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CIO Magazine On Offshore IT
lpq wrote to us with a reference to the cover article from this month's CIO Magazine that talks about the off-shore movement of IT from its traditional bulwarks to the developing world. A selection from the article:"
Think again. There are real costs associated with shipping your IT department (or a portion of it) overseas. Our Special Report covers the Backlash from a growing political storm as well as the Hidden Costs you should be aware of before you join the stampede overseas. "
Sad that people who spend years on an MBA degree that presumably includes a course on Spotting The Obvious 101 can't, well, spot the obvious.
After Isabel hits on thursday, I'm gonna be living offshore.
You know, because my house is going to get blown away and swept into the chesapeake bay, you insensitive clod.
I don't need no instructions to know how to rock!!!!
Is this even farther out than India?
Never understimate the power of human stupidity -Lazarus Long
It's called capitalism. It works. Get used to it. If offshoring makes sense, companies will do it. If it does not make sense, they will not do it. That's how it works. Engineers don't know anything about finance. That's why most successful companies don't have engineers talking about finance. I'm just posting this pre-emptively before a bunch of engineers start talking about the finances of offshoring. And, yes I'm an engineer too.
I've done maintence programming and support for a few applications that have been farmed out overseas. Based on the limited experience with only a few development teams I've come to the decision that farming all this stuff out is a bad idea. They frankly cannot program very well and now we're going back and recoding huge portions of the application in house because they do such a bad job. No version control systems, poor development cycles, hardly no testing, desire to work on the live production servers to make "quick" changes. It's a PITA.
And my move to Bangalore was all set, $10/month budget and all. Damn.
Roving Web-Teleoperated Robot
Actually, last study showed Americans work harder (or more) than anyone else on earth.
There's a growing sense that even if The Future comes,
most of us won't be able to afford it.
-- Lemmy
So they're finally realizing that you can't skip the analysis of an action, just because it's the hot new thing all the management consultants are raving about?
Man, no wonder the economy fell flat on its face. The CEOs didn't notice their shoelaces were tied together.
...
If you've experienced outsourcing, you get the subject's inflection...
I've always found that when things are outsourced (or moved offshore) is that the dialog between the users and the devlopers/support etc breaks down. The idea of IT is to help the company function and for that a good dialog is needed during development etc.
There is nothing to compensate for talking round the water cooler and say "Whilst I think of it...". I hoenstly believe that the development costs might be lower but overall it will cost more on the bottom line
Rus
Cheap UK and US VPS
Why bother shipping IT overseas when you can ship the exec's job over seas.. they are the ones that don't do anything and get paid way to much for it.
"I am a kernel in the linux army"
Lets set up tariffs. They want to farm there work offshore, lets make it so expensive to do so that they will lose money outsourcing.
There's a growing sense that even if The Future comes,
most of us won't be able to afford it.
-- Lemmy
What, harder that the people in the Saipan sweatshops who make our clothes? Debatable.
The Atlanteans are receiving call-centre training as we speak.
From the article: "Internal people will refuse to transition to the offshore model because they have a certain comfort level, or they don't want their buddy to lose his job," Renodis's Manivasager says. "There has to be a mandate. Trying to build consensus can take a very, very long time." Manivasager has seen some relationships take as long as three years to get off the ground because the strategy was neither shared with nor embraced by employees.
The strategy was not embraced by employees about to get laid off? Ummmm.... how stupid are you if you think people will embrace being laid off to save the company a couple of bucks? (which then goes into an executive bonus, no doubt)
Why do I h8 apple?
Here's another article I just read this morning at ComputerWorld:
IT's Global Itinerary: Offshore Outsourcing Is Inevitable. An interesting read, and they do make it seem pretty inevitable.
Work harder, yes. Work smarter and/or more efficiently (in financial terms)? That is an entirely different question, and I don't know the answer...
Game dev and music blog
Really? Care to provide a link? No? Didn't think so.
Mother is the best bet and don't let Satan draw you too fast.
I became redundant when my department that they no longer needed a Turbo Pascal developer for 16-bit Windows 3.11 applications. I feel especially wronged by this offshore outsourcing.
What should I do?
So they're finally realizing that you can't skip the analysis of an action, just because it's the hot new thing all the management consultants are raving about?
Nope. They're realizing that the current Offshore IT fad is over-rated. Come the next fad they'll be praising it to high heaven as if there had never been any other fads. The IT industry has no long term memory at all.For me, jobs going offshore exposes the fault in our economic system, and shows how in many ways it is very primitive.
At the turn of the last century people imagined a time when everyone would live in luxury and not have to work. Machines would be able to do the work, and the majority of people could just relax and have a good time. The idea is even more possible today - we can create machines to do most jobs these days, and we should all be living in a work-free time of abundancy. So why aren't we? The simple answer is that our economic system won't allow it - in our system, in order to be able to have stuff, you need money, and to get money you have to work. They crazyness of this situation is highlighted by the fact that periods of adundance now actually cause recession - things become "too cheap", defalation occurs, people can't make money, everybody looses when things are plentiful.
How does this relate to offshore IT? For me it is exactly the same situation. If someone is willing to do my job in another country, then great, I should be able to put my feet up and relax. But of course it doesn't work like that - I loose my job and have no money.
People say that our current economic system is the best system because "it works" but I don't buy that. In many ways it is fairly crude. I think if an alien came from an advanced planet and looked at us today it would think, "look at those idiots working most of their lives when they've already most of the tools to live a life of luxury!"
From the article:
"A good American programmer will push back and say, What you're asking for doesn't make sense, you idiot," Zupnick says. "Indian programmers have been known to say, This doesn't make sense, but this is the way the client wants it."
What a bad comparison: compare a "good" local worker to a generic "bad" offshore worker, rather than comparing good-good or bad-bad. I look around and see plenty of local programmers who adopt the "build-to-specs-regardless" stance without hesitation. Similarly, many of the projects here that involve overseas development involve far more communications meetings to work out the details prior to building applications.
There is no shortage of poor programmers here. Blanket statements like the above only steer people toward looking for poor qualities in foreign developers, while ignoring those around them.
Actually, last study showed Americans work harder (or more) than anyone else on earth.
Yes, in fact Office Space is a documentary...
Trolling is a art,
"There is still no magic bullet..."
s
And there never will be: http://www.cs.brown.edu/people/pw/papers/ficacm.p
As a nation with an MBA President, we should be prepared to outsource everything but our "core competencies". What are America's "core competencies"?
1. litigation
2. consumption
3. entertainment
4. warefare
This change will not change until we start outsourcing the two political parties.
Woverly Harris Gooch, IV CTO American Fire and Bomb, LLC
I think most people on a site frequented mostly by american IT workers may contain a few biased comments?
Currently, most information technology products are not covered by customs duties. Usually just the media and books have values for the purpose of duties (for an example look for an old IBM product in your closet/basement, you will find a page declaring the value of the book at $X and the disks at $Y for customs duties). How would the economics of offshoring research and development change if one had to pay customs duties on the information that crossed borders? Remember Johnny Mnemonic? Other than the bad acting, that is....Manufacturers get Duty Free Zones, and the Maquiladora program was set up to offshore manufacturing to Mexico. So far, the entire internet seems to be one large Duty-Free zone. The European Union seems to be getting interested in taxing it. Perhaps the way to kill off offshoring will be merely to remove it's current tax-free benefits. Or do we wish to continue our corporat welfare scheme here in the USA?
..that they will be increasing their Indian workforce. They did it with quite a play on words too.
With the success of this initial stage and with our need for resources continuing to grow, we will be resourcing to grow this team substantially in the coming weeks.
While we are directly recruiting in India now, we would also welcome your recommendations of suitable external applicants that you may be aware of as potential permanent employees in Bangalore.
Applicants should have 3-5 years experience in billing system deployment with perl, SQL, Oracle and Unix skills. Willingness to travel internationally and to be based and paid in India is a requirement.
Here's what bugs me about my company specifically, and the trend of moving work to India generally:
1. My company is trying to do this covertly, like we wouldn't notice more and more layoffs in our offices in North America and Europe while at the same time increased staffing in India and a requirement that those Indian workers must be willing to travel internationally.
If you are going to farm your workers out to India , at least be honest about it and admit what you are doing, all in the name of a temporary increase to share price....which leads me to point two:
2. If your company will go bankrupt unless you move your workforce to India, then fine. But if you are going there to save a few bucks and make the share price jump 1/4 point, then fuck you. I get billed out at around $300 US per hour, of which I see less than $30 US. Isn't that enough of a profit margin? Maybe we should bring back slavery so that they can make that margin jump to a full 100% of the $300!
I don't hold anything against India workers, but I truly hate any corporation that farms work to India (and other cheap countries) all for the sake of a quick buck.
"The market alone cannot provide sufficient constraints on corporation's penchant to cause harm." -- Joel Bakan
No back up. No studies. Nothing. These numbers appear to have just been dreamt up. If they weren't - if there's some serious data behind it, then why not just present the data?
Cheers,
Ian
At least on a per case basis, if not on the whole.
Our staffing company, in all its brilliance, hired an Indian systems manager to run one of our overseas offices. they saved about $1000 per month in salary. Well, due to his one week of wrecking half the systems, that $1000 they save per month will necessitate his working at least 6 months just to pay for the phone bill.
You see, he crashed the e-mail server, basically irreparably. Needs to be redone from scratch, and he, of course, has not the first clue of how to do this. So who does he call past mignight to unfuck his system? Me! The only American sysadmin at the company.
While e-mail is down, the workers turn to fax/phone for communication, so our long distance and cell phone bills are now skyrocketing, just because of this twat. I wrote a nasty-gram to HQ about how whatever money they thought they were saving has just evaporated.
Going overseas is not always the answer. There is some superb, home-grown talent that even makes economic sense to employ, when all factors are taken into account.
Knunov
Why do users with IDs under 100,000 or over 700,000 usually have the most worthwhile comments?
The corporation I work for has it's "make or break" product being developed in India. What we have seen on the Betas is long delays in getting bugs and other issues fixed. Often they have had to fly in part of the Indian development team to the Beta customer inorder to get these issues resolved, because no one based in the US has been brought up to speed on the architecture.
Unfortunatly, these delays and lack of knowledge by the corp has made us look incompetent and word is getting out to other potential customers.
In addition, the in-house employee will be quite pissed for being forced to train his replacement, and will not do so as a result.
There are a lot of positions available that pay very good - maybe better than at an IT company. The position requires you to do more than a single task and that makes you more valuable in the long run. You have a small IT staff but a lot of work. You're move valuable there than in a shop like at a telco. There's a whole lot of companies out there that needs top IT people to support their specialized industries and these jobs are all here in the USA.
Banjo - The more I know about Windoze, the more I love *nix
Reminds me of ads in trade journals for various database products, showing a picture of a non-geek executive getting amazing results from the product, with a slogan that amounts to "Simple Yet Powerful!"
If it's that simple, it's not powerful.
If it's powerful, it's not simple. (Furthermore, it's not really powerful if you can't hurt yourself with it. A power saw that won't saw your arm off isn't much of a power saw; same as power-tool software.)
If offshoring is so simple
-kgj
It's called "capitalism".
Get used to it.
4. warefare
Fair enough, so we like to download free stuff, but I can't it being as important as the other ones you mentioned.
I worked at an American company that did a lot of business in Israel. I shudder to imagine the millions upon millions of costs in lost producitivity in trying to coordinate efforts with the people there, not to mention plane flights and training and the language barrier. What a disaster.
I don't know about "anyone else on Earth", but here is a link that seems to indicate that they do "work harder" than Europeans:
http://biz.yahoo.com/ibd/030904/issues_2.html
And that didn't take more than a few seconds to find.
I suppose it all comes down to how you measure "works harder", though. Per capita GDP? Hours per day? Number of vacation days? I suspect Americans do quite well, but better than everyone else on Earth? Probabably not.
http://www.naplesnews.com/03/09/business/d961376a. htm 4 /c3736054.htm t udy/
http://www.businessweek.com/magazine/content/01_2
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/439595.stm
http://www.hartford-hwp.com/archives/26/077.html
http://www.cnn.com/2001/CAREER/trends/08/30/ilo.s
I found that an even more recent (2003) study that says south koreans work more hours but are not as productive.
There's a growing sense that even if The Future comes,
most of us won't be able to afford it.
-- Lemmy
One hidden cost is you are paying Indian programmers to learn your business. After they learn well enough, Indians will certainly begin to compete against you.
They will cut out the middleman and the middleman is you. Indian global banking services, anyone?
But imagine that there was such a scheme. Open source would be dead in the water. What's the linux kernel worth? 3 dollars? 300 million dollars? Customs and governments could make up whatever number they wanted!
For outsourcing to work, you need a project that can be properly outsourced. This is the part that constantly boogles my mind, is when I see companies outsource work for perceived savings... when in reality, the product should never actually be outsourced to begin with.
Certain things can be outsourced, but the key it seems is for the item to be extremely well spec'd and self contained. If project A depends on project B being completed, and project A is done in house... project B should not be outsourced. The ideal things that can be moved over seas, are projects that can be completely managed at the other end, and have few dependancies on this end. In other words... all the design specing, etc... has been established already... the people doing the work will have *NO* questions as to what needs to be done, and what their deadlines/goals/etc... are.
Where an outsourced project seems to breakdown are:
Improperly defined specication for work needed or misunderstanding of said work
Dependancies on projects/information else
Poor communication structure between parent company, and outsourced branch
Lack of understanding of parent companies needs or function
No understanda engrish ( this one is bigger then you think )
Where I am at now, we are a manufacturing environment that is expanding. Now, we dont exactly outsource, we build new plants in other countries. As it stands now... *EVERY* time we set up a new plant... it was always a communication breakdown that was the primary problem. Also, setting up the infrastructure between China, US, Canada, etc... isnt even slightly cheap. Every new faucility costs a wack of cash. That said... not one of the expansion plants we have built overseas ( including Europe ), has approached the success level of the ones we have in North America. Additionally, local laws have all but resulted in closure of one remote faucility... and work ethic of one certain European country, is soon to result in another.
There are alot of hidden costs in dealing with countries outside of North America. Until you go down that road, you are going to be shocked to find out, just how many. ( For example... probrably 1000 man hours, atleast... and 100 cross continental flights... just for initial training/setup ).
So this is why the Fed is giving massive grants to help US companies develop overseas production of nearly everything you can imagine? Hmmm... It all becomes so clear now... hidden costs=hidden payoffs. Welcome to the GOBN, spearheading a new millenium of "The Same As It Ever Was." Mnem
He has a good point. Our corporations are protected from offshore corporate competition by high tariffs being placed on imported goods. Why do our corporations receive the benefit of taxable import on goods, when we the people do not receive the same protection.
This is a ridiculous double standard, that needs to be remedied immediately. Either drop all import tariffs or enforce tariffs on exported jobs. The government is by the people, of the people, and for the people, so let's start acting like it.
Everyone is entitled to their own opinion. It's just that yours is stupid.
There is another aspect to offshoring that everyone seems to be missing. It goes like this:
I send out a spec to my carefully chosen offshore vendor and they dutifully develop the application at a lower TCO than I think I can do it for.
While they're developing it, they have a secret 'shadow' team - maybe in a completely separate company - that takes my spec and produces an enhanced version 2.0 of my application. Now they can bypass me and market directly to my customers, competing with my (now out of date) v1.0.
Oh, they can't steal my Intellectual Property like that? Think again. And you think you're actually SAVING money???
I don't know what T.O.R.A.W. is yet, but I think it's time to start learning.
Big Brother Bush is doubleplus ungood.
I do not have problems with it as long as we outsource management along with the other workforce at 1:1 ratio.
Right, I make less then a mechanic, and less then some unskilled labor and I'm a programmer with far more education. Fuck you.
The key to the enjoyment of pop music is to replace any instance of "love" with "C.H.U.D."
It's called capitalism. It works.
But you won't, for much longer anyway.
I remember seeing that Americans work longer and have a greater revenue/employee per year number than Europeans. However, Europeans had better revenue/hour.
I'm an American, salaried worker. Guess which one I would rather be (hint it doesn't include working an arbitrary number of hours for my salary)
You are not a beautiful or unique snowflake -- but you could be if you got off your ass.
I'm not getting used to anything.
If the corporate system does not work for me, then screw it. It's a system and we have choices. Companies are all in favor of free markets except when it comes time to compete, why should I be any different!
My question is, why can't the people of India build themselves up the way the Europeans and the Americans did. They can't because of an economic system that screws everyone. Third world nations can't get their markets started by themselves because the first world nations don't want them to industrialize outside of their control, and the first world citizens get their careers continuously destroyed by their supposed leaders.
