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The Unstoppable Shift of IT Jobs Overseas
514x0r writes "The spectre in the back of many of our minds is that in a few years we may be replaced by an underpaid programmer in India. Newsforge.com is currently running an article about why this is unstoppable, that actually ends on a positive note...sort of." Newsforge and Slashdot are both part of OSDN.
And you're a bloody hypocrite if you do.
All you accomplish through getting the government involved to prevent outsourcing is hurting a hundred people through higher prices for the sake of one person.
You don't have a right to an IT job. If you have one, great. Make sure you have skills that are so valuable that you won't be outsourced. If you can't do that, then find another line of work, you lazy bastard. Should the government have done something to protect operators of horse drawn buggies that were put out of business when cars came to the market?
I was thinking about going into IT. The recent fad of outsourcing makes me rethink my priorities. I don't want to benefit by causing prices to rise beyond free market levels and screwing my fellow citizens who have little to do with this.
When Microsoft pleaded that the GPL would destroy their ability to make money, someone responded, "Tough. Adapt or die."
So, to those IT workers who feel they're being cheated by having something taken from them, when in fact they did not have an inherent right to what they have:
Tough. Adapt or die. Offer something in America in IT that foreigners cannot offer or find some other line of business. I refuse to support people who want to screw me.
Economic illiteracy like this is the reason why we get screwed by the Republicans and the Democrats so often. Quoting John "Candy" Keynes. Sheesh.
Bush is on fire and its not good for my lungs.
So the American corporations (of doom) are sending jobs to foreign companies to save some cash. Considering Indian IT workers have a wage of $10,000 compared to the $60,000 of fresh out of college Americans, that adds up. The pay raises usually end up in the pockets of the business owners.
But weren't the same American business owners, albeit in other industries, complaining about other countries making money by importing goods to the US and competing with the traditional businesses? Isn't that what the entire anti-dumping, WTO policies are about?
There was a mainstream article on Time magazine entitled Where the Good Jobs Are Going. (Premium, pay article) which you might want to take a look at if you have access to it.
Yeah well they are gonna pay once they realize that nobody in the USA has any jobs because they've all been moved overseas. Once nobody has any jobs, they won't be able to afford to buy anybodys products. Then when nobody buys the products, the companies begin to fold. Don't they see how this works. Its simple logic that says when jobs go away, people can't afford stuff, when they can't afford stuff, they don't buy stuff, then the companies fold. SIMPLE ECONOMICS. All of these companies need to start to realize that they are only hurting themselves in the long run.
I'm not sure why anyone would want to hire Americans, since our cost of living has shot way beyond anything like a reasonable level. You give someone a $100k salary, and in California he can pretty much just make ends meet and maybe buy a few gadgets.
I'm actually thinking it might be a good idea to move offshore myself. I'd earn less, but I might earn more when adjusted to the cost of living in, say, the Philippines or Brazil.
I'd still earn a lot more than the typical offshore worker due to excellent English skills. All I would need to do is learn how to communicate with them and I'd be in demand in the same way the Los Angeles auto mechanic head is. He typically gives instructions to the hispanics who do the real work. No different from my scenerio.
True, the infrastructure isn't there, but if enough of us go, it's going to improve over time. The first mover keeps the low cost of living, and in fact benefits from inevitable increases in costs. For instance, if I buy a house today, it will go up in value if more come.
SF guru Robert Heinlein always said that we have a choice of staying fat and happy in our own spaces, or going to explore the unknown. He said the fat and happy places would decline, and eventually get swallowed up by more competitive ones. I think we're seeing that happen right now, in our own lifetimes. There's no space travel, true, but international travel is every bit as mysterious to the average guy.
Maybe it's about time to realize that unfortunately, America isn't what it's cracked up to be anymore. We've gotten too flabby and expensive for our own good. That spells problems, yes, but it also spells opportunity for those who dare to take it.
D
I have some experience with this. My last company laid most of their programmers off and outsourced the work overseas. In their case it worked since they were essentially an ad agency and all of the websites we did were pretty much "done" by time it came to code them (graphics and manuscripts just handed over).
Now I'm doing j2ee programming (I wasn't always a web monkey) for a different company, mostly financial applications. There is a lot of interaction with the business people, and requirements are quite often fluid. I doubt the business and sales people are going to want to come into work at 1am to conference call over to India to hash out the latest requirements.
