in? No, the direct transfer of jobs out of the UK is not in the interest of this society and to say otherwise is ludicrous.

Andrew Hark, Manchester , England