You know what this system is? It's a bunch of robber barons screwing over the third world and the first world at the same time, adding no value to the system anywhere.
If you really wanted the third world to be able to compete, you would get rid of all intellectual property world wide, and let the value of the dollar and the euro plummet to match parity with the rupee.
This is my sig.
But later on he says:
So here he is, richer and better educated than most of the humans who ever lived and he can't even handle basic moral action! He doesn't think something is right, but either can't be bothered or doesn't have the power to say or do anything about it. This makes him either a coward or a slave, neither of which is particularly admirable.
You will not drink with us, but you would taste our steel? - Walter Matthau, The Pirates
and CIOs and the other riff raff making millions or billions of dollars? Just imagine replacing them with some Indian labor. Might save a company a lot of money.
Quote "A man in the audience fumes that offshore outsourcing has the potential to wipe out the middle class. "Are our legislators aware of this?" he asks."
But what you do not reliaze is that your legislators have ben bought and paid for by most of these groups that are doing this! it is a sad reality.
going off on a tangent (core issue)
This is why we need to build into these public offices accountablilty (remember who you are working for?), fiscal accountablilty, and a REAL campain finance reform. NO SPECIAL INTREST, or PAC groups! NONE, GONE, BYE, BYE.... those are the real threat to american freedoms, and jobs.......
madd is a tool of the devil
riaa is a tool of the devil
statistics are a tool of the devil
john ashcroft is a tool of the devil
The Backlash article mentioned a group called TORAW:
It's not hard to find reasons for CIOs to worry. "Do you want to do business with companies that take away jobs for U.S. citizens by outsourcing work to foreign countries?" asks The Organization for the Rights of American Workers (Toraw), a group of displaced, angry American workers laid off by Connecticut insurance and financial services companies.
I'm browsing TORAW's web site now, and they look like an interesting organization. Not focused just on moving jobs offshore, they're also advocating a hard look at "non-immigrant foreign workers" - specifically, H1-B visa holders.
I like that TORAW explicity states that they're not against "permanent green card status immigrants", or against anyone based on ethnicity or country of origin. From what I've read so far, they address my concerns without hitting my Green Party hot buttons. The US should be open to those who want to come, stay, and build a new life -- but we can't afford to export our jobs and livelihoods.
Unfortunately, I can't tell if TORAW membership is available to all concerned Americans. Their membership form is encoded in virus-friendly Microsoft Word format, as are their brochures, and the CIO article notes the local CT connection.
But an organization like this looks like just what we need to keep the IT industry from being the next textile industry.
Stressed? Me? Of course not. Stress is what a rubber band feels before it breaks, silly.
When it comes to drumming up crib points, Americans seems to be the world's best. Tell you what, you are horribly subsidised, your economies are bloated by years of subsidies, and there is no reason in the world why any other country shouldn't take your place at doing things cheaper. That apart, as a society you are horribly paranoid and a little too dependent on what the media drums up for you. I see the anti outsourcing issue as a fad too, techies unite!! You could get together to have a commie revolution in the US!!!...
These last two are almost certainly true, but it's how they compare to the first that matters. The engineers always want to make the best product, and understandably so if they take pride in their work. But management has to consider the possibility of making the second-best product if it's a damn sight cheaper. It can certainly be a good move.
Does it strengthen the company from within? No.
That's pretty nebulous, and doesn't really translate effectively to the company's bottom line. Strengthening the company by reducing costs might be worth more. And it's questionable how a company would strengthen itself by keeping overpaid, underskilled, non-management-material American coders on the payroll.
Does it lower cost in a reasonably reached fashion that increases internal productivity and doesn't make the other 10,000 workers in your company pray every night that their job isn't going to be shipped overseas to someone else? Likely not.
Like hell. First, the most motivated worker is the one whose job is on the line, like it or not. It may not be pretty, it's the truth. Hell, remember the dot com boom? Where was the employee loyalty to the company then when employees were shopping themselves to the highest bidder? That shows how taking a hit for a "stronger company" gets the company nothing. Why should they take that cost hit for nothing when their employees leave anyway when the economy gets good?
Face it, today neither labor nor the company has any loyalty to the other side, as neither has earned it. Bottom line is if your job can be performed by an Indian almost as well as you do it for 20% of the cost, that's what they'll do.
If anyone has any actual numbers to counter this, I'd like to hear it. All I know is that the American auto industry strengthened itself immeasurably after moving manufacturing jobs overseas. For one, it actually became profitable again and stopped hemorraging market share to foreign manufacturers.
And that's the kind of jobs we're talking about here. We're not talking about people on mission-critical projects fearing for their jobs. We're talking about code monkeys, the equivalent of the assembly-line bolt-turner of the auto industry. That under-educated person has never had security in any other industry, and I fail to see why the code monkey should expect anything different.
What it means is that the economy will no longer guarantee $60,000 a year and job security to someone who can only write mediocre code with no other skills. Most other people are probably safe.
-Looking for a job as a materials chemist or multivariat
I assume this is a troll, but I'll bite - too much money??? Are you insane? This ain't 1999, bub. Bus drivers, bartenders, and Cable Installers make more than we do. Crane operators on construction sites can make 100k/yr. The guys climbing the poles for Verizon make over 75k/yr, at least according to their recent ad campaign. IT salaries, on the other hand, have fallen to 30s-40s/yr, maybe 50k if you are a manager. Thats assuming you can find an IT job at all
ANyone? Didnt think so.
All Troll + "offtopic" mods are meta moderated as "Unfair", because you abused the system.
you could fence your economy off, ask for all products to be made by and for americans, and ask everyone else to get out...lol... the yankee jihad begins
I think if an alien came from an advanced planet and looked at us today it would think, "look at those idiots working most of their lives when they've already most of the tools to live a life of luxury!"
I think they'd be asking why most of the world doesn't have enough clean drinking water, while parts just dump it on the ground around their house.
We currently do NOT have all the stuff we need for everyone to live a life of luxury, there just isn't enough of it.
The current system does work, it works very well. But it isn't a riches for everyone system.
It's called marketting. It works. Get used to it. Regardless of whether offshoring make sense, companies will push it. Regardless of whether it works, others will market against it. That's how it works. Engineers know everything about being screwed by PHBs who succumb to the misinformation presented by marketeers. That's why most companies continue to have a downward spiral in morale. I'm just posting this retro-actively before a bunch of of apologists start rationalizing the corporate world. And, yes I'm an engineer too.
One man's pink plane is another man's blue plane.
It is one thing to outsource unskilled work-it is quite another to outsource the "command and control" infrastructure of a company-companies that do that have effectively reliquished their autonomy.
...that I have to go to work everyday? Boy, do I hate that guy!
Plus the always rising cost of college education and the loans that we have to pay off.
There's a growing sense that even if The Future comes,
most of us won't be able to afford it.
-- Lemmy
Oh, yesss, my pretty...
Actually, the people of Saipan are American citizens.
While a few were rich, most people seldom even had enough to eat. The 20th century was incredible. We acquired the ability to produce food and goods to satisfy the needs of everyone on earth, though we did not make them available to everyone.
We have had two major power struggles during the 20th century. At the beginning, production was 'difficult', so those who could produce were able to 'call the shots'. WW II was a war of production and it was won by the side that was able to produce the most bombs and bullets.
Since then, productivity has continued to improve. Production is no longer the 'hard part'. The challenge during the past few decades has been to convince people to buy. Hence marketing has become king. Between 3rd world labor and automation, production costs have fallen dramatically. For most products, the major costs are Marketing & Distribution and R&D.
But the smart folks have recognized that the 21st century will be even more unsettling than the 20th century. Computer controlled extraction of natural resources and production (including nanotechnology) can drive manufacturing costs to almost zero. (Go read 'A for Anything' , by Damon Knight) With the Internet, we will be able to distribute the knowledge of how to produce. This will eliminate most of the challenges associated with distribution (since it will be possible to do most production locally) so there will be little money to be made there either, unless artificial controls and impediments are implemented.
This is why there's such a fight for intellectual property rights. Only by controlling the knowledge of how and what to produce can power be maintained by those who value it. By the middle of the 21st century, the major cost of any material item will be the 'intellectual property' charge.
With production automated, almost everyone who is employed will be working in service jobs by 2050. And then it gets more interesting.
As AI research progresses, we will be able to build robots capable of doing service jobs. The health care crisis will be 'solved' during the second half of the 21st century. Robots will replace, not only orderlies and nurses, but physicians and surgeons, too. The cost of producing these robots will be minimal. The valuable commodity will be the knowledge of how to program them to do what you want them to do.
By the end of the 21st century, creativity -- the creation of intellectual property -- will be the only currently known role that will still be the domain of us humans. And the control of that creativity is what is being fought for now.
That's the power struggle going on now. It's just started.
One more thing. By the end of the 21st century, molecular genetics will have progressed to the point where most people will be able to live almost forever. Imagine living forever in a world where production and services basically cost nothing. The only thing of value will be control of the intellectual property behind it all. Imagine a world where material items sell for a dollar each and services are provided for ten cents an hour. It could be paradise if you have the money to pay for what you want. But if you don't, how do you compete against such prices?
The challenge as we approach the 22nd century will be to rethink the issues of access. How will we reward innovation while making it possible for most people to survive and live reasonably good lives?
Because, if most people cannot pay for those goods and services, there will be a revolution. If that revolution succeeds, those who were on top will be gone. If the revolution fails, the whole economic system will collapse from lack of customers.
Hang onto your hat. It's going to be a wild ride.
There were tens of thousands of lines of code like this. So what are we suppose to do? Spend a senior programmer's hours to do code reviews of the H1B code? Where's the cost savings then?
The project was $270k over budget and a year late. That's the cost of three senior programmers at $90k per year for a full year. And we havn't even touched on the cost of maintaining this mess. Do you really think that the situation will get better if the programmer is 10,000 miles away?
Why can't management understand THAT side of the equation?
http://www.smh.com.au/articles/2003/09/04/10625489 67124.html
Sounds like a good idea, people will buy only from US sources.
But then the US supply is limited (which is why there is a huge trade deficit), so the US suppliers jack up their price.
The consumer has to either pay the inflated US price, or buy the imported goods with the tarrif.
The end consumer ends up paying more for the same goods, and the market loses competition.
This is a basic econ topic, along with why minimum wage kills jobs and such.
I remember the "outsource to the former Soviet Union" fad from the 1990's which was then replaced by the "outsource to China" fad. Neither worked well for development (which was what was being outsourced), particularly once the cost of living and doing business started to ramp up. Poor communication was cited as a big problem.
What may be different this time is that other functions are being outsourced and the communication infrastructure is much better. Still many hidden costs though, as the article correctly states.
First, how interesting how loudly programmers cry now when during the outsourcing of manufacturing jobs they said nothing.
Second, if companies can send jobs overseas, and move their capital around whither they will, so too should workers be able to chase the jobs. I'm sure many folks here would be more than happy to code while sitting on a beach in Goa.
Third, with video conferencing a CIO/CFO/CEO could really be anywhere in the world. So why not hire an Indian CEO with a degree from Stanford for $50K? Think of the millions the company would save! Hey, what's good for the goose is good for the gander.
Do what you can, with what you have, where you are.
"You can't expect day-one or even month-six gains," Zupnick says. "You have to look at offshore outsourcing as a long-term investment with long-term payback."
IMHO in the last couple decades, most US companies have *not* looked at long-term investment or paybacks - only the short term profits. This should be a wake-up call to all those CEO/CIO's!
Terry
For examples of how you will be treated and how successful you may or may not be in fighting greed, review the histories of the former US-based textile, glass, steel, automobile, and furniture industries. And don't believe that just because we're all in technology that we're somehow immune to the effects of corporate greed.
In the meantime, Microsoft (http://www.washtech.org/docs/html_ppts/01.php), IBM (http://www.washtech.org/wt/news/industry/display. php?ID_Content=4591), CNF, Intel, Motorola, HP, and other companies are draining the economy of decent paying jobs...
no one would listen to me.
Programers needed to Unite. we needed a Union, and now it is to damn late.
what Kept the big 3 from off shoring all their production? UNIONS!
"but we are making a ton of mney, what the hell do we need a Union for?"
that is the responce I got back then.
how many programers who are on their asses topday would think a union would be a bad idea now?
ZERO!!
I suggest that the rest of the programmers out there get together and form a trade union. then we can get our bretherin back to work.
I am the Alpha and the Omega-3
All of this outsourcing is a thinly veiled attempted to commodidize not just IT, but IT services. Look at every stinking product coming down the pipeline. It's all designed for a chimpanzee to use. Sure it can't do half of what the previous version did, but it uses MicroSoft's backend, costs 3 times as much, and we can hire a teenager to feed it.
So what if all these rosy assumptions explode and take our customer service with it. We sure showed those IT people who was boss. Who needs them...
"Learning is not compulsory... neither is survival."
--Dr.W.Edwards Deming
I've seen the same thing. If you have really simple stuff, you can do it. Anything larger and we basically had to rewrite it. This has happened on 3 projects now. According to managment there will not be a 4th.
It wasn't just bad, it was even unreadable in places.
Just my 2cents worth, go ahead and mod me down for being redundant........
So Long and Thanks for all the Fish.
Americans? Hard-working? Tell that to the 8-years old girl that is working 100 hours per week to make your shoes.
That's right. Warn all these employers of their horrible horrible mistake in cutting overhead (and that's what IT is folks - overhead).
I fail to understand why folks insist on playing through the same melodrama that the automotive industry has gone through for the last 20 years.
Deal with it. Jobs will always go to places that pay a cheaper wage. As the the standard of living in the US is one of the highest in the world, that means pretty much ANYWHERE is cheaper than HERE. And unless you come up with a pretty novel idea that the folks in the automotive industry haven't hit on for the last 20 years....
you're screwed.
So either get off your ass and do something novel or shut up and be outsourced. You don't have any other choice.
"Does it strengthen the company from within? No."
That's actually a really, really good point. While I personally am not a good candidate for outsourcing (writing process control software that for now requires me to be on-site), my morale and loyalty to the company would be greatly depleted if my company were to send hundreds of IT jobs offshore.
Why? Well, regardless of my necessity at current, I'm always going to be working with one foot out the door if I know that I'm really only around until they can figure out how to pay someone else less for what I'm doing now.
--- What
Instead of complaining about visas, outsourcing, off-shoring, employing aliens etc, why not be a better worker? And YES, this might mean lowering your income...
If hiring americans was profitable, they would not think about moving off-shore in the first place... Maybe it's not their fault, but yours...
Think about working harder and being more productive, without getting a raise. This should secure your job. Not some racist movement against alien-employment.
No, I do not work (or live) in the US, and don't intend to.
This "America for Americans" attidute is just going to create more Bin Laden's and terrorists...
You should not get a job because you are American, you should get it because you're one of the best, and deserve it.
It's unfortunate that the literati are waking up this fast to the problem -- they can't really do much about the fact that the national security of the West has been irreversibly compromised, but what they can do is keep the idiots, like HP, Oracle and Sun, who led the West to this disaster in their comfortable haze while totally destroying their companies. We need to get the industry purged of these idiots in power.
Seastead this.
There are clothes that have 'made in the USA' labels, and there are Hondas that are advertised as being built in Ohio. If there is a backlash, how long until we see 'Made in USA' on software packages or web pages?
Of course, I don't think we need a backlash. If small developers/publishers (like Ambrosia or Blizzard) started throwing labels on, I wonder how long it would take to catch on. Of course, then there would be regulations about how much software has to be written in the US before it can actually be labeled such. And the example corollary - if DHL Worldwide Express is known to outsource IT work, could their competition that doesn't outsource use that as a selling point? Could Fed-Ex or UPS use this to their advantage, if they haven't outsourced?
There never seemed to be a chance for this to happen in manufacturing, but with so many small IT organizations and the internet it seems like it would be easy for a company with no plans to outsource to be able to turn this into a selling point. Of course, depending on their size/audience this could be a hinderance if they are trying to compete globally, but that's probably not as big a problem for a small company starting out.
R: That voice. Where have I heard that voice before? B: In about 365 other episodes. But I don't know who it is either.
My experience with a small shop in the US in Oregon was almost exactly the same, totally and utterly useless gung-ho "we can fix it" cartoon like characters. And of course with any Microsoft code that has ever escaped into the wild you couldn't exactly bandy about the word quality.
Shit programmers exist everywhere. There are shit hot people in India, there are crap people in the US. The trick is to meld the good people in both areas to create decent teams as the client needs to speak NOW to someone, and that person HAS to be in the US. But the basic work can be done by top quality people in India.
It does work, and I for one have had good experiences of it, and I'll tell you one thing. Its a damned sight easier to get rid of the shit person on your project in India than it is in the US.