Point is, some jobs are more likely to be shipped overseas than others. The pay scales of these jobs are going to fall in line with other white collar jobs (except the criminally underpaid teachers). It's just something we need to accept and move on with.
I have nothing to fear from overseas labor. Why? Someone in India can't fix the printer. They can't install antivirus software on someone's system. They can't set up the phone+new PC for a new employee. They can't head over to the hosting center and install that new rackmount server. They don't form a working relationship with their coworkers that makes assisting them and understanding their problems easier.
Further, they're not going to speak English very well(or they'll have such a thick accent, they might as well be speaking Martian), and it's going to be very expensive to communicate with them(and most upper management people don't consider "only via email" to be an acceptable communications medium, rightly so- it's damn tedious sometimes). Not to mention the time difference is a royal PITA. Companies are drastically slashing policies on telecommuting employees- remote just doesn't work. You've gotta be there for the over-the-cube-wall conversations, the overheard tidbits of information that contribute to overall 'corporate knowledge', the meetings...
You know what? While developers were making 2x, 3x my salary during the internet boom(and didn't have to deal with emergencies, late night pages, etc), I didn't hear any complaints from 'em. Now, they'll all finding they're replaceable and their salaries are dropping- while sysadmins, network engineers and internal support staff are doing a far better job of holding onto employment because their jobs require physical presence. I have zero sympathy for the programmers- maybe those engineers should have actually saved their money instead of spending it on Porsche Boxsters, the latest PDAs/phones, and expensive clothes. In my experience, the only people who were worse about spending habits were the execs, but the difference is, the execs are still getting paid insane salaries.
Hey, maybe we should outsource executives :-)
Please help metamoderate.
It's good see that there is a better future for the young people in India. There are a lot of really bright young people there. They are paid well in terms of their own economy.
It somebody else's turn to have an economic growth period. An american is no more important than an Indian.
How is this insightful? This is clueless. This just shows how little you know about the current unemployment situation!
Excellent programmers get lost in the stack of 500 or more other resumes that get sent to the company within the first 2 hours that a job is posted!
The problem is not limited to California. I live in Southern NH, and Southern NH & Northern Mass has a lot of unemployed Programmers/Software Engineers/Software Developers, IT people, and other tech related people.
Usually, the person who gets hired (70% to 80% of the time) is the person who had a friend or relative in the company. It's called networking, and it has nothing to do with computers or skills. As long as you might fit the bill you can get in.
The other thing you failed to mention is that most start ups fail in the first year. Half of the rest fail in the next few years.
I REALLY hope you don't have to experience the current unemployment problem from a first hand perspective.
I should mention that contracting is as much an option as it used to be because a lot of contracting shops are being under bid by foriegn labor too. I know people who work for some.
At the next eco-hypocrisy-meeting, count the private jets used to get to the meeting. Should be interesting to see that
Try it. Bid your $600 and watch the spec for the project grow more and more complex until you can't possibly write the software in the time it'd take you to earn $600 working at Taco Bell. I'm all for opensource but I've found underbidding a dangerous thing to do.
You're better off working for yourself. Investigate the needs of companies, write the software to fulfill those needs, and then sell it off for $600 a copy. If you want to opensource the software then great but you don't even need to tell your clients that unless they ask. Just sell it like a shrinkwrapped product and you'll do much better.
It's tempting to underbid and take on crazy jobs when you're unemployed but as often as not you end up further in debt because of it. You'll be better off on foodstamps.
At what price learning? At what cost wisdom? The price is a man's peace of mind, and the cost is his life.
I'm not sure what's wrong with "punching the card". There are 4 types of jobs in technology, all are needed equally.
1) The people with ideas
2) The people with money
3) The people that do the work ("punch the card")
4) The people that sell
I don't see any reason why it's "OK" that we're outsourcing #3. It's elitist to argue that we're outsourcing only the "lower caliber" jobs. Not everyone can be, wants to be, or is competent enough to be "the best".
I work in a company where everyone thinks they're the best, and very few do work. I've worked very hard to assemble a team of "punch the card" types who know their job and do it well, 5 days a week, 8-10 hours a day. We're the only group that has actually BUILT something. I like and respect my team, and I would hate to think they're losing their jobs because somewhere else in the world there is someone willing to work for cheaper.
