U.S. Jobs Jumping Ship

An anonymous reader writes "As painful as February's big job cuts were, they're even more painful since many of those jobs are never coming back as U.S. employers in a wide range of industries move more and more jobs overseas. CNN has the story." Salon has a good piece detailing how job requirements are changing, asking more and more for less and less pay.

Comments

Estate of the Nation

[ackthpt]

With the news about India Institute of Technology (IIT) carried by Sixty Minutes, it is a bit ironic that Indias best and brightest, who leave India for better wages in the USA would may be competing with those back in India.

Sure fire ways to make a living in the USA, providing the trend continues:

Farm. People have to eat. If americans can't afford the food, someone else can, there's always a buyer, if you can afford to set the right price. (Sound unethical? You're probably not a republican then)

Become an entertainer (something about americans dancing and singing on a stage works for extracting money from the pockets of everyone else in the world. As of yet americans still make what the world wants to buy in terms of image.)

Own an overseas company, employing locals for a pittance, and selling goods and services to anyone, anywhere who can still afford them. China looks like a good place to sell, it's got one of the few growing economies.

Go into politics. If americans can't afford your price for selling out your country, someone, somewhere will and hopefully you know how to keep your payments away from prying eyes, not that the public really cares anymore, but they might.

Cynical? Why not. You can't expect the current administration or house to insist upon a tariff on imported services, can you?

Re:Estate of the Nation

[frodo from middle ea]

You can't expect the current administration or house to insist upon a tariff on imported services, can you?
Sure you can, but remember that the american companies like coke, pepsi, McDonalds, KFC, PnG, Nike , etc etc have huge markets outside US, especially in far east populous countries like india, china, japan, korea
Now if govt. of these countries were to impose the same tariff that you speak of on imported american goods, .... Well you get the picture.
face it, the world is shrinking day by day, and if affects everybody's life in some way or another
America is a super-power in the world not because of its military , rather because of its economic dominance. But that economy can not be self contained, To be a world leader you have to play the same game on equal fields
To stay competetive in world markets the american companies need to reduce costs at all options, and labor cost is a very convenient option.

Re:Estate of the Nation

[vsprintf]

To stay competetive in world markets the american companies need to reduce costs at all options, and labor cost is a very convenient option.

Oh, really? Then why is it that it's only the worker's jobs that get offshored? American companies could save many millions of dollars per year by offshoring management jobs, but that never happens.

We have American companies claiming offshore workers are better and cheaper (which is one-half bullshit) except when it comes to management. Now isn't that remarkable? We have American CEOs getting obscene salaries and bonuses for putting American residents out of work.

Re:Estate of the Nation

[Tackhead]

> I do not see how creating a 'world economy' helps anyone but the rich. It deflates wages. Maybe I am missing the picture here.

I can think of one part of the picture you're missing: In the eyes of 5,000,000,000 people of the 6,000,000,000 on the planet, you are "the rich".

> Maybe there is a grand schema that will allow balance across the globe.

If by "balance", you mean "equally distribute all wealth among all 6,000,000,000 people", here's another part of the picture you're missing.

If you want that kind of "balance", be prepared to give up air conditioning, your automobile, your paved roads, your heart surgeon, your chemotherapy, your MRI scans, your broadband and 56k modems for a 2400-9600 baud serial line, and a couple of hours a day of electricity.

In short, be prepared to live a lifestyle below that of the poorest inner-city welfare mother. If that offends you as a racist stereotype, replace it with "the most inbred hillbillies in the Appalacians".

I won't presume to speak for you, but as for me, I'm not prepared to do that. As a citizen of a Western nation in a capitalist economy, I was born into the top 15% of the planetary socioeconomic pyramid. I like it here. I'm staying here. And I'm willing to pay 20% of my earnings, every year, to the top 1% to keep it that way. (The top 1% currently takes about 40% of those earnings, but that's haggling over price, not a fundamental argument about the principle :)

> I only see that somehow jobs are harder to find, and those I do find pay a lot less. I am not speaking of .Com era wages, but prior to that- the early to mid 90s era.

The first part is called a "recession". They tend to be finite in length.

The second part is called "deflation". It happens to CPU prices when better CPU designs reach the market, and/or when competing companies design a comparable CPU but charges less. It happens to wages when skills become obsolescent, and/or when competing workers offer the same work you do, for less price.

If you're in the CPU business, you can either cut your price, or build a better CPU. If you're in the job market, you can either lower your salary expectations, or learn about a new technology.

So much hand ringing over jobs...

[ChaoticChaos]

I have no doubt that some have gone overseas, but without a doubt, the worst problem is the economy. No company is going to hire anyone until this mess with Iraq starts to straigten out. Once that happens though, look for mega job listings to start appearing. There has to be a lot of pent up demand out there considering that everyone has been stalled for a couple of years now.