An Eye for an Eye will make the whole world blind - Gandhi
That is partly because of marketing. That is one thing you can't send offshore.
karma : former act as leading to inevitable results
I seem to recall how some celebrity (Martha Stewart, somebody else?) was in a scandal because her clothing line was alleged to be made overseas by child labor. Illegal here, perfectly legal there.
I'm sure there are many inconvenient labor laws here which can be avoided simply by sending the work overseas.
Point is, some people insist on the notion of free global trade, and open competition between all the participants in the world economy. However, until everyone has to play by the same set of laws, labor and otherwise, some countries will have an unfair advantage in this competition.
And until then, countries which have this unfair advantage, should be penalized with tariffs and anything else to balance out any advantages, real or perceived, that outsourcing would provide.
They say the first thing to go is your penis. Well, it's either that or your brain. I forget which...
Right, I make less then a mechanic, and less then some unskilled labor and I'm a programmer with far more education.
Alright Jethro, you need to learn proper use of then and than before you can even begin to call yourself "educated".
Just get a PO box in Bombay. No one will *ever* know.
This space for rent.
It's not just the fault of our economic system. It's also the fault of our political/legal system.
There is more than cost savings when moving work offshore. Companies also gain a lot of relief from litigation. They don't have to worry about lawsuits for discrimination, sexual harassment, or wrongful termination.
It's similar to when manufacturing plants went offshore. Corporations loved the relief from unions, OHSA, environmental and child labor laws.
It's a race to the bottom....
From Naples news:
It is the same as the measurement: dividing GDP by population does not give a measurement of how hard the people of a nation work, nor does how many hours: it is the combination of the two. Does it apply equally to blue collar and white collar? To code monkeys? I be willing to guess that an offshore programmer in India has to work twice as hard to do the same amount of work of their American counterpart, just to understand what has to be done in the first place: the output is the same, and probably takes longer for the Indian, but he has probably worked harder, and longer.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
What makes IT so off-shorable, is that it deals with information only, so the result of the work can be moved over as bits.
But IT is hardly the only information-only occupation. How about writing, law, engineering, architecture?
My point is that off-shoring IT in the end will show to be not anymore beneficial as any one of these other professions.
(Imagine a law firm that uses cheap lawyers from Bangalore)
grisha.org
I'm generally a big fan of keeping work in-house because I feel that model creates the best software. This is because the developers have access to the customers and understand the business better than any outside consultant will. Further, they have a vested interested in the software.
With all that being said, offshoring can be good for certain types of projects. Any infrastructure style project where the complexity is high and the specifications known and well documented can benefit from offshoring. For example, imagine if your company had some need for a JVM to be implemented. Building a JVM is a huge project, but the specification known, well documented, and there are plenty of tests available. Such a project would be perfect for outsourcing since the skills required are specialized, but the cost of outsourcing could be emense. This is where offshoring comes in since it provides the same benefits as outsourcing without all costs.
This article could have been talking about outsourcing in general, not just overseas. One thing I have learned over the years is that you don't outsource simply to save money. In some cases, it costs *more* money to outsource than to do things internally.
In my opinion, you outsource to gain expertise you don't otherwise have, focus on your core business or other sound commercial reasons. Reduced costs should be the last reason for doing this. I have seen far too many outsourcing contracts go bad as a result of a failure to factor in the appropriate costs (this is on the providor as well as customer sides). I'm not saying don't ever do it, but be aware of a few things.
One of the comments at the end of the article also raised a good point: intellectual property. Be careful about dealing with *any* outsourcing company whom you suspect might take your brilliant idea and sell it on the open market. The opportunity cost of this happening can be staggering.
Another often forgotten part is the opportunity cost of not having an internal staff who understand and are aligned with the goals of the organisation. That is, those high potential technical and management staff who add more value to the business with their ideas/techniques etc than they cost in terms of total compensation. Do you want to outsource those people? An outsourcing comany has only one goal: to maximise the amount of profit they make per contract. This is not a bad thing, but it may mean that their goals diverge from your own.
The IT market seems to be very cyclical when it comes to outsourcing. It happens to be in favour right now, but who knows if that will be the case in 5 years time.
I have experience setting up networks, building computers, managing server, Building DBs, and writting code in a variety of different languages. In short, I am capable and experienced. However it's tough to get a gob in IT these days, so why fight the inevitable: I'm just going to become a lawyer.
levels the playing field economically
-theoretically gdp per capita becomes same in every country, so does standard of living
-US has a very high standard of living
-Therefore US per capita GDP and standard of living can only go down as the world economy becomes globalized.
Think about that when you are about to vote for a proponent of globalization.
If you want to help India, Taiwan and Mexico at your own expense, support globalization.
Living in a fishbowl has worked for us for 200 years. Any change can only hurt us.
I bought a power saw once, tried to saw my arm off, and not a scratch. So I took it right back and told the people at the store to give me one that could saw my arm off.
....
It works both ways. I once bought a plumber's helper -- and the damned thing blasted the sewer main and sent every manhole cover fifty feet into the air for miles around. Guess I should've gotten the home-use model
-kgj
"You get what you pay for"
Although in truth it doesn't always apply to highly paid workers (some are still lazy buggers), but quite often is the truth when dealing with attempts to save money by outsourcing.
Seriously, I doubt that anyone thinks that you can get 100% quality for 60% cost, but I'm sure many companies find the quality/cost ratio they end up with is well below what they expect.
The guys climbing the poles for Verizon make over 75k/yr, at least according to their recent ad campaign.
;)
Those ad campaings were produced by Verizon in order to sway public sympathy away from their (unionized) workers that were about to strike in order to protect their benefits. My wife, brother-in-law, and cousin are all techs with Verizon, and, believe me, they do not make anything approaching $75k/year. Possibly with 30 or so years with the company and 15-20 hours of over-time each week (if it is available), then they might the approach $75k. A better estimate would be around $40k/year. Hell, I wish my wife made $75k, my life would be much easier
TODO: Insert witty sig
Customer Service Reps, and IT, have to have access to customer data to resolve problems. Imagine if a CSR for Sprint tracked the call history of a suspected CIA agent, getting who he called and when? Or passed along his address? How valuable would this be to a foreign government, a terrorist, or blackmailer?
You don't have to look very far to see that this trend is already happening in full force. The macroeconomic trends all support the theory that widespread offshoring is already taking place. How else to explain that US factory productivity is up, yet US employment is down and hours worked are down? And what about the dollar's decline, and the rise of gold prices? Clearly foreigners are no longer finding little reason to invest in the United States other than political stability. And recent events such as 9/11 and the "War on Terror" have chipped away at that.
Interesting to note that the anecdote of one manager is that they now have to define a rock solid spec, and of course, up the QA.
Most project I've worked on seem to fall down in those two areas. Clearly both areas are a management responsability to kick off.
Might they have saved half their problems getting these right in the first place?
Q:I was listening to a CD in Grip and it sounded horrible! What's up? A:Perhaps you are listening to country music
Who has a list of companies that outsource? I want to avoid their products whenever possible. I'll also need an email so that I can tell what I didn't buy from them and why so they will know what they are missing.
Seems like an aweful lot of exposure for 20% savings.
A terrorist strike in one of these regions and you could see the company stock plunge because 80% of your IT development is done there. Seems if I were a terrorist this might be a good way to strike US economic interests.
Let's say your "partner" overseas decides to take the money and run. Do you then track them down and sue them in Indian/Chinese/whatever legal system? How successful will you be?
If something does happen to your partner, how long will it take you to recover? How much does it cost to have a standby?
How about exposure to other political instability? Don't India and Pakistan stare each other down with nuclear weapons at the ready every year or so? Isn't there a crazy little dude with funky hair in North Korea making missiles that can reach a lot of these regions?
How about all of the pissed off in-house talent who leaves? You've turned your real partners into adversaries. All that accumulated knowledge has left and you're now trying to rebuild it half way around the world? Does this make sense?
20% doesn't sound like all that much. You might be able to save that much by working on better managing your in-house resources.
This isn't to say that there isn't danger and uncertainty here in America, but overall it seems to be about the most stable environment to conduct business.
I'm happy to be no longer employed by a company that is india-sourcing, but to be honest, I can see the point. Sure, you can argue that for now it isn't as good, and the India programmers suck, and that the water-cooler conversations really help business, but these are all hurdles that will be over come with time. Maybe not this year, but perhaps next. You gotta remember that here in the USA (or for that matter Europe) we are insanely rich compared to the rest of the world. This great "World Economy" will eventually ballance everything out and, yes, it's true, *YOU* will be poorer. Get used to it.
Now I'm not saying I like this any, but that's just the way it is. We've made our world one where where the "bottom line" is cash - not people. It is quite inevitable that you (and your wonderfull talents) will be sold as cheap as possible. And yes, you *are* competing against the poor $20/hour high-end experts in other contries.
As India etc. gets more work the cost of living will rise. How long until that makes outsourcing unprofitable? The number I heard once was 5 years but that is probably wrong. Nevertheless, outsourcing is probably a temporary measure. If so, is it worth it to corporations to generate the long term ill feelings that will come from this?
How? First, please visit the web site that explains "H-1B Myths". Professor Matloff, who teaches computer science at a top-notch university, has campaigned tirelessly to terminate the H-1B program.
Anyhow, we have only 2 choices.
The second choice is best and will result in the long-term gain of jobs for Americans. The United States of America (USA) is a big market, and companies will set up shop in the USA once their share of the market reaches a certain critical size. As well, domestic content laws facilitate this trend. Toyota and Honda are excellent examples; they have built huge manufacturing and design facilities in the USA.
Further, by terminating H-1B employment, you ensure that American jobs stay with Americans.
The second choice also directly deals with the strongest bogus argument by unethical American companies like Intel and possibly Google. Even when Silicon Valley has 8% unemployment, they insist that cannot find American workers for critical jobs and that they must hire H-1Bs. We in the Slashdot community should say, "Fine. Go set up shop overseas. There is plenty of labor there."
On the positive side of international development: The US IT service market is largely saturated. Over the next decade, I would expect the biggest growth of IT will be in the international market. US companies are wise to invest internationally and develop an international infrastructure to take advantage of this growth.
As for people in the US working in IT, we simply have to realize that our degrees and MCSE certs are worth 60% of what they were worth in 1999. American IT workers have to learn to compete on value.
The main concern for American IT is whether or not it will be able to retain a good share of the international market, or if the industry will go the way of steel.
Gee, I never knew that Adam Smith talked about a system where artificial differences in the value of currency are rigged in a such a way that people in certain areas of the world have a hard time getting a job, in the mean time those in other parts of the world can get a job, but would never be able to save up enough capital to start their own company. I never knew Smith talked about a system where people where barriers to immigration would allow those who can step over these barriers (large corporations) would be able to profit handsomely from it, while the rest get to suffer. Which page of "The Wealth of Nations" is that on? Then, the artificial barriers to competition such as drastic differences in cost of living are used as a way of leeching money from the American middle class(who still buy products at American prices while getting paid less and less) while at the same time getting host governments such as the government of India to pay for all the infrustructure for you before you move your company there. Wow, now THAT's captalism! Then, when you're done with India, you go find some other country that your rich buddies can leech the wealth from, like, um, Iraq. Yep, that's capitalism.
This is happening. Financial operations are being outsourced now, and there's a small but growing use of non-US lawyers for some work -- particularly patent applications. Believe it or not, New Zealand is a leader in that area. Heavy offshoring of lawyers would be tough given not just licensing requirements, but also the local legal knowledge required to do other kinds of work.
I never knew Smith talked about a system where people where barriers to immigration would allow those who can step over these barriers (large corporations) would be able to profit handsomely from it, while the rest get to suffer.
should be..
I never knew Smith talked about a system where barriers to immigration would allow those who can step over those barriers (large corporations) to be able to profit handsomely from it, while the rest get to suffer.
You've got the enumeration all wrong and too concrete; think more abstractly!
1) Hire offshore IT consultancy
2) ???
3) 20-80% IT cost savings = profit!!!
There, I believe that sums it up nicely. Now I don't have to worry about the country of origin, I can just pass in China, India, Vietnam, Laos, or (insert 3rd world country of choice here).
This way, when the Indian IT works become too educated and demand what they're worth, the IT work and flow to a new nation of economy. Maybe Iraq or Afghanistan will be next...
G
Why in the world would the whole IT industry collude against skilled workers out of *spite*? Pat yourself on the back all you like by saying you are worth your weight in gold, but by saying that you specify the very reason the commoditization of IT services *is* about money. Like you said, you are *expensive*.
If you lost a job to an Indian IT worker, I suggest you *compete* instead of *whine*. (Glad I had karma to burn on this. I can't believe it got modded insightful.)
Boom Shanka
I love how I'll check out Slashdot and about every other day there'll be an article that causes everyone to freak out about jobs being moved overseas. There are lots of calls for IT workers to fight the movement of professional jobs to India, etc. Everyone wants the government or someone, anyone, to protect their jobs.
But I bet that a few months ago almost every one of you were thinking "Steel tariffs?!? That's ridiculous!"
Unrelated? Ask any union, blue-collar laborer about jobs moving overseas.
The unions are losing and, like it or not, you probably will too. That's the risk of free-market economics, no one's going to ensure you a comfortable life. Best get out and find a way to make yourself employable, sounds like the days of "Anyone who knows IT can get a job" will never return.
Hiring managers can't tell a good programmer from a bad one at an interview. It's pretty easy to fake it for the span of an interview.
I'm trying to teach myself to set people on fire with my mind... Is it hot in here?
There is nothing naive about it. Using the above example: Indian software companies will write software for an American global banking business, and when they learn enough, they will write software for an Indian company to be a global banking business.
Now multiply that by hundreds of fields. Remember, this is a world in which the companies that have the best software are the often most successful.
The Indian companies will hire Americans to do their marketing for them.
And pissed off a client. It was all kind of ironic we're an IT consultant (ie outsourcer) ourselves and we outsourced a project to India. Anyways the product was crap and the client was pissed so we had to put three guys on it to fix everything and ended up LOSING MONEY! Not to mention having to kiss the client's ass. Lesson = Don't bother outsourcing to India you'll get what you pay for.
That's it - nothing more to say. You're a big-shot CEO or CIO? Buy (or in this case 'hire') local. Those people then spend their money locally.
If you send your money overseas, less money in your local economy. Fewer people buying your product or service.
It's not that complicated, people!
I, Cringely had a nice article (and even a follow-up) on this subject last month.
Body Count: Why Moving to India Won't Really Help IT
I paid the going retail price for a Windows screen reader and got a free Unix computer!
I know I quit dealing with Dell because I can't understand a word they say. I found thier support anoying and fruitless. Now Ive switched to Apple.. I get fruity support now and I am very happy.
I urge people to read this essay by bertrand russell called "in Praise of Idleness" http://www.zpub.com/notes/idle.html
This conveys similar sentiments as yours. Though note that its about a society that deifies the "cult of efficiency". Note that this essay is not a comment on any specific country or economy type. I think this is the root cause though inevitable. Outsourcing is a natural consequnce of our values. Unfortunately we determine the goodness of our value system based on our own narrow and immediate gain or pain. Developing countries are being pressured to be less protectionists by US and EU so that they can prosper while they have farm subsidies that hurt millions of poor folks worldwide. I am not pointing a finger at the rich but just highlighting that cult of efficiency makes people behave in way that is hyprocritical. I mean India and China also are not on a moral high ground. Its just that they have been at the receiving end.
Nobody screamed against these things when the going was good. But btw within the "cult of efficiency" paradigm, I think, free trade is the best policy for America and anybody else. Providing infratructure and society that is meritocratic is by far the greatest advantage that US has and is the magnet that attracts all innovations and bright minds to this place. There may be issues on the way but being more closed to global talent is like throwing the baby with bathwater.
Assume that G7 nations totally outsource manufacturing, white collar technical positions, low to mid level management and most low end support positions. Assume that those jobs begin a nomadic migration from one developing nation to the next based on cost. Who on earth is supposed to pay the taxes the G7 nations require to maintain their massive social spending (or social and defense spending in the US)? Second, who will actually be able to pay for these companies products? The fact is the G7 consumes most of the world's GDP. If their work force disappears, who can afford to remain a consumer?
What I always wonder about is what will happen to all those managers of the different departments in IT.
They are announcing with great pooha that work will be outsourced; that there is no other way, the company needs to stay competitive and what ever other excuses they can come up with.
But what about their own jobs? when there is nobody left in their department, what will they do? manage the indian workers, i doubt it. They will be out of a job too.
I don't think they will have it any easier then the techs who are losing their jobs right now to find anything new (maybe even less so).