I also take issue with the idea that offshore labor is somehow inferior and fit only for "manufacturing labor". They're smart, well educated people (depending on the job) and the only thing they do not have is that immaterial part of a design shops property that's a combination of experience, tools and process which makes things happen. Their intention is to learn this, and then take our business from us too (which is what I'd do in their shoes too).
I would like to see the US gov't protecting it's workforce, by the usual means (tax breaks for companies using american employees, trade negotiations, etc). Our governments priority is to take care of its citizens first, then the rest of the world. Right now we appear to be protecting shareholders and investors (who are the only ones who really benefit from offshore labor) at the expense of the average joe.
That said, I still support free trade, I don't think it's right to make society as a whole suffer to enrich a few IT professionals with outdated skills.
"The question of whether a computer can think is no more interesting than that of whether a submarine can swim" -EWD
There's some truth to this argument, but some falsehood as well. One of the problems with international trade (and particularly labor) has to do with currency. The fact is that exchange rates are rarely indicative of the relatvie cost of goods in a country. While it's true that the standard of living may be different in India, it's also true that the amount of USD needed to sustain an USian lifestyle is probably also a lot less than in the US itself.
You can see a similar effect within the USA itself. As some have pointed out, $100K+ per year in northern California will barely get you a middle-class lifestyle --the same as you could have for ~$50K in parts of the southeast. Besides the intangibles of local culture, there's nothing in NoCal that's not available in Georgia, yet the monetary cost of living is very different.
As for moving to other countries: I don't know about India specifically, but in general: you try explaining to a foreign country's immigration why you should be allowed permanent residence just so you can take low-cost outsourcing jobs away from native citizens. Have fun in their detention center...
Nope, what is hillarious is that all that is required to prevent this is legislation requiring any american company to pay any employee US equivalent wages for the job they do, regardless of the work they are doing. This simple legislation would have sorted out the sweat shops long ago, and is not expensive to enforce. You dont tax Nikes at a higher rate because they are cheap to produce, you should just make sure the company pays all its employees a fair salary. Of course this outsourcing will fuck up the US economy, because every billion paid oversees workers is 3 billion less paid to american workers. That is hauling money straight out of the primary consumers pockets. That has to mess up something. Nevermind that the offshoot of outsourcing manual labour was cheaper cars, cheaper TVs, cheaper microwaves etc. Does anyone see us getting cheaper software out of this?
Slashdot: Proof that a million monkeys at a million typewriters can create a masterpiece
Well...tell us, then. Did you sympathize with the laid-off factory workers?
To an extent, but factory workers could retrain for other equivalent jobs, often on the job, in a relatively short amount of time. (We had record low unemployment after NAFTA, so clearly this happened.) In contrast, I have tens of thousands of dollars, and many years, invested in my computer education. I would be extremely hard-pressed to find an equally well-paying job if no computer jobs were available.
Ooh, a sarcasm detector. Oh, that's a real useful invention.
There seems to be a knee-jerk reaction that exporting jobs will somehow hurt US productivity in the long run, while in fact it's a reflection of our high productivity. When I'm not a codec nerd, I'm an economics nerd, so let me spread the Ricardian gospel a bit.
Our GDP is hugely higher per capita than India. This is because we are hugely more productive per capita than India overall. Because we are so productive we have a much higher standard of living, and much higher wages. As our economy grows, and our GDP per capita goes up, so do our wages.
Eventually, wages get so high, that it doesn't pay to hire folks in the US to do them. So they get exported. This won't cause a lack of productivity - the only reason we can afford the outsourcing is because of our aggregate productivity in the first place.
