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Giant Sucking Noise
bsharma writes "The next round of globalization is sending upscale jobs offshore. They include basic research, chip design, engineering--even financial analysis. Can America lose these jobs and still prosper? Who wins? Who loses?" News.com has a related story about outsourcing.
As you might expect, this worries me a lot. I'm fairly secure (I think), because they need at least one person here that knows English and Java and can understand the customers and do the face-to-face, but in the long run more and more places are going to look at the savings and ship the work overseas.
I've got two kids, 9 and 12, and I'm at a loss for what direction to steer them in career-wise. I used to think Engineering was the answer, since I've really enjoyed my, what, 20-odd years of slinging code. But by the time my kids are college-age, god knows what will be left in the US besides burger flippers, doctors, and lawyers.
-- ac at work
Is this somewhat painful? Yes. Does it help in the long term? Most definitely.
Do you really think that the mid east would be in the situation it is today if there was a wide diverse economy over there?
Blockquoth the poster:
America makes its money by being at the ultimate junction point of capital, intellectual property, communications, and business management. We're the deal-makers and the facilitators. We don't build anything ourselves because we're content to skim a little bit off the top of everything that passes through our hands.
However, sooner or later, all those other countries to which we've outsourced our industrial base will realise that they really don't need us. When they get their acts together, they'll just start dealing directly with each other. And when that happens, watch this Pax Americana come to a screeching halt.
I predict it will happen within the next 50 years, if all things continue as they are now...
Hmmm... yah. Can't be. Those inumerable people against globalisation must all be out of their minds.
Wait, let me get this straight. I'm assuming that your four-man operation replaces a three-or-four man operation in the U.S. Let's say salary costs are $50,000 per U.S. programmer, $15,000 per Indian programmer. A four-man U.S. team is $200,000 a year, while a one US, three Indian team is $95,000, for a savings of 48%.
Great! Your company now has an extra $105K to spend! Either you get a raise (not likely), or another team can be created, employing 8 programmers where four were employed before (and allowing your company to do more work). Of course, the real ratio is a little higher - you need slightly more support staff (management, office workers, etc) to support twice as many workers, on both sides of the ocean, so it's possible your company could jump from 4 workers to 10, for the same amount of money. Seems like a net good to me.
Further, the U.S. is the top market for high technology products, because we have the extra cash to spend on them. Increased employment in other countries raises their GDP, which means they can better afford high-end toys, which means they get cheaper and better for us, etc. etc.
Take a look at the numbers - globalization has been in full swing for a few decades now, and the U.S. has the lowest unemployment rate in years - lower than they thought possible a decade ago! Almost everyone wins when the people that can make a product the cheapest are allowed to do it. The only ones who lose, in the short run, are those who are displaced by the production move. The remedy for that is short-term government support, and the best way to get out is to acquire new skills.
Tell your children to become engineers. The problem-solving skills you learn will help them easily jump from career to career, as needed. Encourage them to take some liberal arts classes, too, to make them think more flexibly and excercise that right brain a little. May I suggest an economics class?
On the other hand, as long as I can make a living, I'm not going to begrudge someone in India, Russia, or other place their ability to make a living. What I object to is when the savings from outsourcing do more than keep a corporation afloat, but actually continue paying obscene salaries for CEOs. Perhaps we need to outsource board-level jobs to India and Singapore and Bulgaria. It's only fair. Don't you think?
Frankly, I have been expecting this for about a year or two: if you can/could telecommute, what prevented your employer to outsource your job?
The developed countries have been outsourcing blue-collar jobs to developing (really low-wage) countries, thanks to the development of international transportation for moving the goods all over the world. Those jobs go now wherever the workforce is the cheapest
Every single part of computer hardware you have in front of you, has been made in Anywhere But US/Europe/Japan(TM). I hope you enjoyed playing/working with your computer, because karma is a b*tch.
Today, the internet allows the transportation of knowledge, voice and data all around the world. Of course, your job will go elsewhere.
Heck, if you think about it, you can see that no one is really safe from this:
- lawyers (you just need some meat in the court house, everything else, including C&D
:), is outsourcable paperwork)
- doctors (the remote chirurgy we dreamed about with Internet2)
- teachers (online schooling anyone?)
- people in the movie/entertainment industry: Bollywood could cripple Hollywood (Selling low-priced non-crippled CD and non-DRM DVD should be straigthforward for the Indian majors)
Here is some food for thought:My predictions are:
So, what does it mean for me?
One of these days, Chairman Mao is going to call the President of the United States and tell him to surrender.
Chairmain Mao will explain that Chinese Corporations are the subcontactors to the subcontractors to the subcontractors of the Department of Defense Subcontractors and furthermore; China now makes ALL the key components for ALL of America's military weapons and machines.
Then he will let out an evil sounding Chineese Laugh! (The kind you hear in James Bond movies.)
How can the US maintain it's power if all it's strategic manufacturing capability is located offshore? Recently, we nearly lost the US Steel Industry and it's not over yet.
Sure we have rules and laws which on paper prevent this sort of problem, however as the FDA recently found out in the "Tainted Strawberry Harvest", these rules are not always followed. In this specific case the FDA had rules that all food used in school lunch programs must be grown in the United States. The subcontractors decided to ignore the rule and subcontract from Mexico and imported 1.7 million pounds of Hepatitis laced frozen Strawberries. The good news is that the fraudulent company was the lowest bidder and we saved tax dollars.
I won't even comment on the strategic technology which has been leaked to other countries by defense subcontractors.
Greed will destroy us!