Managers will lose their jobs, even if not all jobs are outsourced. departments will shrink to such small sizes they can be integrated into other departments. It is only a matter of time before it is their turn.
On a long enough timeline, the survival rate for everyone drops to zero.
The true value of articles like this is they show us just how little the leadership of corporate America cares about their fellow Americans, their country, and their staff. All that really matters to them is their bottom line. Issues about fair play, about maintaining American core skill sets, about not destroying the lives of millions of people for an extra buck or two on the share price, just don't exist. In short, the rich and the corporate *don't care* about the rest of us, and never will (other than to caution that there might be a backlash, so offshoring efforts should be as under the table as possible, at least until it picks up momentum and the risk of bad PR is minimized).
I think it's useful for the rest of us to understand this about Big Business(tm). It prevents us from romanticizing it, or from accidentally sympathizing with it when (inevitably) all that foreign infrastructure Big Business is creating turns on a dime and eats Big Business alive.
It also helps us choose NOT to waste our time in corporate jobs we'll "inevitably" lose. Perhaps now more of us will choose strictly-local, civil-service and union jobs and avoid corporate work entirely. My advice, brothers, is to eschew all corporate work entirely, and do your best to live without their shitty products. Really, you'd be better off building your own PCs anyway. It's cheaper, and you can pick and choose the (probably Taiwanese or Chinese)motherboard / graphics card / etc that will work the best. And, it'll feel better morally -- you don't see the Chinese outsourcing their people's jobs overseas. Just a thought...
Farewell! It's been a fine buncha years!
I guess you could say our TalkToTheCamera.com project is part of the backlash companies will face over their illegal use of H1B and L1 Visas and their irresponsible outsourcing of American jobs overseas. This is a collaborative effort between concerned people and videographers around the United States to create a documentary on this subject. It will will show the frustration and impact this has had to so many people in so many different professions ... not just IT workers.
The http://www.talktothecamera.com website just went online yesterday.
I wonder if any software needed by the outsourced company is licensed correctly or is even export controlled code?
WhatMeWorry?
Lots of jobs have been outsourced for years, if not decades. Clothing, electronics, cars, most of it is made in asia or Mexico already. Very few people make a conscious effort to "buy American", they just go for whatever is cheapest. Just because now it's the IT industry and those IT workers are vocal on the Internet doesn't mean that anything's going to change...
So all those HTML "programmers" who get to put "IT professional" on their resumes are out of work huh?
And maybe companies with real IT needs need someone with real education/experience instead of "deVry" certificate ?
It's the *outsourcing* companies who are abusing the H1B Visa, not the regular companies who are merely looking for the most qualified person for the position.
And its those outsourcing companies who don't always pay their resident employees the full US wage they are required to.
When the law requires a US company to pay their H1B employees the same wage they would pay an American in that job, there is no cost incentive to hire an H1-B worker. So the only incentive is that the worker is more qualified than their US counterparts available for that position.
The reality, as we know, is a little different, but this is not the fault of the US H1-B visa program, but rather the abuse of it by these outsourcing contracting companies who place their own foreign employees here on such visas. If the US companies weren't looking to hire "cheap labour", this wouldn't happen.
What astounds me, however, is that people seem to forget that you "get what you pay for". When you pay 20 percent of your usual costs, are you surprised when you only get 20% of the quality you were asking for ? Or it takes 5 times as long to develop, or any other of a thousand factors that some people seem to forget.
Novel isn't good enough because novel can't be quantified by the business types who are leery of revolutionary products after the .com crash. However, it's easy to quantify improved productivity through better operations can. The types of things that you'd do to improve operations aren't novel and can be done anywhere by anybody with the right information.
;-) That way, at least one of us has a bright future.
The right technical information is available on the web or through some of the overseas schools (which are quite good). The only problem is getting the right business information to overseas workers. There are two ways to do that -- extensive training or ship more and more of your operation overseas.
That's what I see American companies doing. They are slowly squirting out of the US because the US no longer has the most favorable business climate. (Do you really think that after manufacturing, tech support, and software that it's going to end?)
So, what's an American software developer to do? I've decided that my best bet is to put my wife through law school.
You are not a beautiful or unique snowflake -- but you could be if you got off your ass.
"The latest U.S. Census Bureau estimates, however, show a record 8 million illegal immigrants in the United States, increasing at the rate of 500,000 a year."
7 6~ 1631417,00.html
While it's true the vast majority, if not all, of these immigrants are unskilled and will not be taking over IT jobs, they are taking over many jobs that would be filled by low income workers while driving down the wage categories at the same time.
http://www.denverpost.com/Stories/0,1413,36~116
Here's an additional thought to go along with my parent and great grand-parent comments:
Managers should realize that non-disclosure agreements with Indian companies are worthless, 100% worthless. First, an American company will not get into an expensive legal battle in India and win. Second, just proving that there was a disclosure is likely to be impossible if you don't speak Hindi well.
Remember, the lab at Los Alamos hired Chinese who were U.S. citizens. Those Chinese worked only in the United States. The result: The Chinese government learned how to build hydrogen bombs.
Second, workers aren't allowed to chase the jobs. Indian IT is for Indian citizens only: http://comment.cio.com/comments/13592.html
Rick
Your paranoia is showing. The same thing happens here in USAland when you outsource (or even when you bring in outside contractors to help with part of a project like requirement specifications.)
... flips belly up and files Chapter 11.
Best of luck
Strawman. No one ever said they were getting rid of all the coders, just those whose job can be done by a drain-bamaged chimp. What's wrong with outsourcing jobs that require a bare minimum skill level? You obviously have a vested interest in this. I'm an interested outsider.
Thats odd, I thought it was in all those people who put in overtime and ran the company without pay because they really wanted to see it succeed. You can call them stupid, I call them loyal.
If those people existed, they did it because they had stock options in the company. That's not loyalty, it's just an efficient way to tie performance to compensation. You can idealize the employee all you want, I can show more examples of where employees manipulated companies and managers. I'm not saying they shouldn't have, but fair's fair - a lack of loyalty cuts both ways.
Amusingly enough, the foreign auto industries strengthened themselves by moving their manufacturing to the US.
They only did it to agoid import tariffs. In the absense of that, they never would have done it. Also, those companies were already strong when they did it. Additionally, they came to the US after the auto labor shakeout in the late 70's early 80's, when Detroit jobs left for, say, Mexico. Since then, the UAW has come to realize that a healthy labor market, that is healthy to both sides, is beneficial for all. Prior to that, they priced themselves out of jobs. Now they don't. I'd call that a lesson learned, and it feeds my argument.
Except that we *are* [outsourcing mission-critical jobs]. Read the article. Do you think DHL's software is not mission critical? And what about the failed projects that didn't get mentioned by name in the article?
Any project has a mission-critical core and non-mission critical portions. Moving the non-critical portions makes sense. Or look at it this way - if any company's stupid enough to outsource on mission-critical portions, it'll bite them in the ass, just like you say. If it's a fad, it'll be a short one. Because it won't work, like you say. Or if it does work, it'll teach us something about the quality of mixing foreign workers with management they never meet, but I like you doubt that very much.
Right now it won't guarantee $60k to people with excellent skills.
You can thank the dot bomb bubble for that to a large extent, certainly. But it will pick up. And we're not talking about unemployment here (which is certainly a problem), we're talking about shipping less valuable jobs overseas.
In fact, I might turn that argument. If a company is doing poorly and needs to cut costs, getting rid of the low-end bloat is a good thing for the remaining, highly-skilled employees. It can strengthen the company and make cutting a whole division unnecessary. In other words, outsourcing crappy jobs protects the better ones. If it works like that, I think it's a net Good Thing.
Management has been blinded by the capitalist $ worship
Unfortunately, that's management's *job.* Caring about money is what they're there for. Granted, they can be short-sighted in this. And performing a hatchet-job indiscriminately can be a horrible idea (Hatchet Al at Sunbeam comes to mind). But reducing costs efficiently, including labor, is frequently a good thing. People are a resource. If the manufacturing division were using an expensive part that underperformed, it would be replaced. I hate to say it, but labor's the same way.
After all, morale, skills, and other touchy-feely stuff like that doesn't even figure in to the bonus your buddy-buddy incestuous board members voted you last month
It's not always the most efficient model, but the truly skilled usually aren't unemployed long. And I agree, any job cutting has to be done
-Looking for a job as a materials chemist or multivariat
According to the article, the hidden costs of overseas outsourcing could cost between 16 - 65 percent of the total project cost.
I just don't see any savings here. Consider:
- Overseas consulting firms charge $20/hour.
- The average American programmer gets paid $35/hour.
The overseas firm charges 57% of what the American programmer gets paid - But, the minimum hidden costs bring that to (57 + 16) 73%, in the best case scenario. In a worst-case "successful" scenario (one in which the project comes in on time, without bugs..), the American firm will pay (57 + 65 = 122) 22% more than just hiring an American programmer. And to add insult to injury, should the overseas firm fail to fulfill its promises in any way, the American firm would have no legal resource against companies based overseas.And I haven't even gotten into the cases of project overruns, code delivered late, or in an unworking state, etc...
The society for a thought-free internet welcomes you.
"Anyhow, we have only 2 choices. "
No, you have many, you are only presenting two.
Minor training of unemployed US programmers to fill the missing roles would have been the best option.
You're ignoring all the out of work US programmers.
What strikes me most immediately about the phenomenon of offshore outsourcing is the low level of the outcry about it in the mainstream media. Just one more revolution of the vicious circle - the global economy's levelling effect. Maybe even schadenfreude that it's happening to a highly-paid sector of the economy. But in RTFA, they make the comment that in the last offshore wave, the service-sector economy replaced the manufacturing economy, providing a soft landing. This time, they suggest, is the "structural" adjustment for which there doesn't seem to be another soft landing on the way.
The problem is in the Friedman-esque incentives that make it preferable for this to happen rather than to keep the jobs at home. I don't want to seem a wild booster of the US economy in this one - it's pretty much every country for itself out there - but the structural adjustment the article refers to hollows out the competence base of American IT. From there, I worry about the stock of high-value jobs and the follow-on impact that this will have on the US economy in strange places, like university tuition and social security funding.
No doubt it's coming, but it seems to me that the CIOs aren't operating with sufficient perspective to do anything about it. That's why the wider silence is disturbing to me. The CIO articles are definitely worth a read once the /. effect calms down.
Has anyone considered what happens when some of these organizations steal proprietary code and resell them for a profit? I know of an electronics company who is farming work out to Russia. What is to stop these potentially unscrupulous organizations from using these trade secrets to develop their own cheaper version of the software/hardware. Lawyers are powerless in this case, as their government would laugh at the corporate attorneys in terms of extradition. I welcome the chaos this ensues.
Outsourcing has the exact opposite effect: it sends money to another country, and none of that money is coming back.
Also, H-1B workers consitute only a very small fraction of the workforce in the U.S. H-1B workers are NOT the reason unemployment is so high right now. That's entirely due to the economy being in shambles. Do you really want to send more money out the country right now?
Next big "megatrend" pushed by the research firms three to five years from now: "In-Housing - bring your IT operations in-house and save! Leverage your internal domain expertise!" Of course, by then there may be few U.S. programmers left.
[Insert pithy quote here]
Too much of anything is bad. As you say, ultra-protectionism is bad because you lose competition, which reduces the incentive to advance. On the other hand, though, 100% free trade means that you may have to compete on even ground with someone whose cost of living is a tenth of yours. Guess who'd win that battle?
Free trade is good, but like everything else, it's not a panacea; you need a balance between trade with the outside and keeping your own society healthy.
All US labor, safety, environmental, and industry law must be applied to US companies regardless of where their interests are being engaged.
i am so very tired....
1. Consider that corporate executives and immigration lawyers are benefiting greatly from outsourcing (offshoring and/or guest workers with work visas).
2. Consider that the wages of CEOs and lawyers indicate a severe shortage of these talents in the USA.
Perhaps the best solution to this labor shortage is to lobby Congress to bring in hundreds of thousands of cheap foreign lawyers and corporate executives instead of lobbying for decreases in work visas? After all, if globalization, immigration, and outsourcing are good for IT, engineering, the sciences, call centers, manufacturing, textiles, etc., it must be good for the legal and CEO industries, too.
Just think, we could eliminate the backlog in our legal system at great savings to the American taxpayer by using more ethical, harder working, and better educated foreign lawyers. In addition, companies could hire more ethical, better educated foreign corporate executives who would combat corporate fraud at a great savings to their stock holders and our stock markets.
Software developer companies like Art & Logic and IBM have been doing outsourcing for decades. The advantages of outsourcing (on or offshore) are widely known. It's well documented that the number one factor to sucessful software projects is individual team members. Some companies solve this issue by using US-wide telecommuting, to allow them to hire the best programmers no matter where they live.
People are talking about offshore outsourcing as if it's going to ruin us all. It won't. There will always be a market for seasoned programmers, and the US has no shortage of those kind of people!
Why does anyone need to be in the US? What does a lawyer do that requires them to be in the US? Why do sales engineers need to be in the US? Since we are in a knowledge based world, shouldn't companies be able to just be completely open up offshore?
The biggest drawback to offshoring (my company's term) your development and IT is the enormous drain it places on your productivity. Getting two groups from completely different work cultures working together smoothly is a piece of cake compared to keeping your productivity up.
My company laid off software developers with fifteen years experience in a highly specialized medical field, and replaced them with contractors in India. When I was hired I went through an eight hour grueling interview. When I transfered to development, I had to have another eight hour interview. But we sent three managers to India to hire forty workers at a one day job fair. Huh? Everyone talks a lot about the brilliant software engineers in India. They're correct. But what they don't mention is that like Silicon Valley five years ago, they're all already employed so you won't get them.
Our executives think they're oh so smart for offshoring our core development work, and giving themselves raises for their innovation. But our lower level managers are shitting bricks and wondering if the Indian group is even up to the level of writing unit tests. They're guessing it will take at least two years to get the India group as a whole up to the level they need to be.
In the meantime we don't have enough developers here domestically to complete the necessary projects already in the pipeline. If the executives don't wise up, we will be out of business by the time India gets up to speed.
Don't blame me, I didn't vote for either of them!
Whenever this subject comes up on slashdot, the people that are most vocal and most anti-immigration, anti-visa, and anti-globalization, are the people that have been unemployed for some time. At the same time, many of these people seem to be lacking some basic skills. When people post comments that include words like "thier", "ousourcing", "uneployed", "countrys", "deparment", "ultimatly", "beleive", etcetera, they should be taking a long hard look at their resume-writing skills, instead of blaming their prolonged unemployment on H-1B workers...
What you don't know is that the world's best selling wholesale banking software comes from India - Flex-Cube. I used to work for this company (it is part owned by citigroup). BTW, it is not the largest selling banking s/w in India
Let me assure you - knowing how banks work (even in and out) does not help you build a bank. Moreover, some Indian banks are as old as CitiBank and know banking very well, they don't need to first build a banking s/w to learn that. Anyway the knowledge alone does not help them become a global bank, simply because even the biggest Indian bank is very small in global terms. Afterall, you can't build another Microsoft if you know how to build an OS.
My first project was writing an application for treasury - forex, money markets. No, that didn't help me become a Forex dealer, because judging the next move of the market has nothing to do with the knowledge of how to process the deal, once it is made.
There is a lot more to building successful businesses than just learning enough to write software for them. Competing against entrenched businesses is very even tougher. It is naive to think otherwise.
karma : former act as leading to inevitable results
The recession of the early 90s was also pretty bad--but that one not very for the technically educated. This time around, it is the educated ones being hurt, and this time they have the internet. The outwelling of anger about outsourcing and immigration which combine to destroy jobs and lower wages for those jobs still left, is being focused by the internet. I am starting to see more acceptance of the european style of govt everywhere.
My techie friend and I have often discussed what is happening here in America. My overall take on it is that a combination of corporate power, governmental power and major media (CorpGovMedia) is running America in a way to increase profits, sort of the way a livestock ranch is run. And the American citizens are the livestock. CorpGovMedia tries to cram more and more livestock onto the ranch.
My techie friend just got back from Australia. He is from Venezuela originally.
First thing he tell me after he got back from Australia is that the corporations are screwing Americans. He says life is better in Australia than it is in the USA. He did not specify exactly what, but he is concerned with health care and cheap housing.
Where did he get this idea about the corporations screwing Americans? Not from the major media--from the Internet.
The Internet can help us, but we have to use it more efficiently. First we have to break the hold of the major parties on the elections.
eat shiat and bark at the moon
Okay, I have not yet taken sides on this issue, and I am bad at economics
Can anyone with some Economics knowledge help me with this?