Let's imagine the long-term scenario folks here are implying. First, all the high-paying jobs get sent to India, since Indians will work for less. Second, US workers will go broke. Why would it work that way? Obviously, as jobs go to India, wages will go up in the sectors we're looking at. And there is a limited population in India who has the secondary education good enough to go to any kind of engineering school - clearly it's a much smaller pool to draw on than the US has, even though our population is much less. This is because we're very productive, and can afford lots of really school schools, especially at the college level. Over time Indian wages will rise and US wages for those who do thing that could be outsourced to India will fall so that the total cost of each will be roughly equal. The US wages will likely be quite a bit higher still in that case, since having someone local has definite advantages, plus the reduced cultural barrier, etcetera. And the US economy is doing great, since we're able to get our software cheaper, and we've freed up a lot of smart people from having to do something that we can outsource. It's not like all those replaced IT folks go straight into retirement or anything. Lots of them will start new business, get new jobs, and so on. And the folks who keep their jobs are going to be trying like crazy to stay productive in order to justify why they're worth as much as six guys in India. That's great - their productivity is going up, and everyone is happy. These transitions can be painful, but it's not like the US has huge sustained underemployment (although we're in a cyclical slump right now, largely due to an economically incompetent administration).
Now, let's say that India makes so much money on outsourcing (which they won't) that they can really upgrade their schools, and approach the US in productivity. If so, great! We've got a big, rich, friendly democracy in a part of the world where we can use all the help we can get. And as Indian productivity rises, so will their wages, so that's less downward pressure on US wages.
Anyway, the thing to remember is that we're rich because we're productive, which means that those parts of the economy with lower relative productivity compared to the rest of the world are going to get outsourced. This won't make us poor, since the outsourcing is only a reflection of our wealth and productivity in the first place. It's a self-balancing system. So, if the problem in the long term is places like China and India grow productivity faster than we do (which is likely for the next few decades), than the relative gap between their our our wealth will decrease. No problem - I just want to be rich, I don't want India to be poor!
Also, if you look at the history of South Korea, Japan, and other nations that industrialized rapidly on US lines, we're still more productive per capital than they are. They get close, but the US always seems to pull ahead in the end, for a variety of reasons (lots of bright, motivated immigrants, low barriers to start new companies are big ones).
So, folks, don't define what you do so narrowly that the only career you can imagine is something that's outsourced. Programming to a spec? Not a good long term move. Being able to right good, business-driven specs? Good move.
My video compression blog
Nope, what is hillarious is that all that is required to prevent this is legislation requiring any american company to pay any employee US equivalent wages for the job they do, regardless of the work they are doing.
Nope! Bzzzzzzzztt! I call Bullshit!
You think that if this kind of law was passed, that it would make *any* difference at all?
All that would happen is that the Nikes of the world would re-incorporate oversees as "Nike-Asia" or something, becoming two separate companies with a complex arrangement of contracts, and the work would be done by a "foreign" company (Nike-Asia) by contract, and the products (software) "imported" into the US by a "local" company. (Nike)
In fact, I'd be pretty certain this has already done in order to prevent passage of liability.
In short, it's called "out-sourcing" and it's done legally any time any company provides a service to another.
There are no easy ways to stop this.
It's just market economics doing what they do best - balancing out supply and demand. So, do as the article says, wise up, and be very aware of the many opportunities as they arise.
There will most certainly be plenty!
I have no problem with your religion until you decide it's reason to deprive others of the truth.
I've been saying this for a while and people look at me like I have a green mustache.
..... etc will take us there. They can never pay little guys to little and they can never pay the CEO's to much.
The jobs get outsourced to Indian Consulants, but the end result in products or whatever is still sold here for the same amount, only with a much higher profit. BUT, here's the rub, we have Americans making less so they can't afford to buy a bunch of overpriced american goods any more. A bunch of Indian programers and accountants making $6000 a year aren't going to be lining up to $1500 Amana Fridges, $30000+ ford SUVs or $20 brittany spears cds. Except the CEO's still want to make thier 20 million a year salaries. There will be massive defaltion, something has to give. The CEO's want to make all the money, only problem if they have all the money and they aren't paying US and they aren't paying the Indians a whole lot, no one has the money to buy thier stuff.
If things get bad enough Congress WILL enact those tarrifs, they will do all the things the author said they should'nt, because thats thier job. Eventually we will have socailst style gov't where everything is regulated ( all those regs require gov't employees to do the watching).
I don't like it but the every greedy CEOs, CFOs, CIOs
So Long and Thanks for all the Fish.
I do find it ironic that hardly ANY open source development gets done by Indian programmers though...
Curious you should mention this. It is possible that it is just the firms I have dealt with, but it seems that very little innovation happens in these Indian code shops. You hand them a spec and it is coded too. If the spec is flawed they don't want to help you work through the flaws. Instead they code the flawed spec and question you when you ask why you weren't informed about the problems.