Re:So much hand ringing over jobs...

[ackthpt]

No company is going to hire anyone until this mess with Iraq starts to straigten out. Once that happens though, look for mega job listings to start appearing.

It's my firm belief that we are about to invade Iraq because the current batch in W. DC can't figure out how to improve the economy. (Hint: Economies flourish in a stable and peaceful world)

There has to be a lot of pent up demand out there considering that everyone has been stalled for a couple of years now.

No. If there's no demand, there's no demand. Interest rates are at incredibly low levels. Go an idea and can convince a bank to fund it? Go into business, best time ever for loans, no competition for the money. Why? People afraid nothing will succeed and they won't be able to pay back the loan.

I'm quite positive the image projected by the president has 90% to do with the health of the economy, and Bush projects fear and loathing. Clinton (what ever his other warts) projected a positive, inclusive image. It took a while, but economy grew. It started to shrink when it sunk in that the ride was almost over.

If we're saddle with Mr. 'Axis of Evil' for another 4 years, after 2004, we might as well open trade schools for ditch diggers.

World ending! News at 11!

[Anonymous Coward]

Humanity is so ridiculous in its endless tendency to linearly extend every trend into the infinite future. As a "Daily Show" the other night humored: If an infant keeps its rate of growth for several decades, soon it will be the size of giant office buildings and killing us all! Of course we know that isn't the case, just as we know that the economy shifts and sways, and companies try endless tactics to seem to be doing something. In 3 years this will all seem idiotic, but that won't stop the idiots from doing the same thing during the next cyclic downswing.

Sad Sad day

[4doorGL]

Yup, it's a sad sad day when college graduates in America are losing jobs to those overseas (particularly India). I was doing Tech Support for Dell for awhile (I know, I know....it paid) and during that time they started outsourcing most of their tech support and customer service to call centers in India. I can't even count how many customers I talked to that were hung up on, or couldn't understand the person, etc etc etc. It might have saved them a few bucks, but it goes to show these companies don't really care about their customers.

Recessions

[Galvatron]

Jesus, you'd think people had never lived through a recession before. This shit happens. This recession is no more likely to be eternal than the Dot Com boom was. Of course salaries are falling from their formerly inflated rate. Then, once they've fallen sufficiently, companies will start moving jobs back to the US, and salaries will rise again.

Christ, if you think this is bad, thank God that we weren't alive during the Great Depression. That didn't sink us, and this won't either. Also, for those who argue that this time it's different because of globalization: the world was more globalized in 1910 than it is now, because of European colonialism.

Aren't we being Selfish?

[Anonymous Coward]

Hey, aren't we being selfish?

Think of the people in India that just had their standard of living raised. Who is to say that their living standard is less important than your living standard?

We complain and complain about the Recording Industry backing up a "inferior business model".

So are we! Its time we found something else that we can do better/different.

My Company Uses Offshore Labor...

[puppetman]

We have a team in India doing basic database monitoring and support (mostly to back me up, as I'm a finite resource).

They are cheap - about $1000 US a month for their services.

From their resumes and other clients, you would think that they are well trained and efficient.

Unfort, I don't find their work that valuable.

First, while their English is good, it's not good enough. The communication barrier has caused several problems, resulting in database downtime that need not have occurred.

Second, while they advertise themselves as DBAs, there is only one that I marginally trust. We have had to create detailed instructions for doing simple things. They take days to do what I can do in hours, and often fail at what I consider simple, bread-and-butter DBA tasks.

Third, we don't have much of a stick over their head. Should they walk off with our data, our schema, our code, or just trash our site, there is little if anything we could actually do.

An article (recently posted on Slashdot) mentioned that the larger the company, the more likely they were to move IT jobs overseas. In the long run, this is a counter-productive move. Firing a bunch of people will lower the demand for your goods and services; the unemployed don't have the money to spend. And you create a group of seriously pissed off people with time on their hands.

The Salon story mentioned a website called a site where people post these ridiculous jobs. Perhaps someone will come with a site that will list companies that have fired local workers to ship the jobs overseas.

The whole thing makes me wonder if it's time to start thinking about a new career. It's kind of scarey to wonder if tech jobs will become as scarce as those well paying manufacturing jobs of the 50's and 60's (you know, the ones that are now in China, Taiwan, and Mexico).

Unions

[Bull999999]

Perhaps they are sending jobs overseas because they won't have to deal with unions. Remember not too long ago, the dock workers went on strike (at the cost of US economy) despite the fact that they were already highest paid blue collar works and management promised job security. How about the mechanics of United Airlines? UA was facing bankruptcy and they still refused a paycut. RTD (Mass transit system for Denver metro area) bus drivers are threatening to go on a strike lately. RTD already were being subsidized by the cities even when the economy was good because they weren't making any money. Now dispite the fact that the cities are hurting for money and jobs are scarce, they want a raise?

and I'm glad we still have H1B's galore

[CrudPuppy]

gosh, in hindsight, I cant believe I could have ever doubted the government's plan to increase the number of H1B's to such a ridiculously high number.

now I see that they truly did have our best interests in mind. Employers say "the industry no longer pays salaries like that" when they mean "there are hungry immigrants that are willing to do your job for half your salary"

a big "cheers" to the US government.