There are US companies selling stuff to the world. They start outsourcing their jobs. People are laid off in the US.But companies make more money since they sell to the world (Global sales increase, expenditure decrease). Now there are a lot of rich companies, and a lot of poor people (long term). I assume shareholders get rich. Are there enough normal,average people holding shares and who earn enough from it so that the middle class does not vanish? What is the retail versus wholesale split on shareholding? Are they concentrated in the hands of a few?
Suppose there are not enough people holding shares. Wealth is concentrated in the hands of a few. They can't spend it all. Economy gets bad (does it?). So government taxes the rich to feed the poor creating demand. Sort of like Saudi arabia where all the work is done by import labor and all the money comes from the oilwells which government controls.
There is a welfare state. But US companies are taxed too much, so they start moving completely offshore up to the top level.Now Saudi oil can't be moved out but companies can. US economy goes bust.
Can you tell me what mistaken assumptions I made? Or is there a logical error?
.ACMD setaloiv siht gnidaeR
By outsourcing companies are SCREWING the US government out of money that would be paid to FICA and the General tax fund since they replacing US workers with foreign ones by outsourcing jobs. So...
maybe the IRS should IMPOSE a tax on these companies equal to the taxes that WOULD have been paid by the US workers whose jobs they outsourced based on the RATE THEY WOULD HAVE PAID THEM. Ditto for the Social Security taxes that were not paid.
I agree with many of you who replied so far. When you outsource you get shitty programmers. Absolutely thats what I found after hiring a programmer with little screeing(in US). So you get the quality when you look for it. Indian programmers can crash the systems and may not be able to fix. I think the same applies here. If we get only the best here we would not have crashed anything here!!!(Imagine how cool it would be) Reminder...Hello anybody seen email crashing in US or for that matter anything crashing beyond repair. We get shitty code shitty programs(when we outsource!!???). Reminder...I don't have to paste code if anybody opens the code in the Version control then they know how bad programmers can be irrespective of Race,Color or Creed. That is why, way back when only Americans were programming they invented processes called Code Review, Design reviews and what not reviews. I know I too could loose my job due to outsourcing. But face the reality you .... Business work for profits not for nation building.
They do charitiable contributions to help the weaker and or dispensable in several ways.
If they can not satisfy the business needs by outsourcing, they go to places where they can get great quality. And that is the hope I have. I wish all Indians and all other cheaper labor do the worst job. So that I can dream about my future. But is that my retirment plan? Its not when I am sober.
All the whiners who think outsourcing is bad for the country's employment prospects and think cheap labor is always bad. You better wish you get that shitty code ALWAYS like a switch statement when you can do with an If.
Otherwise Shareholders want more profits and CEO thinks he can pay less than half to get the job done by someone else.
Good luck
And maybe our present 'King' (since he wasn't elected) will learn the same lesson his old man did..... I't the economy stupid!
.... you have an issue here to dethone the tyant!
Democrats unite
Look at this moron's posting history.. He has his own agenda.. What a piece of shit!
Rapid Nirvana
That's a key point. Certainly, if a company is stupid enough to outsource the job of someone who has relevant skills to important projects, they deserve to implode. So I would fully agree that an indiscriminate outsourcing as a panacea is unwise. Perhaps I'm giving management far too much credit, but I can't see that happening outside of isolated instances.
Having people fearing for their jobs in the industry, and implicitely expecting to be laid off to save costs (through no fault of their own) is NOT going to increase their productivity, though.
I may have been hasty making that comment; I was trying to counter the "complete job security == morale" point. Having employees constantly look over their shoulders is bad. Allowing them to get away with anything is bad too. Somewhere in the middle is a happy medium - good work is rewarded, bad work isn't, and any layoffs or firings are well communicated both to the affected parties as well as those not laid off.
You're not training any local code monkeys to become the next generation of Senior Engineers anymore.
I think we're seeing, in part, a fundamental shift between how things used to work then vs. the future. Part of "code monkey" work becoming a commidity job means that, indeed, it won't be upwardly-mobile any more than a wrench-turner becomes senior management at GM. You'll see talented college kids graduate and go straight into more relevant coding jobs or management training. And that may in fact be a good thing if it accelerates talented people into jobs where their talent pays off.
But if you're not hiring any college graduates because their job can be done by junior programmers in Bangalore, the experience and expertise you'll need in a decade will have to be imported from Bangalore.
True, and like I said, I don't think this can be done in totality for those exact reasons. I think, as I said above, that the lowest-level code monkey jobs will become dead-end jobs.
And don't expect to find too many of those in the US either unless companies are specifically planning to grow them and train them.
I think you hit the nail on the head, and I think it'll happen as I described above.
-Looking for a job as a materials chemist or multivariat
Vedanti, you are making good points.
However, so am I. Maybe the programming company won't becoming a banking company. But the intellectual property will be put to other uses than for the company that paid for it. That is the intended broad meaning of what I said.
First, an American company will not get into an expensive legal battle in India and win.
It is much cheaper to litigate in India. And American companies frequently do.
Second, just proving that there was a disclosure is likely to be impossible if you don't speak Hindi well.
This is an absurd statement. English is an official language of India. That is the language of the courts and official version of all law. Lot of Indians (esp. software people, who are mostly from south India) do not know Hindi ... which is a North Indian language. Centers like Bangalore, Hyderabad are in south India and majority of s/w people in those places don't know Hindi (and frequently are antagonistic to it). You can be assured that if you file a case in Bangalore, my home town, the judge will not know Hindi.
Well, let us assume they all know Hindi. Even then, why should that matter ? Just hire loads of Indian lawyers who know Hindi.
As an aside, English is closer to Hindi than are south Indian languages, which do not belong to Indo-European language family.
karma : former act as leading to inevitable results
Tattoo this on every passerby, and we'll have our jobs back:
"A CIO at a famous Fortune 100 manufacturer has a recurring nightmare: As he continues to lay off American IT workers and move their jobs offshore to places such as India, never to return, American public opinion suddenly swings violently against globalization. He and his company are demonized, and Americans boycott his company's products."
Very simple. I've made a note of all the companies listed (Cigna, etc) who've stabbed this country in the back, and I WILL NOT DO BUSINESS WITH THEM. AND I WILL WRITE THEIR CEO, CIO, CFO to tell them why. I will also buy stock, so I can go into the board meetings and insist that the stockholders OUTSOURCE THE CIO, CFO AND CEO overseas, to save even more money and bump the stock price EVEN HIGHER.
You can also play the capitalist game one better, and refuse to buy from Cigna, saying that you'll just buy the product directly from the Indian manufacturer, thanks, and cut out their expensive marketing and CIO, CEO, CFO fat.
--- Jump!! Fire!! Bullet time!! - Lego version of the Matrix
Strange, in a time when there's no profits to be had, and people aren't buying anything where there aren't jobs, cuts need to be made.
If you outsource, sure you don't save any money, but management needs to be putting in overtime, drawing up contracts, having meetings, flying out to sunny exotic locations, tendering bids, etc.
Whereas, if you think about it, the reason why these tech companies fail is often due to total managerial incompetence.
"Yeah, we lost a pile of money, but we'll get it back, just approve our overtime and these travel expenses, and we'll lay off Engineering and replace em with cheap cogs." Way to recession proof your own jobs, you fatcats.
--- Jump!! Fire!! Bullet time!! - Lego version of the Matrix
The article mentions (or rather, an interviewee mentions) that the H1B visa is often abused, often blatantly. There is no lack of people who criticize the H1B visa. Why isn't there talk about how existing law can be enforced?
All of a sudden Slashdot seems to revel in sensational and populist political news items.
For example the recent news items titled "No Americans Need Apply", etc...
I'm sorry to see the Slashdot editorial standard declining...
Recently there have been many news items which are not at all worth posting but got posted anyway.
Is this a cheap way to get more Slashdot posters..?
If Slashdot does not change its course sooner or later, I think it will lose real the contributers.
First of all, I am going to try to write an unbiased opinion since I have managed both onsite as well as Offshore projects. Infact in my last Offshore projects, along with project I got booted all the way to India where I had to manage my team and even the client tagged along for a while.
But regardless of the fact whether its offshore or onsite all software projects are doomed to fail if there is no proper management in place. You can have a thousand people bang on it, but if you dont have a client who takes an active role in resolving issues, and identifying most needed features, if you dont have a team who is inspired and is capable of being focussed, If you dont have a manager who can lead and still be part of the team, every project is doomed to fail in the first few months.
One of my buddies who work for Kraft, USA recently told me that their project was recently outsourced to a firm in Russia. Now understand that these guys had more than an year and more than a couple of million to implement a solution the customer needs. But the weasel manager(whom I would blame here) who couldnt keep his team together and his client satisfied, chose to drop ball midway and outsource the project. They had all the time and money in the world to finish this project on time and now there are a bunch of guys out of work.
I cringe whenever my Director mentions having an offshore team handy when we talk to our (potential)clients. I feel he is not focussing (enough) on the positives of using our organization as a technology partner, but rather using the offshore model as an economical reason to justify taking projects offshore.
Recently I had the (mis)fortune of having to explain to a potential client about the feasibility as well as our internal processes when it comes to an Offshore project. Communication, I told them, is the key whether its offshore or onsite. I didnt mention the monetary advantages since to me, they exist, but i dont give a damn. For my client, I aim to make the best possible system with the best resources I have at the current time. And whether its done Offshore or onsite, I still aim to do my best. In the case of Offshore, I have to be doubly sure and have to push harder to ensure that the timelines are kept and the channel for communication remains open.
Rapid Nirvana
They say outsourcing I/T is all about the money. "It's just good business sense".
I agree. Think how much money we could save if we outsourced all those really obscenely expensive positions like CEO, CFO, and CIO.
I predict some unemployed I/T worker displaced by outsourcing will create such and endeavor. I can hear the shrieks and protests from the executive floor. (Most of these employees in these overseas firms have MBAs. By the time they get finished looking at our business procesess they will have plenty of experience.)
What goes around WILL come around.
That's right.
I got new for you, they are only low level cause all the jobs lower were already farmed out.
By definition only. Or it could be the first round of cuts.
This outsourcing is eating its way up the chain. First it was manufacturing and no one really worried casue they were only the low level jobs.
Different chains. People don't go from manufacturer to coder. The lowest-level jobs on both chains go overseas. This is my entire thesis, and I'm not bothered.
Now its the white collar jobs were losing.
I would say the coding jobs we're losing are the non-upwardly-mobile "no collar" jobs. Just because you work at a keyboard doesn't make you less replaceable than a bolt-turner. For the least talented, that's pretty much what they are.
When they sold us on free trade, these were the jobs we werent supposed to lose!
What, it was OK when it was someone else, but now that it's untalented programmers instead of untalented machinists getting outsourced, you're pissed? That's a tad hypocritical. Take it all, or nothing.
It might not be your job yet that is getting eaten, but just wait awhile. And when you complain, no one will listen.
I'm making myself irreplaceable by getting a better education. Ph.D. in chemistry from a top 5 school. Those types of jobs tend not to get outsourced.
It's like that poem: they'll eventually come for you and no one will be left to care. Its ironic, we bought free trade with our freedom.
Hey, great. Look at it this way - protectionism only delays the inevitable (ie, outsourcing untalented workers) and increases prices for the rest of us. I say get rid of the dead weight. Those of us who made sure to be worth more as employees reap the rewards. You can choose which camp you'd rather be in.
Welcome to the world of real corporate slavery.
Slavery my ass. You have no right to a high salary for doing something half the world can do. If anything, it's welcome to the real world for the untalented coder. He can join the untalented bolt-turner in the unemployment line.
-Looking for a job as a materials chemist or multivariat
People always complain that the "quality of the outsourced products are poor" etc etc...
but imho it's mainly due to poor choice of professionals, not because of origin.
The indian for example, have a very good educational system (even before the oursourcing fad, many good mathematicians/chemists WORKING AT US companies were from India).
then they argue "but it's too cheap! it can't be good... you will get what you pay for"
this is likely untrue. The cost-of-life on India is also a lot smaller than on the US. With half the salary that a IT manager would get in the U.S, an indian resident could probably afford a very luxourious life (maids, huge confortable house, clothing, food).
The costs are NOT the same for them.
I am in Brazil and I used to work at an educational research institution that would provide scholarships to high-level researchers to study in a foreign country.
The problem was:
the scholarship values were fixed,
When it was best to send the academic to a poor country, (china? etc) the scholarship value would allow him to live anyway he wanted (beach houses, etc etc).
but when it was best that his research were done on a rich country (sweden, etc) he would have a very difficult time mantaining his living.
just my 2c
I for one, welcome our new hot grits... PROFIT!
I refer here to an earlier post of mine to a slashdot poll that debated what the worst sin in the world was and why!
--
Friends? Foes? What is this place? Kindergarten?
I read a bunch of replies on how bad an alien programmer can be and so on... IMHO, the point is: if it was better to employ americans, companies would do so... They rather have the risk of getting bad codes that work (although hard to maintain), paying low salaries and having no problems with labor related laws, than having the same risk, paying high salaries and benefits to americans. You cannot say: "Americans are the best workers in the world". There are, and I cannot disagree, a lot of good workers. But there are good ones in India, China etc, as well. Why not better ones! And they are willing to work for less. Stop complaining about how you might loose your job, because your company hired an alien or outsourced (off-shored etc). Spend your time doing something useful, like studying, getting better at what you do, or working. I'm sure that's going to do a lot more for you than whining is...
Architects are licensed by the states here in the U.S., and much building code knowledge is quite region specific. Lawyers and engineers too are licensed by state, with regional knowledge also a factor. This makes it more difficult to push these professions overseas than most IT jobs.
I would think any IT certifications or licensing would allow global participation, on the other hand.
Indian H-1B holders are, for the most part, smelly, stupid, arrogant assholes. If outsourcing means fewer Indians in the US, I'm all for it.
see above
-- Having a Creationist Museum is like having an Atheist place of worship
You're absolutely right. On my first day of my MBA program, the professor made it abundantly clear that the point of any actions we do in business should be to maximize shareholders' value. If that meant massive layoffs so stock value would rise, do it. Dumping toxic waste into a river? Yes, if legal fees are less than disposal costs. I was waiting for the class where we had to sacrifice babies to make dividends increas by 1 cent a share. Greed was absolutely the entire point of the course, at least at that school. I couldn't even stand it.
Indian programmers suck right now and are more expensive. But once they learn enough, they will be cheaper and produce better codes. For now they are more expensive than American programmers but in the long run, they are better for the company. THere is no quick buck. CEO's don't become CEO's if they run a company like that.
I would say this could still be a net-good thing. First, I doubt this will be widespread, again, for departments doing really mission critical things. Second, this will never steal the best people. The best people want to work in the US, mainly on the coasts, as that's where most of the best are educated (there are few top-notch schools between the coasts, outside of chicago). Hell, you couldn't set up a brain-drain in Iowa, because that's not where the action is. And the top-notch R&D jobs will always be where the action is.
He tells me that working with these people is exactly like working with any other fresh-out-of college hire, since thats exactly what they are.
Right, and you get what you pay for. These people can never interact with clients by and large, won't go to conferences and communicate effectively, etc. This will happen to some extent, and it's part of living in a global economy. I welcome it. After it all shakes out and the xenophobia stops, it should be a great thing.
-Looking for a job as a materials chemist or multivariat
Go to Europe, specifically France, Germany or Sweeden and start advocating lower taxes and the reduction of social services. In other words the dismantling of the socialist welfare state, which is happening anyways, and see how far your "freedom of speech" will get you. Such talk would be considered VERY controvserial. The thought of ending employment for life in Europe? Making people actually pay for what they get on a more direct basis? Oh teh sh0ck, t3h h0rr0r!
Sometimes I have to wonder if Europeans think us Americans are throwing other Americans in jail for just saying things no one really wants to hear. Guess what, we're not. You can rant and rave all you want about how much Bush sucks. But if he's a popular president and more people like him then don't then what do you expect? Smiles? Encouragement for an encore rant?
Mac OS X and Windows XP working side by side to fight back the night.
Check out www.insourceamerica.org to learn more about what industries are being affected by offshore outsourcing.
I know I'm going to get a lot of flamebait. A lot of H1Bs I have met are essential. They have skills that could not or too hard to find in the US.
I am sure a lot of companies have abused the H1B system to find cheaper labor but a lot of companies need them to find necessary skills.
How about actaully improving the system so it is essential labor rather than a cheap way for companies to emplot labor.
I'm not an economist... and I'm not a capitalist either. Anyway, here are my thoughts...
Wealth IS concentrated in a select few. Something like 50% of the US population owns shares in the stock market. But people fail to point out that these people own a tiny fraction of the wealth. Something like 80% of Americans control only 20% of the wealth. This gap is actually widening, EVEN THOUGH there are more Americans investing in the stock market now than ever.
