IBM Moving Developer Jobs Overseas

helixcode123 writes "According to the New York Times (also on Yahoo News), IBM is planning on moving a substantial number of high level jobs overseas to 'India and other countries.' IBM argues, in essence, that they need to do this to stay competitive. The article quotes that Forrester Research '...estimated that 450,000 computer industry jobs could be transferred abroad in the next 12 years, representing 8 percent of the nation's computer jobs.'"

Comments

in the future

[ralico]

We'll be telling our grandkids that the US actually had an H1B visa program to encourage tech workers from other countries to work here, not the other way around. And they'll say
"Grandpa, you're pulling my leg!"

Admit it...

[JoeLinux]

As an Electrical Engineer, I'm thoroughly convinced that defense jobs are the only ones that are going to stay in-country. Might as well jump on the band-wagon now. Viva le Tomahawk!

The meek might inheret the earth, but they'll be in India.

Oh my god!

[autopr0n]

You mean to tell me that International Business Machines might employ people in other countries!!!?!?!!112@

That's just so wrong!

Re:reduce costs?

[mcgroarty]

Someone [who the board believes to be] capable of driving a company isn't a commodity worker. Pretty much everybody in the middle class in the US is a commodity worker however.

Thanks to globalization, the middle class will find themselves increasingly distanced from the wealthy. The IBM situation is merely one example of this.

Get off your ass and learn.

[Dr. Bent]

I'm an American. I lead a lifestyle that is substantially better than most of the people on the planet. Outsourcing of IT jobs to countries like China, Russia and India is threatening that lifestyle, and if I'm not careful it could all go right down the drain.

I say: Good. It's about damn time.

Why does America deserve to have all the wealth that it has? If someone in India can do my job at 1/10th the cost, why exactly should anyone pay me to do it? Simply to support my American way of life? No. The American way of life is not a birthright. It has to be earned. You earn it by doing what those guys in India and China and Russia can't do. You earn it by innovating, and by taking risks. You earn it by seizing on oppertunities that those guys simply do not have access to.

It's time to wake up people. Being able to sling a little code, set up a webserver and talk your way around a design meeting is not going to cut it anymore. You need to get off your ass, put the time in on the weekends and:

1) Identify what it is that you can do that cannot be done by anyone else (or at least, anyone who is willing to work for your salary)

2) Train yourself to do it well.

Otherwise you will not have a job. Simple as that. Just like during the manufacturing boom in the 50's and 60's, America (and Western Civilization in general) had gotten fat and lazy in the last few years. Now there is simply no reason why you are worth 10 times more than the rest of the world. So you had better come up with a reason, or move to China.

Re:this is becoming too repetitive now!

[Colonel Panic]

Stop Cribbing, Guys! Get your skills upto date....there is no dearth of jobs for quality workers.

That's like saying "Learn to swim better guys, you can out swim this tsunami!" as the tidal wave breaks over your head.

You think they don't have quality workers in India? You think the USA is the only place which has quality workers?

Now the game is all about price anyway, and we're way overpriced compared to quality workers in India. Time to learn how to fix cars or teeth.

Saying this on /. may be suicide but..

[k98sven]

In my opinion, computer programming should no longer be considered a "high-tech" job.

Sure, there is science in the mix (mostly logic, math), but how many programmers actually make use of this stuff on a daily basis? Most programming that is done in industry is relatively routine stuff;
Code, Run, Debug, Repeat.

Only a lucky few are developing completely new algorithms, and doing what can really be called 'research'. The rest are just engineering jobs, if that.

Now the former, research-related stuff, will stay in the country. Our universities and research are still much better.

The latter type of programming, which unfortunately is what most people are doing, like writing VB programs to solve relatively simple tasks and such, cannot compete.
There is no reason to keep those jobs in the country if someone else can do the same thing cheaper.

And that's just fine with me. For nations like India, it's still one step up on the ladder of technology, and for us, it's a motivation to keep pushing upwards towards the new areas that really are "high-tech".

Re:Saying this on /. may be suicide but..

[LaCosaNostradamus]

I appreciate your perspective and admire your boldness in posting such a thing on /., but I am compelled to speak the truth and to counter misconceptions where I see them. You have missed some critical features of professional work.

There are many instances in every job where a level of commonality is reached. In this level, a "trained monkey" could do the job. But that doesn't cast the entirety of the profession onto the manual-labor streetcorner.

I have wormed my way back into IT (serendipity played a large part of that, however), and I find myself writing a lot of procedures for others to follow. The procedures are for even the lay person to follow, since time is always of the essence. But it took my little skilled self to not only write them, but to come up with the need to have them written in the first place. Corporate memory arises from Human action, and those acts are skilled ones.

Added to this is the sad, sad truth that too many people cannot even construct logical thought processes necessary to be an effective professional. IT work is brutally logical and missing details leads to almost catastrophic results. IT is laboring under the weight of that old song or poem about For The Want of a Nail. The need for disciplined thinking alone puts such work into realm of "uncommonality".

In summary, yes, you are broadly correct that pushing VB routines around is more of a commodity skill and as such can be priced down to minima. However, programming itself is a profession requiring years of dedicated practice and study, and you will be hard pressed to demand a 4-year degree for a 4-year career, or a 16-yr-old's wages.

From Central European perspective...

[Przepla]

...it's very good think. I live in Poland, where unemployment rate is as high as 20%, 50% of university graduates are unemployed, and where I work as a system administrator for about 1000 zlotys (less than 300 USD) monthly and last payment was from March.
I have a Masters Degree in Physics, and I am finishing my Masters thesis in Law. I'm 25 and still living with my parents in a flat (let's just say, that renting one room flat costs over 500 zlotys (half of my pay)) and I consider myself very lucky having a place to live, a job, and at least some perspectives.
So whenever some US corp. is moving out of US, we people from underdeveloped countries, are rather happy, as this means better future for us.

Re:Any thoughts on another line of work?

[Abalamahalamatandra]

Easy. Don't be a developer.

Get involved in infrastructure work - all the suits left here aren't going to be communicating with the slave labor over there via the US Mail - they'll still need computing infrastructure here, like Internet access, email, and decision support systems.

I would say that you should look at computer security, but over the years I've tried to train a lot of people in it (my field) and I've become convinced that it just takes a certain kind of person to do it - you're pretty much always interested in it, or you're not and can't get that way by training.

I've got some karma to spend, so I'll say it - a certain amount of this will be good for the industry as a whole. A lot of the people getting weeded out by this outsourcing are the ones who took their classes to become a developer and "make the big bucks". Over time we'll realize that IT in the US will be left with the people who think up the cool stuff to do and leave it to the overseas grunts to actually execute.

That said, I also want to say that I'll be the first to laugh when one of these countries (probably not India, though) becomes the next Iraq and some US companies get put in a serious bind.

As for those saying that this will redistribute the wealth globally - get real! We're creating a new overseas worker class, not new overseas companies. The jobs are going there because the people will work for peanuts, not because they have great skills and deserve huge salaries.