Let's Outsource CEOs

[tokki]

Let's face it. Times are tough. Budgets and earnings aren't what it used to be. We need to find ways to save money and tigthen our belts.

In short, we've got to outsource upper management to off-shore countries.

There are plenty of well trained and highly educated people in foreign countries that can do excellent upper-management work: CEOs, CFOs, vice presidents... and they'll do them for pennies on the dollar of the exhorbatent prices we pay for CEOs now. 40 million dollar golden parachute? No more!

I don't buy this

[The Bungi]

While many jobs are being shipped offshore, consider the following points:

• The quality of the work being done by Indian (or whatever) programmers (or whatever) varies wildly. Some of it is good, a lot if it is not.
• In my experience, companies like Amex who outsourced their entire IT needs to IBM India (yes, IBM India) and let loose hundreds of employees are now rehiring those same employees (mostly analysts and PMs) through third-tier consulting firms at a much lower cost. So they get the quality they need (because they can't get it from Indians) but they save a bundle of money. It's not uncommon to find a project manager at Amex directing 15 indians that used to be manager or director of so-and-so two years ago. This is (I think) more about deflating the job market than shipping jobs to other countries.
• The perennial "web programmer" and "web designer" and so on is out of work because there is no more market for them. There are no more dotcoms hiring teams of 20 people to "design" three web pages at ~$60K+ per year. No way. But software developers and architects and so on with solid experience and real skills are still finding jobs. The subject of the Salon article sounds to me more like one of those foofy "html programmers" or equivalent than anything else.

The dotcom boom created thousands of jobs that were filled by people with 6 months of experience and a "computer degree" from a community college or Devry. Sorry, but those are gone. No more demand. These people should go back to what they were doing before the went into "computers" to make "big bucks".

It sounds callous, but it's true.

Re:Protectionism

[Taldo]

I'm getting a little tired of the attiude I see from so many that we should either 'just suck it up and deal with it' or 'move.'

Tell you what.... when it's as easy for me to go to another country and work as it is for foreigners to come HERE and work for peanuts.... then maybe I'll think about not complaining about it.

As it is, I'm competing with foreign workers, college educated (at no cost to themselves generally, or they're from one of the few wealthy families in their home region,) who are willing to do the same job for less money because they don't care about having an american standard of living even tho they're living in america, and they aren't as deep in debt as I am from student loans.

Know what? I'd love to spend a few years working in another country. Australia? Yeah.... I can work for three months at a time. Most of Europe? I have to either be independantly wealthy... (be able to prove I can support myself for a given number of months) or have a business to start up. (No.... websites don't count.)

People are bitching about 'protectionism' a lot on this thread... but none of them ever seem to mention the protectionist policies of OTHER COUNTRIES.

When I actually CAN 'follow the jobs' the way people from other countries can, we can talk.

The US has ALWAYS been third world

[lysium]

In the socio- and anthropological fields it is pretty much accepted that the United States is a Third World country that basically won the lottery. I won't provide statistics, but check out (a) Literacy rates (b) Infant mortality (c) Homicide rates (d) % of population below the poverty line, and (e) the gap between the rich and poor. A large middle class running in hamster wheels does not a First World country make. Also: Labor unions are a reaction against the insane exploitation of the 19th century. If the need wasn't there, they would not have been formed, 'cause Americans hate that shit. And in pure opinion, I believe it has less to do with Democratic myopism and more to do with some extremely rich people pulling the ladder up after themselves. Figuratively speaking.

Lot more than web designers

[coyote-san]

This is affecting a lot more than just "web designers" who had no skills beyond that covered in "MS Frontpage for Dummies."

My extended circle of friends and I all have solid educations and lots of experience covering pretty much every aspect of IT that you can name, but no potential employer will give us the time of day. It's not a matter of demanding unreasonable salaries either - if we call their bluff and say that we're willing to accept a low salary just to pay the mortgage, we're told that we're out of consideration since the boss is sure that within a month the economic fairies will come around and we'll bolt for a well-paying job at a new startup.

Finally, my connections on "the other side of the fence" have told me that the ridiculous requirements on these lists are there for a reason - the powers that be want to give the appearance of looking for an employee, but they have no intention of actually hiring anyone. The way they hid this is by creating lists that no single person could possibly satisfy, then offering a wage far below what such a mythical person would actually accept.