The siutation in Saudi Arabia/Kuwait/etc are very different from USA. Those countries are running a monarchy and the most likely thing to happen there would be the overthrow of the monarchy (which will happen IMO).
The scenario that you mentioned will never transpire in USA. The reason is because USA is capitalistic (ie. it is elitist). I really can't see USA increasing taxes for corporations or wealthy individuals. It could happen in other countries and it does (like in Europe) but let's just stick with USA. Also, the fact that USA is conservative means that the chances of it turning into a welfare state are slim (conservatives are strongly against universal healthcare/education, centralized electricity/transporation, etc).
I think what may happen is that capitalism will collapse. Karl Marx said that capitalism will collapse due to a class war. Some of the stuff that described are prerequisites for a class war. For example, if the vast majority of hte population is lower class, they will overthrow the wealthy elites, who are numerically smaller. If that happens then anything is game. You can easily get the welfare state that you are talking about, or even end up with a fascist state (which kills all immigrants, etc). Hard to predict what will happen after a revolution...
Of course, there is also the possibility that USA may start wars and invade other countries in order to pump up its economy. This is actually what Germany did around 1930's. Germany's economy was so bad that invading other countries boosted it. Most people think of Nazi Germany as a horrible place (which it was, if you were a Jew, communist, homosexual, etc). BUT most Germans benefitted immensely from the wars. USA is already an imperialist and taking it one notch higher shouldn't be too difficult.
Another possibility is that USA may just decline. Instead of being the top economy, it'll drop a few places. It won't turn into a poor country but it won't be as rich. The probability of this happening is quite high IMO. All the indicators seem to indicate this (assuming you can ignore the capitalistic propaganda put forth by modern day economists). For example, USA has MASSIVE trade deficits with nearly every country it trades! Americans simply consume more than they should. This is totally unstable IMO.
Or perhaps USA will prosper and become even richer as the capitalists are predicting. Outsourcing and lower costs will take USA closer towards pure capitalism. And most economists (who incidentally are capitalists) consider pure capitalism to be a paradise.
You take your pick... whatever YOU think is right is just as likely as something an economist says...
Sivaram Velauthapillai
Sivaram Velauthapillai
Seeking the meaning of life... @slashdot of all places
There are a helluva lot of great engineers out of work right now, and the offshore problem is just another factor in their not getting back into the job market, or worse, leaving it for other pastures.
"Stop whining!" - Arnold, as Mr. Kimble
We have a lot of Americans out of work, displaced by workers from other countries who in some cases are not even legal to work here. They send money back home which does not stimulate our economy. So you now have two problems: Americans out of work have no money to spend and those who have come here and taken some of our jobs, have money, but choose not to spend it which causes businesses here to dwindle and fail because nobody is spending money in their establishments.
Lets hire more US workers, not less. Lets figure out ways to get the US workers additional training if they are under-qualified. We need CEO's of some major companies to step up the plate and decide to hire Americans and only Americans and do what it takes to find and hire those who are qualified. If we keep going the way we are, the CEO's may end up very wealthy, but what will they do with their money when our country has collapsed around them?
How is it that one careless match can start a forest fire, but it takes a whole box to start a campfire?
That sucks. Keep that up, and one day we'll run out of third world hellholes to exploit.
Yeah, not the people in the sweatshops though.
Point taken though. Perhaps Thailand or Hong Kong would have been a better example.
I think any company that outsources their staff to foreign companies are traitors. This is not a bias against India and other countries. It is a bias against companies that this the bottom line is better than putting clothes on people's backs and food on families tables. The same people you are laying off are the ones that that got you to where you are today. You think you could get where you are if you would have started from the beginning with IT outsourced? You reap the rewards in your fat bonus and stock options for a job well done and they get the shaft. Eventually everyone will ship manufacturing to Mexico and IT to India. Guess what.. 60% of the American workforce will be out of a job and have no money to buy your products & services. I guess the Executives making 200K a year will not care until the money stops rolling in. I say outsource management to India and CFO's and CIO's to a think-tank pool in India for 10K a year to evaluate the yes no questions. You can get 5 excellent IT people for 1 lousy head shaker. Outsourcing is for shortsighted fools who look further than their own wallet. Somone should really research this outsourcing and maintain a website of companies... I will never send anything DHL again. I am sure they have a great bottomline IT budget. They probably sleep well at night knowing that maybe 20 - 30 prople have no job now thanks to them. J
But what about them, foreigners? Why is it that nobody talks about the fact that getting a job at an outsourcing venture finally allowed many of them to live with "dignity"? Isn't that a positive effect of globalization?
It will end. What happens when these firms have no more customers to sell their crap to? That's what will happen if they ship all the jobs offshore right?
The problem is that in North America the idea seems to stick that "The longer someone works, the more productive they are", if you look a bit closer at stats you'll realize though that this is not necessarily true.
I grew up in Europe (Germany) and I have worked in several companies and can tell you the one thing I noticed is different to when I came to the US is that people are working when they are there, not just being there. In NA though it seems to be that most people are "just there" without doing much and the overall turn around is a lot slower than it ever was when I was in Europe (I worked in Germany, the Netherlands and Switzerland).
So overall this is a nice theory and by my own observations completly wrong (heck, at work in DE I wouldn't have had a chance to post on Slashdot during work hours).
M.
If you want to e-mail me, use my PGP Key.
US asked, pushed, blackmailed to get as much as free trade as possible. Always pushing "capitalism" where they begin to have interrest, but hell, as soon as it get cold they subsidide (the farmer, like EU), they want to put tariffs (steel) and now they are protesting some smart people outside US are "stealing" their job. Well tough luck. You can ask for free trade and have it all they way out, or tariff and protextionism. You can't have both.
And since you are speaking of protectionism, how about tarif on US farmer product, US biogenetic seeds, Tarifs on everything the US product and export everywhere. You might have a trade imbalance deficit, but once other country follow you, you WILL feel the pain. Do not ask for more that you wish.
C. Sagan : A demon haunted world:
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0345409469/
visit randi.org
Further, by terminating H-1B employment, you ensure that American jobs stay with Americans.
You seem to think these jobs somehow belong to Americans. B.S. Companies like Coca Cola, Intel, GE, GM, AT&T, IBM, Sun, Apple, Xerox, etc. may have originated in the US, but they are multinationals. In some cases, the majority of their business is outside the US. Why should the jobs in one of their departments go predominantly to US workers?
And what do you think all those skilled workers who don't get H1b visas to come to the US will do? Take up gardening? Work in garment sweat shops? No, they'll build IT companies in their countries of origin, IT companies that won't pay US taxes, won't be subject to US labor laws, and will compete with US companies.
they insist that cannot find American workers for critical jobs and that they must hire H-1Bs.
Yes, and they are usually right.
We in the Slashdot community should say, "Fine. Go set up shop overseas. There is plenty of labor there."
I'm all for terminating the H1b visa program. It's a question of fairness--not to US IT workers, but to foreign tax payers. Right now Indian, Chinese, and European tax payers are paying for the lack of investment in public education and social capital in the US. Terminating the H1b visa program would finally permit those nations to retain their best workers, workers whose education they have often invested large sums of money in, and build larger, more competitive IT industries domestically. However, if you think that that is good for the US or US workers, you are kidding yourself.
Thanks for the link. Interesting story.
First, a dose of reality:
If you want to believe that Americans are losing their jobs to inferior non-U.S. programmers, you have your head in the sand. Their work is not inferior. Not by a long shot. In fact, I have to say that in my experience working with a LOT of Korean, Chinese, and Indian programmers, that very few - VERY few - American programmers have any real skills by comparison. For every great American programmer, I can name 5 Indian programmers of equal or nearly equal skill. If I can count that up, you can bet that CIOs can count it up as well.
The U.S. created much of the technology in use around the world today, but Indian and Chinese shops are filled with very hungry workers who are busting their butts to be better programmers than any American programmer. Theirs is not a luxury of choosing the best benefits package, people. Some workers in China are fined if they leave their work chair slightly askew.
American IT love to be arrogant, bent on condescending attitudes and poor communication skills. Those will be the first to lost their jobs. And, they will be very vocal about it. But they will either have to adapt or move on.
I have no excuses for myself in the face of such competition. The profile of J. Random Hacker is accurate in the idea that I.T. is embraced as a form of mental kung-fu, and while I respect those I face in competition, only by working even harder to be of greater value to corporations will I remain employed.
I have always admired the hunger shown by immigrant and non-U.S. workers and vowed long ago that I would not fall into the trap of so many of my fellow Americans by taking my citizenship and opportunity for granted. No excuses allowed. Too many people came before me and died so that I could have the opportunity offered me, and I'm certainly not going to go down putting out half-ass code.
Welcome to the real world, kids. Adapt or die, but stop whining and name calling, because it won't get you your job back.
Ok, fair enough... so what do "you" do? And not just the previous poster 'thefinite', but all the rest of you parroting this line over the last few months? Garans ballbearins, whatever it is you do, in the current business climate the entire labor pool subset you currently inhabit can be replaced, unless it requires a US security clearance.
And, I don't just mean market segments where the skills are available and cheap overseas. I include segments where the worker or erstwhile entrepreneur can be imported, which includes virtually the entire service sector. Even if you're self-employed. If we're not the agro or heavy manufacturing economy anymore, and non-citizens handle whole swaths of the service economy, what economy do you propose citizens retrain for or compete in? What would you propose when it came time for 'why' 'oh' 'you'?
At what point do you decide that it's not just economic dogma and cheaper consumer goods anymore, and you start wanting to bitch-slap your elected representitives into protecting some benefits of citizenship?
On a tangent, I'm reminded of an amusing short story from Analog Magazine's 'Probability Zero' column. A Gingrich-like congressional rep reviews the results from a society simulator of a poor neighborhood where all taxpayer-supported services are removed. Good news: a major rise in employment and economy activity. Bad news: it's mostly pimping, whoring, narcotics, and loan sharking.
Luke, help me take this mask off
Actually that 50% invested in the stock market is misleading. In actuality, 50% are invested but something like 80-90% of that is indirect investing. Insurance companies are the prime example. You are paying the insurance, but the inurance has all its assests put into stock. You don't get divedends or any of the other perks. The only perk is the stock value might go up meaning your insurance is now a little more valuable. Another example is retirement plans and companies that pay their employees in stock. You can't sell it, you don't get dividends, your just hoiping that it will at some point in the future be worth more. That is why the tax break was such a joke. Yeah, 50% of americans own shares in the stock market but only 10% of them would beenefit from any of the bonuses cause most are not directly invested. You want more accurate figures, watch "wall street".
There's a growing sense that even if The Future comes,
most of us won't be able to afford it.
-- Lemmy
Yup, the rich have been getting richer since the dawn of time.
"Learning is not compulsory... neither is survival."
--Dr.W.Edwards Deming
From What I see, being in the IT Industry for many years, CIO Magazine is a JOKE. It boils my blood to see so may lies about big companies work. I have been a consultant at many of the companies mentioned in CIO, and know the BS That goes on. THE CIO's and CTO's are nothing but politcal fall men to protect the CEO's and CFO's. Removing the CIO and CTO would make NO differance on the way a company runs or what direction it takes, no matter what you think. If you are reading this and disagree, either you don't know, or you are afraid to admit it to yourself. I wouldn't give anyone calling themselves a CIO for CTO, a nickel for their knowledge.
-Jason C.
CIO Magazine also has an interactive map that rates the attractiveness of outsourcing to different countries. The criteria are political risk, English proficiency, and wages. The scariest part, the rating for wages is annual salary are:
$ - Less than $4K
$$ - $4K - 12K
$$$ - More than $12K
When violence rules the world outside / And the headlines make me want to cry / It's not the time to just keep quiet
at least not on price.
Take India. This is a place where labor is so cheap that you get a driver when you rent a car. You can live much better in a place like that, dollar for dollar, than you can in the US.
Of course, it doesn't help that India is producing some top notch technical talent either. But suppose all other things were equal: talent, motivation and training. Differences in cost of living would mean that US programmers aren't going to be able to compete. The only things that keep all the jobs from being outsourced from the US to India are transaction and communication costs.
Perhaps eventually, development in India will narrow the economic disparities enough that US programmers will be able to compete. Hopefully economic distress in the US won't be part of this picture.
Post may contain irony: discontinue use if experiencing mood swings, nausea or elevated blood pressure.
We're starting to see that what's good for the US economy might not be good for all or any US citizens. Imagine if all salaries and wages in the US were magically cut in half. Would that be good for the economy? Yes! Corporate earnings would go way up as their payrolls went down. And the flood of cheap labor would enable businesses that are not currently viable.
Would it be good for normal people? No! Many people would have to get a second job to make ends meet. People would have to lower their standard of living.
Who benefits? Investors, wherever they are. They could be in Italy, Taiwan, Africa - every time US workers get poorer, they get richer.
A common fallacy is that reduced purchasing power of the US workers would hurt the US economy. On the contrary, poor people spend a higher proportion of their income than rich people. And they often spend it on things that are more profitable to corporations, such as late fees. Also, US corporations do not have to cater to US residents.
I hold no position on the outsourcing issue, but I'd like to illuminate the fact that workers and investors do not have the same interests.
I think your view of the evolution of the US is unfortunate and at its roots simply pessimistic for pessimism's sake -- or perhaps a little prejudiced? I mean no insult, just my genuine feeling from your post.
You back little of what you say with data, and have peppered your argument with the kinds of 'proletariat overthrowing the bourgeious' Marxist rhetoric that died with, well, a vast majority of the Marxist states. Dialectical Materialism is all but dead, unless you like what's happening in Vietnam and Cuba.
For the middle class, undoubtedly the most powerful entity in the US ecoonomy, to die, and the lower-income segment of the population dominate the population numbers, a huge disparity in wealth would have to occur. Mind you I write 'wealth', not 'income'. Look at the average middle-class American, his/her life is not necessarily so different than that of the elite. TVs, nice cars, vacations, McMansions, all of these things abound. The *relative* cost of material wealth in the US, and for the most part the rest of the capitalist world, is constantly decreasing when compared to income.
It's also pretty easy to find data that debunks your claim that there is a blooming lower-income representation in the US. There is a *huge* amount of mobility in America in terms of income. As long as the lowliest, poor, academically challenged kid can train to become a plumber and make six figures, people in the US will continue to (with notable exceptions) rightly blame themselves when they're unhappy with their incomes/overall wealth. Mobility is alive and well, and small-medium sized mom 'n pop businesses continue to be a backbone for the economy.
Your post was lined with an implicit criticism of materialism in the US. I couldn't agree with you more, there. What famous Marxist said something to the effect that the West would sell the noose to its executioner? Unfortunately, it seems like the charge from materialism leads quickly to religious fundamentalism, a disease that is quickly spreading through all parts of the globe.
I find it short-sighted that companies are outsourcing work to countries that don't even respect IP laws (while vigorously pursuing IP litigation in the US). And I'm sure the Russian mafia has infiltrated the offshored development groups of Fells Wargo and Chastity-Manhander. Keep checking your bank statement.
Oh, and when India and Pakistan decide to start lobbing nuclear missiles at each other there will be a lot of innocent life lost and a lot of executives needing a change of underwear.
This is exactly what happened to Openwave my former employer. They outsourced to Ireland years ago, and all of a sudden Siemens Ireland now produces a WAP gateway that has the same features but is much cheaper! Openwave's response? Lay off more engineers and hire more engineers in India.
They'll go bankrupt soon. This is the dirty endgame of outsourcing that most haven't found out yet. Oh.. but they will *evilish laugh*.
2 years and no mod points. Join reddit. Because openness is good.
The reason why health care is cheaper in .au is because its socialized, you pay higher taxes for it.
.au as they want to live in .us.
As for housing, well Austraila is a small nation population wise compared to the US. Their cities aren't as dense as ours are and not as many people wish to live in
I thought you said he went to Austraila? Then how did he get this from the internet?
Mac OS X and Windows XP working side by side to fight back the night.
CAn'T CompreHend SARcaSm?
>For example, USA has MASSIVE trade deficits with >nearly every country it trades! Americans simply >consume more than they should.
Not *exactly* correct. One of the reasons we run a deficit is because of the situation currently under discussion.
Remember, a deficit isn't really about the number of banannas we import vs the number of banannas we export.
It's more like the number of cars we import vs the number we export. Or the number of x hardgoods vs x hardgoods
We run a HUGE deficit in most material things because people can get it cheaper elsewhere, or the quality is poor, or so they think, so they they don't import those things.
Try to find a PT Crusier in Japan for example. You'll have a much harder time than if you were looking for a Honda here in the states.
