Shaws to move corporate headquarters from Bridgewater to India

by: Jan A

Wed Feb 18, 2009 at 15:10:39 PM EST

Shaw's to shift corporate jobs to India

WEST BRIDGEWATER, Mass. - Massachusetts-based grocery store chain Shaw's Supermarkets Inc. is gradually laying off about 50 technology workers from its West Bridgewater corporate headquarters and shifting their work to India.

Shaw's spokeswoman Judy Chong said the layoffs began in August and will continue through February. Chong said the shift of jobs to India will help the company remain competitive.

"Part of our strategy to succeed in a very competitive marketplace is to have a multi-geographic workforce," Chong said.

But customers outside the chain's Porter Square location in Cambridge voiced concern over the plan and the welfare of the displaced workers.

"I think it's terrible. In this economy, I think it's going to be a disaster for those people," said Anita Turner, a Cambridge resident, as she loaded groceries into her car. "It doesn't exactly make you proud to shop here."

No, it doesn't make you proud.  I shop there now, but that's about to change.

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"I know everybody seems to be doing it - [outsourcing jobs], but your heart goes out to these people affected by it," Shaw's shopper and Arlington resident Dean Kinunen said, adding that he visits the store about once each week. "Especially with the economy as it is, I can't imagine the [laid-off workers] will find new jobs immediately."

Chong said that Shaw's is offering help to the displaced workers, including severance packages and assistance finding new jobs. The positions are all in information technology and are non-unionized.

Shaw's is owned by Minnesota-based grocery conglomerate Supervalu Inc., and all of the outsourced work will be shifted to Supervalu's facility in Bangalore, India, Chong said.

The move by Shaw's is hardly unprecedented as Western companies, including supermarkets, have long outsourced technology work to India. In 2005, U.S. grocery giant Safeway Inc. signed a $27 million deal for technology services with an Indian company. British grocers Tesco and Somerfield have also shifted more than 600 IT jobs to the Indian subcontinent.

The Shaw's/Star Market supermarket chain was launched in 1919 and now operates more than 200 stores in all six New England states employing more than 30,000 people. The chain is the second largest grocer in the northeastern United States. Shaw's stirred some controversy when the company terminated more than 300 unionized workers and shuttered its East Bridgewater distribution center in 2001 in favor of outsourcing the work to a non-unionized distributor headquartered in New Hampshire.