If somebody actually had all of that experience and was desperate enough to accept the salary, some overlooked requirement would be discovered. E.g., for a while a popular overlooked requirement was that you had to speak fluent Japanese - and have spent several years in that country.

Falling off the Wave

[ChaoticCoyote]

I've had my share of ups and downs in this industry. I started my career in the Savings & Loan industry -- and after that industry went bust in the early 80s, I had to find a new place to make a buck. A similar collapse hit the "web industry" over the last five years (lots of unjustified hype, bad management, etc.) -- and while I wasn't writing web pages or Flash animations, I was affected nonetheless. I worked as a development director/lead technologist at a couple small businesses that killed themselves by leaving reliable industries to "webify" their product. Both companies are gone, but I'm still here.

There's nothing unique to the computer industry when it comes to bust-boom cycles. It happens all the time in other industries. My wife began her working life 25 years ago as a geological drafter -- you know, with pens, ink, fancy templates. The collapse of the oil and minerals industry did more to end her career than any new reliance on computer-aided drafting. Is she crying in her soup? Heck no -- she worked for various social agencies, often for low wages or free, and built herself a new career in disaster recovery and education. Businesses may come and go, but there'll always be disasters. ;)

Right now, I'm doing contract work, writing a book, and placing myself for a "coming thing" that may or not be big in our industry. My wife has a nice, stable job; our kids learned long ago that their Mom and I don't listen to "gimme, gimme." It's sometimes difficult, but we keep surviving. Never surrender, never give up -- a good philosophy from a very funny movie.

Let me break it down for you

[asscroft]

First Ammendment - Why is this even an argument? Republicans tend to want to censor speech more than the dems, so the dems win this one.

Gun Laws - ridiculous. 2nd ammendment is there in the CONSTITUTION. Republicans win this one.

4th Ammendment - Republicans want to search you, your house, your moms house etc in the name of the "war on drugs" and now the "war on terror" Dems aren't much fuckin' better. But dems are a little looser so dems win this one.

Abortion - Well in reality making it illegal doesn't prevent it from happening, it simply makes it punishable. so even if you are against abortion, you have to realize outlawing it is futile. Dems win this one. Women truly have a choice in reality. A choice between a safe & legal abortion or no abortion is better than a choice between a dangerous illegal abortion or no abortion. Even God would agree with this logic.

Corporate welfare vs worker rights/ Labor. Until I own a corporation, I have to consider myself a worker. Dems win this one. How anyone can vote for something that will reduce their wages, reduce their health care, make them work longer hours all so that some asshole in a board room can export thier job to india to make even more money is beyond me. WAKE THE FUCK UP. How 'bout a little self preservation!!!! Unless you own a corporation, you need to see the light!!!

Jails versus Education: hmm, spend money on educating our children so that they will be prepared to lead our country when they inherit it, or cut spending in schools and parks & rec programs only to eventually spend more money on jails to house our misguided uneducated forgotten youth? tough one here. gee, what should we do ?
Democrats win. Republicans are greedy assholes who can afford private shools for their children. What about the rest of the nations. Those punk asses that are not getting education and resort to crime will hopefully rob your house you greedy fuckheads. (unfortunately you rich bastards live ina gated community, so they'll rob my house and the house of other working men and women, which is unfortunate because it's YOUR POLICY that destroyed thier chances of making it in this world).

Corporate friendly env. policy versus environmental friendly environmental policy. Hmm, in my short life time I've seen 200-500% growth in my home town. Land Development is BIG BUSINESS. It's sad to see them rape the land to build a shitload of cheap ass houses all crammed in tight next to eachother. If those greedy fucks would build one or two less houses per project then all the families that moved in would get yards and a little bit of privacy. Instead they are living in a future ghetto that frankly looked better as natural land. That's the friendliest of the land uses. Chemical plants, manufacturing plants, refineries, junk yards. SHEESH!!! This whole country will be one paved piece of shit in less than 50 years. It's fine if you own a big ass ranch in texas, who cares if your refinery pollutes the fuck out of some poor neighborhood in the wrong side of town. Maybe it will kill those "niggas" before you have to arrest them after they drop out of that shitty high school you wouldn't approve the tax dollars to fix up because you wanted some tax cuts to afford to pay off the crooked politician who allowed the refinery. FUCK!!! Democrats win this one too.

You see, aside from the gun thing, republican policy benefits only a small minority of wealthy assholes. The rest of us get screwed every which way in a increasingly painful cycle. We lose our jobs so our kids go to cheap schools which don't get good funding because money is going to corporations so our kids poor and pissed off do drugs or get pregnant or drop out or graduate and go to college despite the odds, then they lose their jobs and their kids go to crap schools, etc. etc. over and over again while more and more of us become poor and a few fortunate a-holes get richer and richer.

well, it can only go on for so long before we unite and kill you you fuckin rich assholes