With the movement of more and more jobs off shore, that deficit begins to look like greater because in many cases we have to import the finished goods.
That's one of the things NAFTA was *supposed* to help eliminate. (No, it didn't work).
>This is totally unstable IMO
Agreed.
Just once, I'd like it if someone called me "Sir".
Without adding, "You're creating a scene."
"They are infected with sickness of greed."
The Last of the Mohicans
There's a growing sense that even if The Future comes,
most of us won't be able to afford it.
-- Lemmy
The entire point of technology is to create machines, devices and or processes that reduce the number of people needed to complete any task and or job. So simply by working in this industry you are CONTRIBUTING to your own eventual obselessence.
Wake up.
Mac OS X and Windows XP working side by side to fight back the night.
But I feel real, real bad about it now. I'm sorry.
"Avoid employing unlucky people - throw half of the pile of CVs in the bin without reading them." -- David Brent
Vedanti, what you said is all true, but my underlying message is true, too. United States companies will lose intellectual property to their out-sourcing companies and the employees of out-sourcing companies. The intellectual property will go who knows where. It will become part of someone else's product, sometimes.
See the article referenced in the Slashdot story: The Hidden Costs of Offshore Outsourcing. Look at the comments at the bottom. Other people are discussing loss of intellectual property, not just me. Or, seen other Slashdot comments in this story, such as this one: I've seen this happen before my eyes.
I know that there are 13 major languages in India. I know that most educated people speak English. I didn't have time to write a thorough article; I only had time for a comment. So, I brushed in the broad strokes.
Hiring lawyers in India is not the best way for U.S. companies to spend their time, even if they win. Also, there is no winning. A company that gets into legal battles in another country has already lost.
What an interesting thought.
However, I would think that before any of these large companies could become huge that they would become acquired by their American counterparts (IBMs, Microsofts, Big 4 consulting). This will leads to even more cash from the fat cats.
"Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere." - Martin Luther King, Jr.
"a large share" perhaps, but not ALL of it. These workers are still paying for food and housing, and are paying taxes. When you outsource overseas, ALL of the money goes overseas. This is why I think that H-1B workers are better than outsourcing overseas.
I think it would be even better to not have temporary visas like H-1B, but to grant permanent visas (like green cards, but without the typical 3-4 year wait associated with those). Temporary visas only lead to people leaving, and taking all their savings with them. Instead, those people should stay, spend their money here, and continue contributing to the economy.
And again, H-1B workers are only a small fraction of the total workforce, and are not the reason for current unemployment highs. The reason unemployment is high is because the dot-com bubble burst and the economy is in shambles.
This is rather ridiculous.
The median income in the US is $36,000. Lets say you have traditional views about life and you want your wife to raise your children instead of the daycare center and you want to have 3 children so that you add to the population thus reducing the nation's reliance on foreign immigration.
It is going to be pretty damn difficult to raise a family on that kind of salary. In the New York Metro area you could barely even afford a 1 bedroom apartment let alone a house. A 1 bedroom apartment in a shithole like Bridgeport, CT is going to cost you $700-$800 a month at minimum. Before someone comments on that, landlords require your annual gross income to be at least 40x the monthly rent, frequently up to 52x the montly rent.
Also, I would love for you to pull some stats out of your ass about mom and pop businesses. I don't really know where these businesses are to be honest. The only ones I see are bodegas. I would hardly call that a backbone of the economy.
Its worse when you go to rural areas. There are some towns in rural America which are nothing more than a walmart and fast food restaurants.
Anyway, materialism doesn't necessarily lead to religious fundamentalism. Materialism is simply nihilism. It leads to people grasping for some meaning to their wretched existence. A talented orator can easily exploit such people. Anything is better than a meaningless life.
I don't read or respond to AC posts
hahaha.. what happened to the capitalism? where is the greed? why this talk about good and bad and corporate morality? all that is for communists, if you know what communism is. .. next offshore IT, next h1-bs...
I love this... first french fries
how about oil and cars? all the stuff walmart sells? all the clothes you wear?
and sugar in your sodas?
hahahaa.. ridiculous morons.
Microsoft couldn't understand that people would abandon their "high quality" but expensive software for that cheap home grown linux stuff. It just didn't make since. TCO and compatibility was the arguement of the day. For some reason that arguement didn't work for them.
Now the table is turned. Techies are arguing that abandoning good old US (or other expensive techies in developed countries) for cheap labor in India or wherever wont work. we say they lack the knowledge and experience. But after a while, India will develop, mature, and have the real experience to handle most of the complex tasks involved.
Business is business, and what comes around goes around. We should learn from what is happening rather than go into denial.
(For the record, the company I work for just had a 30% purge and is planning a major offshore push. Yes, I'm deeply affected.)
There is nothing so silly as other peoples traditions, and nothing so sacred as our own.
EQUALLY valuable. Get that in your head- I don't care how, but etch/burn that permanantly into your mind.
Without marketing, you largely can't sell a product.
Without engineering, you don't have a product to sell.
Without funding (capitalization), you don't have money to do either of the above.
One without the others is like trying to set up a one or two-legged stool- just isn't going to work well. For a small business, you might get away with it, but for anything but a little partnership, you're going to need all THREE aspects of a business.
I am not merely a "consumer" or a "taxpayer". I am a Citizen of the State of Texas
I think that it's laughable that there's so many people on /. that think that Big Business has a handle on things any better than anyone else (Hello? Enron? Worldcom?).
Without all three aspects of a business, namely marketing/sales, engineering/production, and funding/capitalization, you're NOT going to get very far past the small partnership level (and even then you may not get there...).
I am not merely a "consumer" or a "taxpayer". I am a Citizen of the State of Texas
This article talks about the about the kind of folks who are working in Offshore IT :
Dilbert pokes fun at IIT grads
Contents:
Jokes apart, the ongoing backlash in the US against job losses to Indian techies has found a place even in the famous cartoon strip Dilbert, the latest of which (September 15, 2003) goes on to take a dig at IIT grads from India.
Asok, the brilliant but naive Indian trainee, the cynical Wally and the ever-sceptical Alice are sitting in the boardroom with the pointy-haired Boss. Asok says that though he was the project manager, nobody replied to his e-mail.
However, he is proud of the fact that he is an IIT graduate and considers himself superior to his counterparts and thus had been able to finish the project himself. When Wally asks him, "Are you tired?", he replies: "I am trained to only sleep during National Holidays".
And this spoof shows up the threat of Indian takeover in global arena specially in the field of technology. It also show up the Indian techie - the IITian - as he is perceived by his colleagues: a work maniac who has inhuman abilities to slog and thus outpace his American counterparts.
India's IITs have, of course, been the subject of admiration - now bordering on envy - in corporate America for more than five years now. A 1998 BusinessWeek article on India's whiz kids has this to say for IITians: "The rise of IITians, as they are known, is a telling example of how global capitalism works today. The best companies draw on the best brains from around the world, and the result is a global class of worker: the highly educated, intensely ambitious college grad who seeks out a challenging career, even if it is thousands of miles from home. By rising to the top of Corporate America, these alumni lead all other Asians in their ability to reach the upper echelons of world-class companies."
A researcher at UC Berkeley estimated that fully 20 per cent of start-ups in Silicon Valley are IITian-owned. Amazon.com CEO and founder Jeff Bezos has described the Indian IITian as a "world treasure." Bill Gates says the computer industry has benefited greatly from them.
Besides graduates of the prestigious IITs, where the quality of technical training is comparable to the best of the educational institutes in the world, India has a growing bank of 4.1 million technical workers, supplied by over 1,800 educational institutions and polytechnics. These train more than 67,785 computer software professionals every year - many of whom are a threat to America's homegrown computer jocks in the competition for jobs.
With the recent swell in outsourcing key software development jobs to India - coming on top of the BPO migration - a mixture of awe and resentment about India's brainpower is beginnning to develop. The American media have so far been mostly kind to IITs and IITians. CBS 60 Minutes had a very flattering portrayal of IITs recently. In fact, a co-anchor on CBS 60 Minutes had gone on to describe IIT Bombay thus: "Put Harvard, MIT and Princeton together, and you begin to get an idea of the status of this school in India."
But as usual, cartoonist Scott Adams - who draws and writes the Dilbert strip six days a week, is probably ahead of the pack in anticipating media and public opinion about IIT grads.
Here's the:
Dilbert strip
BA's become worth their weight in gold, like good programmers once were. Naturally, they'll be a candidate for overseas outsourcing themselves when they become such a readily identifiable cost.
Next step, the entire group will be outsourced to a third party vendor. From there, the division.
The most finely wrought irony will be when Board of Directors themselves are outsourced, and the company trades only on the stock exchange of the country that bought them for the bargain price of a few subsidised workers.
Do not mock my vision of impractical footwear
There is no problem in the IT industry with...
Er, what are we talking about?
If nothing is done to stem the bleeding of America's IT, it's probably true that American tech will not disappear entirely, but it will be reduced to that of other countries. While those countries we've chosen over others, to gain hard-earned tech experience in our place, will rise and surpass their teacher. This may very well result in an economical reversal of roles. Corporations will move labor (IT/management/research/scientists) from cheap country to cheaper country (causing economic crises is less stable economies as jobs leave) until corporations find themselves hiring IT in an economically unrecognizable United States; an America probably still significant in IT (otherwise the IT jobs wouldn't come back), but as a country no more the super power than Canada is now. This may take anywhere from a few short years to decades, but companies will manage to get cheap labor that by happenstance also speaks English (assuming that English is still the language of business).
If there was a person of middle-eastern ethnicity who could at the flip of a switch cause America to lose its IT workers, we (knowing all the benefits of even HAVING an IT capability) would've called it an act of terrorism and gone to war. If an American citizen were able to intentionally cause a massive disruption that resulted in the loss of the American IT to a foreign power, we (understanding the economic and security capabilities one gains from having IT capability at home) would declare the citizen a traitor. When an American company does this to America, what do we call it? Sun's Scott McNealy calls it an "international company". If the Chief Executive Officer of Sun no longer considers Sun an American company, it should be treated as such. Otherwise, it is given an unfair advantage over other foreign companies that don't have the luxury of pretending to be an American company and all the benefits of allowing it to operate in America as an American company. The pretense should be dropped in fairness to others if fairness can be attributed to a libertarian, and to allow the status of being an American company reserved for those that really are American. I don't think McNealy (despite his complaints of taxes, employee benefits...etc) would consider the idea either profitable or plausible. I wonder why? I don't mean to single out Sun. I consider McNealy's attitude inimical towards American citizens, but not a dangerous one when acting alone. It is when many companies as a whole start considering themselves as "international", but behave in unfair self-interest that specifically hurts American citizens, that I co
It's really a stupid argument that is beside the point. People get paid whatevr the market will bear. If engineers ever decide to form a Union, and stop the manipulation of the market through H1B Visa's, we will quickly see engineering rise to the appropriate level of pay, which will likely eclipse marketing, as it should. The fact is, it doesn't take a genius to market. Perhaps I couldn't do the same wonderful job that the pro's do, but it is possible to market a product without MBA's. I know, it's hard to believe. :)
Very true, we have the engineering/production and funding/capitalization part down right but oh the sales!!! (there is a reason why I'm in IT, not sales...)
1f u c4n r34d th1s u r34lly n33d t0 g37 l41d
Mehta estimates that U.S. companies will save up to $11 billion in 2004 by outsourcing to India and that India will purchase $3 billion in high-tech imports from the United States in that time. "I think it is really a two-way mutually beneficial argument," he says. "If IBM is able to lower its cost structure, the U.S. economy benefits as a whole."
First I'd like to point otu the guys name.. Sunil Mehta which is a Indian Name.
Now lets point out that 2/3 of the US economy is fueled by consumer spending. Where does this guy get off saying that's to benefit the economy. What happens when the Middle class become the lower class and then there's only lower and rich classes?? There will not be any economy due to the fact that companies will be forced to lower prices on goods to enable the new class to buy their products and thus lowering profit ratios of the companies. it's a cycle and companies are ignoring the long term effects of their actions.
If Indians make more money will they buy more US made products? Doubtful since their tastes in what they buy differ greatly from what we would buy. Maybe MicroSoft would be able to lose less on each copy of their software sold overseas but Old Navy, Sears, and many other companies will not be seeing any rise in sales at all in those countries. It would be better to offshore jobs in countries where at least they would turn around an d increase buying of american products. Otherwise were just dumping more money overseas without any hopes of return and risk our country's tech advantage over many countries.
This is one of the things I'm most worried about. Oh, sure, maybe outsourcing is good for the economy at large. Cut costs and increase competitiveness by driving down the wages of all those expensive American IT workers. However, here's the really troubling bit, which they mentioned briefly in that CIO article...
What happens to American technology leadership?
OK, sure. Maybe just because they're building banking software doesn't necessarily mean they're going to go out and put Citigroup out of business. But think about what happened in the U.S. automobile industry. It didn't take long for the Japanese to build cars better and cheaper than the U.S., or consumer electronics, or whatever, and so today you hardly have any of these industries in the U.S. They've all moved overseas.
When it comes to something like manufacturing, that might be acceptable. But what about when it comes to ideas? Research & development? New inventions? You're not going to have innovation in the U.S. unless people are constantly experimenting with this stuff. Similarly, all that innovation is going to move overseas.
I think it'd be really sad if the only thing the U.S. were good at was litigation, marketing, finance, and warfare... these are all 'power' sort of things that stem from the U.S.'s predominant position in the world, and could easily disappear if the U.S. lost that position. Moreover, it's kinda depressing for the national soul. I mean, how many of you want to be lawyers, or marketing suits, or stock analysts, or soldiers?
For companies that have internal programmer, how many proposals go thru that many steps? Really! My experience is that company programmers also do support for IT, "products" are mearly ideas some VP comes up with...then starts theatening to fire people to get it faster. Changes come when the Other VPs find out about the project, etc...
I work for a manufacturer in the US, and we deal with customers theatening offshore processing all the time. It's really nice to send stuff to china...after all, you can wait months for parts, then expect to place nice, jumbo sized orders on a regular basis...if we had those jobs we'd be nearly that cheap too! But, we make our money off the engineers. They call up and want a prototype right now. Most of our customers are within an hour drive, often the fax/email prints over after a brief discussion with our engineer. We can usually turn parts around for samples in several weeks...with changes...get that from overseas. The boats take longer than that to get here!
I'm surprised that more US companies that are lean and mean aren't starting up with all theses laid off workers. The real issue with offshore programming is that the "powers" don't like having ANY high-paid non-management jobs in-house anymore. The same "Wall Street" wanabees that are crying about the economy also are making a concerted effort to get rid of all the high-paying jobs in their companies! My boss [small business], and other's he's had in the office simply refuse to pay competitive wages at ANY COST to the company. Of course, this attitude will only hasten the decline and cause deflation [not enough people to pay silly] of their big bankrolls. This makes them claim the economy is worse, and we need more outsourcing!
As well as evidence of how fad-driven the IT industry is. There is still no magic bullet but vendors -- and no less the press -- continue to drum up every new toy as if it were The One.
Sad that people who spend years on an MBA degree that presumably includes a course on Spotting The Obvious 101 can't, well, spot the obvious.
Whatr struck me as ridiculous about all this is that the companies outsourcing, atthe end of the day, stand to save 0-20% after significant investments and planning. But the same companies could have save 40% in many cases by going with Open Source products, and untold millions by improving their IT planning (mostly by having some) and implementing security procedures (which would have reduced the man-hours spent fixing things later) but they refused to do it.
I don't get it. When up front investments are needed to make things better and more profitable for a company, or when changes in planning would mean cost savings, the suits refuse. But if they can spend billions to get rid of US jobs and not even save money fo rthe company (definitely not upfront, and possibly not ever) they are chomping at the bit. What is there a Johnny Cochran clone selling this idea to them?
Actually, one of the keys to understanding what is happening is slippd into the article almost as an afterthought. The CEO of Tata Consulting sits on the board of several companies that have decidd to outsource. And Tata and companies like it are the real benefactors of this whole plan. Coincidence? I think not. Who knows how many other executives who work for outsource consulting firms are on the board of companies who have chosen to outsource? I think we found our Johnny Cochran.
This is, of course another example of why this sort of thing should not be allowed. I don't know who thought it was a good idea to allow people who work for one company to be on the board of other companies, or people to be on the board of multiple companies, but it has led to many high-profile disasters. Notice the many pies board members of Enron had their fingers in (for instance the CEO of Compaq was on Enron's board of directors). And here we have another example of board members lining their pockets at the expense of employees all around. All from this sad practice.
