Britain's biggest industrial union expressed alarm on Wednesday at the latest trend in outsourcing to South Asia: religion.

"Religious services and prayers for the dead are being offshored from the United Kingdom to India because of a lack of priests," Amicus, whose one-million-plus membership includes several thousand clergymen, said in a statement.

Amicus cited press reports which revealed how more and more prayers were being said in Kerala because they had become too expensive in the West.

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"This shows that no aspect of life in the West is sacred," said Amicus' national secretary, David Fleming.

"We have identified 25 different skilled jobs (in Britain) that have been offshored -- but saying mass and delivering religious services is a real shock."

Amicus spokesman Lee Whitehall told AFP that the union -- which represents many financial services workers in Britain who risk losing their jobs to offshore call centres -- was not against offshore religion as such.

But he said it highlighted the need for organised labour, business and government to map out a strategy to minimise the negative impact of offshore outsourcing on both British and Indian workers.

-- AFP