This ties in to the numerous complaints heard from support call centers that have been moved to India. The support people follow the scripts(aka specs) given to them, and any deviation is met with little self thought or motivation to solve the problem.
Now, I'm not anti Indian or anything of the sort. Maybe companies are just getting what they payed for out of a 5k-10k/year worker. Perhaps the cultural difference is the problem in the above situations.
Including me, and I like it.
When I buy stuff, I buy the cheapest stuff. I don't care where it's made, it's all the same planet to me. And you know what? 99% of IT workers are the same way.
It doesn't freaking matter. As long as we keep outsourcing jobs to foreign countries, we can keep making less money and maintain the same standard of living, because things keep getting cheaper.
I know its comforting and easy to blame "greedy corporate executives", but if you think the money that's saved from hiring foreign workers goes into executive pockets, you're an idiot. It goes to lowering prices so that that company doesn't get put out of business by their competition who DOES outsource their labor to India and gives the American people what they *REALLY* want...
Cheaper shit.
paintball
New jobs aren't created instantaneously. It might take a year, but more than likely it will take five years, or ten years or longer.
We dont have 10 years, the population is increasing at too great of a rate. This country will completely crumble and fall apart if we are in a recession for 10 years.
This is the same thing that happened to manufacturing. The "goods" (computer chips / VPN support) are now being produced somewhere else (Taiwan / India). This transition is not slow at all. If you really sat down and thought about it, this shift could be predicted 10-15 years ago. And if we think about it now, there's another industry that many times is overpaid (looking at it globally) that will be outsourced abroad soon as well. The finance sector? Possibly...
Why is this a good thing? We'd all have jobs if we kept the jobs in our country! Look, it doesnt matter who does the freakin job, at long as we all have a job! When over 5% of us do not have a job then that means millions of people do not care how cheap the new computers are, they cant pay their rent!
But imagine if the manufacturing jobs never went overseas. Imagine if market efficiencies didn't exist and the US just tariffed foreign goods so that anything imported was 3x as expensive.You wouldn't have an IT job, there wouldn't be Slashdot, we'd all be working in manufacturing, clinging on to something we were good at 50 years ago.
Bullshit, absolute bullshit. First you ignore the fact that our population increases every year. You are assuming that if we dont outsource that there arent people willing to do it here. Lets see we have millions of illegal immigrants, at least 10 million of them, we have legal citizens, over 5% of them dont have jobs at all. You dont know anything do you? There is a SHORTAGE of jobs, a SHORTAGE. We have no reason to export ANY jobs right now.
Slashdot would still exist if we did not export all our manufacturing jobs, yes computers would be slightly more expensive, but we'd all have more money. You don't seem to connect the dots, more jobs = more people with money, and more people with money = more demand. Perhaps if we had more jobs people would spend more, and when you spend more, it creates more jobs, we could manufacture computers and export them to other countries. Sure other countries could get into the manufacturing business and we could buy from China, if its cheaper, my point is, we should also keep our own industries.
And this is not to say we're not good at manufacturing now, or good at IT now -- it just means that it is time for us to find the next thing we're good at.
We cant keep doing this, cant you see? There a limit to the amount of labor based jobs that we actually need. We are going to get to a point where all the jobs we have left are goofy retail and artistic type jobs. If you didnt notice the trend, our economy is losing jobs and they arent being replaced, at the same time our population continues to increase. What will happen when our population increases by say 10 million and we have a 10% unemployement? Its going to happen because the population increases at a rate thats far faster than the rate of jobs being created!
We get really good at something, specialize in it, make tons of money, and 20-30 years down the road (because face it, jobs were not going to Indians in 1985) other people EVENTUALLY learn how to do it and then do it cheaper.
Jobs werent going to Indians because the internet wasnt around like it is today, but sweatshops did exist, your Nike sneakers came from there, and despite your claims, cheaper labor does not and never has translated to cheaper products! I am not against other people having jobs we no longer need, the problem you refuse to see is, we are giving away jobs we DO need. We have a huge labor force of illegal immigrants, we have a huge labor force of unemployed, plus we have people living in trailors, living on welfare, and the prison population continues to increa
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