IANAMBA, but perhaps someone with more of a business background can explain a reason beyond simple human greediness that anyone should be on more than one board? And how can they possibly be doing a good job for each of these companies? I know that as a grunt worker I have always been required not to work for anyone else while working at the job I have. That goes for everyone from the lowliest fry guy at McDonald's to the white collar workers (in fact it is more important the higher you go up the food chain). Why is it different for these people? Are they royalty or something? Interesting they have multiple jobs an dtheir multiple jobs seem to consist of reducing other people's jobs....
Who says you have to make a living on minimum wage?
Students or people who just want some extra cash could do it. Casual employement.
Isn't a bad job better then unemployment?
Unemployment benefits could kick in if you work a "substandard" job. Save tax dollars, and the economy is more productive.
Also nobody said that we have a fair economic system.
>They will cut out the middleman and the
...then they require IT staff themselves and hire locally.
>middleman is you. Indian global banking
>services, anyone?
Local demand in India rises, along with wages, eliminating India long-term as a location to ship IT work off to and creating yet ANOTHER large market for companies (such as mine) producing software for sale.
Demand for skilled software developers rises, Indian firms start to outsource to cheaper locations and the cycle continues to the next emerging nation (China -> Vietnam? -> Zambia?) on and on and on as economies improve and standards of living rise.
It's a repeated cycle and it works. The alternative is to have remained third-world here, milking cows / cutting trees / picking cotton / manufacturing clothes like your (certainly my) great-grandparents did.
After all, marketing and sales are the "cool" people at the top [just like Kindergarden]...ability and necessity has NOTHING to do with it. After all, those big deals don't get closed at a card table in the backroom with trash all over..do they. But you don't see the janitor get credit for a nice, clean work area?
Engineering and IT in all but extreme cases [R&D] are "working" people now. "Middle Class" is defined loosely as $30k-100k per year. Only problem is that the marketing/ executive people at $100k see anybody making Management has fallen into a "cash mover" mentality. Small, steady profits arent' considered "viable" anymore...those costs must be cut. Until a big there's a big enough crash to shake these people off the tree, this will continue to be the attitude!
Obviously you have never been to the Napa Valley. Yes they pay for food and housing although not much for housing since they often share houses between 10 or 12 people. As for taxes, do you honestly think that people who are not allowed to work here legally are going to pay taxes? I've known several people who claimed the wrong deductions on taxes so that less would be held out of their checks, and then did not file taxes at the end of the year. They also used fake Social Security numbers. How are people like this a bennefit to our economy?
You say that we shold grant permanent visas. How do we determine who should get those? Anyone wishing to work here? What about the people who are already here? Are we supposed to leave?
How is it that one careless match can start a forest fire, but it takes a whole box to start a campfire?
because you're not playing the "game" correctly...the Money game is WHAT MATTERS. Exploiting children overseas is fine because it's not illegal here. Business nowdays is about being just barely illegal. NOT about being honest.
which is why you don't want to make too many generalizations or attempt to learn anything from it. What the control-freaks in the majority of upper management (CEO) positions are doing is clamping down and refusing to take a lot of risks. This makes sense to them and is their reaction to stress. The problem is that there need to be risks taken, new products, etc. But it's hard to convince CEO's, who are scared shitless of losing their jobs and working outside their comfort zone. So, instead, what they are doing is laying people off, clamping down, working people longer, for more hours. The situation will change as those of us creative engineers get out there and create some truly new and innovative products, or perhaps even entirely new markets, that brings money back into the US. Until then, the PHB's will refuse to take risks, and things will simply get worse. We certainly won't be able to count on marketing to pull us out of this nor the stiff, rigid CEO's who refuse to take risks in this market.
Pinky? Are you pondering what I'm pondering?
:)
I don't think there's any way to stop this outsourcing trend, so why not take advantage of it? The dollars that were once going to American IT professionals are now heading to India, where they're being used to train up a huge army of coders. As the skills of American workers are languishing within the ranks of the unemployed, Indian coders are becoming steadily more competent and more common.
Soon, the overall expertise in India is going to get pretty close to parity with America, and the difference in quality between "hiring American" and offshoring will shrink greatly.
So here's one of those insane, just-dreamed-it-up-five-minutes-ago business plans: Move to India. Get two or three friends to help build a company. Start working the immigration bureaucracy, and do whatever it takes to get either Indian citizenship or at least permanent residence. Once there, hire about ten or twenty coders locally.
Then put a couple of salespeople on commission to drum up clients in the U.S. Ideally, get some contracts in place while planning the move. End result: You've created a wholly Indian business that can directly compete with all the big companies who want to send all the development over to India and reap the benefits back in the States.
The upside: You live in a country that's racked up three thousand years of culture, and you can live fairly well there for $5000 a year. And you're adding momentum to the wrecking ball that these CIOs don't see coming, as they continue to train their own future competition.
Admittedly, it's a strange idea, and I'm clueless about immigration laws. But I'm afraid that this offshore drive is going to gut America's IT industry, and if that happens, I'd rather be living somewhere where I can code. Besides, once all the geeks are in India, we can jack up our prices as high as we want!
You want the truthiness? You can't handle the truthiness!
But, wait a minute, wouldn't that be a good thing?
Or do you mean that every country will be equally exploited?
You want the truthiness? You can't handle the truthiness!
You are talking about illegal immigrants. What does that have to do with H-1B visas and outsourcing?
Anyone wishing to work here?
Anyone wishing to work here and meeting certain minimum requirements; a certain level of education or work experience, no criminal history, things like that. I'm not saying let anybody in, but let people in that can help your economy, and give them a greater incentive by allowing them to stay in the country that they're helping build. And no, you don't have to leave, there's plenty of room for everyone. It's kinda ironic that a group of people that are descended from immigrants are now trying so hard to keep immigrants out...
Read the comments to the "Backlash" article. In one of them a person describes how x-rays and other medical test data are being off-shored to India where it's interpreted saving the cost of having a local doctor interpret the results. Sorry, but there isn't an industry that isn't going off-shore.
Debunking the "59 Deceits"
In the long term, this is true. In the short term, American companies go bankrupt. There is a place for out-sourcing, but not the way it is being done.
Consider this offshoring trend from the perspective of the Japanese philosophy of Business as War. Should we as a nation allow our already tenuous technological advantage to be eroded further by sending the skills needed to create future IP outside our borders? The jobs we are losing are needed not only for tax revenue but also to give our people the experience they need to build today's foundation for tomorrow's economic future. With respect to the Business is War philosophy, Imagine what would happen if we staffed our army with foreigners. That very thing has happened before and the lesson was long remembered. Rome trained an army of foreign slaves to be its gladiators and was rewarded by a revolt led by Spartacus which very nearly caused the fall of the republic. Even though it is a different kind of conflict, our republic should listen to History and not make that same mistake.
Since so many CIO's believe they will be at a disadvantage if they don't offshore but their competition does, they will start making moves in that direction and, eventually, seeing everyone else doing the same take that as confirmation that they were right, fulfilling their own prophesy. The only way the trend could be stopped is if the government takes action to collect its lost income tax revenues by imposing some sort of fee on importing "intellectual property" just as they would when importing other raw materials. I don't think it would stop it completely nor do I think it should be stopped completely. But it might make CIO's resist the herding instinct just enough to figure out what the right balance is as well as covering some of the governments cost of unemployment, welfare, retraining programs for those whose jobs get taken by displaced knowledge workers who will end up settling for underemployment to make ends meet.
You will need to form an association of IT people in the USA and hire some great lobbyists to encourage politicians that it is in the best interest of America to institute tarriffs on companies using outsourced labour rather than US IT association labor. Furthermore, it is my belief that these tarriffs should never be removed until the quality of living and wages in these developing countries are at the same level as the USA. Countries like Singapore and India are dumping cheap labour on the US market.How is this any different from a country using their lack of environmental and labor regulations to dump cheap steel or anything else in America that is met with Tarriffs.
You took it up the arse from everybody at school because you believed it would pay off at thirty.
(Ah - thirty, the age where school and uni/college kids think they could still amass a million dollars but still young enough to attract eighteen year old girls without feeling like a pervert)
Then you were beat down by feminists (substitute mothers) at college because you believed being nice about it would pay off at thirty.
Now your a thirty year old unemployed loner, smart enough to realise your too unwise to cut it.
Too weak to walk with the working class, and too smart to want to. Nerds dont make good friends, they know what each other is really like inside.
You are the person who visits MacDonalds with an M-16. You are the person who will visit an open area cafe with an Uzi.
PS. Services absorbed the steel workers! I bet thats the first they've heard about it.
I assume from your post that Western economists are not your favorite people.
Nope... as a matter of fact, it isn't just WESTERN economists; it's ALL economists.
For the middle class, undoubtedly the most powerful entity in the US ecoonomy, to die, and the lower-income segment of the population dominate the population numbers, a huge disparity in wealth would have to occur.
That is nothing unreasonable. It can happen IMO. All that requires is for USA to go into deflation and not get out of it. For instance, you already see how Japan has been in deflation for almost 10 years. I'm not sure when they will get out. If that happens to USA, the middle class will mostly be converted to working class and poor. You already see this happening in South America, where the elimination of the middle class is resulting in all sorts of problems (eg. Venezeula, Argentina, etc). I agree with you that as long as the middle class exists and is a large segement of hte population, the won't be a class war.
Look at the average middle-class American, his/her life is not necessarily so different than that of the elite.
This totally misrepresents the average American. Their life is NOT similar to the elite. If anything, they don't have the same power, their job is insecure, they face greater shocks from the economy, etc. Anyway, the most important point is that this middle class has a greater chance of dropping classes than the upper class.
Unfortunately, it seems like the charge from materialism leads quickly to religious fundamentalism, a disease that is quickly spreading through all parts of the globe.
I don't think religious fundamentalism has anything to do with materialism. Religious fundamentalists are trying to create society with a particular social and political structure and could care less about economics. In fact, I expect religious fundamentalists to practice capitalism.
Sivaram Velauthapillai
Sivaram Velauthapillai
Seeking the meaning of life... @slashdot of all places
I don't really understand your point.
Try to find a PT Crusier in Japan for example. You'll have a much harder time than if you were looking for a Honda here in the states.
True...
With the movement of more and more jobs off shore, that deficit begins to look like greater because in many cases we have to import the finished goods.
True...
Ok so what is your point? I don't think any of it contradicts anything I'm saying. I said USA has massive trade deficits. The only reason USA is even functioning is because (i)mortgaging the future for the present by running up the debt, (ii)US multinationals brining in money from other countries, (iii)foreign investment. If USA can't do any of these, it'll run itn oa problem because its trade is not competitive in the sense that other countries are cheaper.
Sivaram Velauthapillai
Sivaram Velauthapillai
Seeking the meaning of life... @slashdot of all places
All this outsourcing will continue until the first Pakistani nuke drops on Mumbai. At the rate the nationalistic Hindu party controling India is going it may not be that long. A new Muslim backlash is also brewing in India and the "terror" problem will become acute ther as well. Remeber the recent bombings in Bombay/Mumbai.
That is what really is going to impact the total cost of outsourcing.
Companies that send jobs abroad are trators and you shouldn't do busibness with them.
It's Ok to lie if you are a liberal left wing Demokrat.
As you can see I don't care about my karma.
and now they are protesting some smart people outside US are "stealing" their job. Well tough luck. You can ask for free trade and have it all they way out, or tariff and protextionism. You can't have both.
Voters are generally ambivalent about free trade and visa workers. It is CORPERATIONS that push that stuff through Washington, not voters for the most part.
Our "democracy" has a big leak. I suggest we put issues on the ballot (like Calif. "Propositions") rather than rely so much on "representatives". They tend not to represent voters, but the people who line their pockets.
Table-ized A.I.
Since 1998, I have been employed in the IT departments of three different companies. I have watched two of these companies outsource significant portions of their support infrastructure to India. In both cases I had an opportunity to observe the people who would be replacing me during their training periods here in the states. These people were uniformly described as competent, knowledgeable technology professionals with years of experience. Many claimed MCSE or MCP certification.
Not one of nine at the first company could tell you the difference between a printer port and a LPT port.
When asked about the Control Panel, several indicated the laptops keyboard, or alternatively the small status display LCD just above.
At the second company, all six of the "Lead Techs" -- the ones that were supposed to teach the other 20 back in India -- fixed a static IP address conflict by recommending a three-hour reimage, reload, and reconfiguration to be performed by the local (USA) staff.
One infamous trouble ticket: "computer wont boot - removed battery floppy drive hard drive - computer still wont boot - escalating".
Be careful to ensure that you actually get what you are looking for. In both cases, middle management falsified efficiency reports in order to present a scenario combining lower costs with increased efficiency, to provide a seemingly glowing success to their superiors. Underlings who are informed by their superiors on the obvious advantages of a course of action have an unhealthy tendency to seek to ensure that no contradictory information appears.
Furthermore, please be aware that as you send jobs overseas, you sacrifice flexibility and adaptability, as well as the ability to grow expertise with your software, your clients, and your business practices within your own company. You'll be paying the same amount every quarter for services that will not grow or mature with time, nor will you have any real input or direct control over the systems and people that will be providing a critical service your company.
In order to avoid these pitfalls, I recommended initiating a change control process simultaneous to the offshore migration. Select one or several technologically competent individuals from departments not under threat of downsizing and use them to monitor the abilities and capabilities of the overseas contingent. Ensure that these individuals are not in any way under the management or influence of anyone in the department that is being decimated -- this is simply good practice to obtain clean information. An efficient practice would be to use those IT professionals that already take care of your own computer, office, and local area network - under the assumption that you know these people well enough to have faith in their judgment in an area you are not directly qualified to hold an opinion.
Finally, above all else, remember to listen to and except the reports that these people will bring you, even if it tells you straight out that you made a mistake. Unfortunately, based on what I've experienced, they probably will...
As an addendum, I should also report here that both companies that outsourced their local IT staff have had to develop suspiciously large "High Availability Technical teams", "High Piority -- Rapid Resolution desks", and "Priority Escalation teams". I would regard any post-outsourcing recommendation to form any variant of one of the above departmental groups as a clear bureaucrateese admission of failure. Basically, your department heads have noticed the startling new levels of incompetence in the IT department and are taking steps to protect themselves -- the rest of your employees and / or customers will not be so fortunate.
What makes IT so off-shorable
Because lawyers have political clout to protect their ass. Law degrees are carefully rationed, and probably have a lot of barriers against non-citizens.
We need to form GeekPAC or some other lobbying group before our asses are auctioned off to the world.
Merit Shmerrit. It is all about politics. Unite or be sold. 19th century England showed that raw dog-eat-dot capitalism is ugly.
Table-ized A.I.
Another problem is that the environment that is being setup for future programmers/techies is incredibly discouraging. I guess wanting to become a programmer will be frowned upon as a career decision early in life, like wanting to become a musician. Hence discouraging those who may have natural talents in programming.
Parent: "What do you want to be when you grow up?"
Kid: "A programmer."
Parent to self: "Oh brother. You're on your own kid."
Riot. Kill, Threaten, Strike, Stop upper management from leaving their offices until they backed down.
Take away their favourite soap opera and they stopped picking up the garbage for weeks.
One thing the third world has going for it is the guts to survive. Do they care if their someone tells them their jobs don't fit some business man or academic's bottom line philosophies? NO.
you mean it's not about the money?
less money on IT drones means more
for the company execs. the more
we outsource, the bigger the bonuses.
the IT companies that are doing the
most outsourcing are seeing the biggest
(short term) profit gains.
what happens to these companies when
they have no customers left?
what happens when the exec positions
get outsourced?
perhaps we should also be outsourcing
our wonderful "standup" politicians, too?
i guess all of us out of work IT workers
had better start learning about growing
our own food, the old WW II "victory
garden" way. hey, if i could go back
in time, i would have gotten into HVAC
or plumbing instead of computers. let
the sorry ass bastards outsource those
jobs !!!
I am a college student, married with two kids, going into international development, microfinance in particular. When I read about IT people whining about lack of opportunity, I think about the people that microfinance services. Why do Americans deserve "benefits of citizenship" when it was luck that we were born here? Why do the other posters in this thread "deserve" to be able to pay their mortgage, when most of the world has a dirt floor? You'll find an interesting perspective if you go here. According to this, living on welfare in the US puts you in the top 7-8% of the world's wealthiest people. I stand by my previous post about *whining*.
Boom Shanka
sorry, but for you're information, there
is NO reciprocity between India and the
good old US of A regarding "guest workers".
i hate to burst your bubble, but an American
CANNOT get the Indian equivalent of an H-1B
visa, because they don't exist!
(now, doesn't that "roast your beef" ?)
i heard that microsoft is doing a lot
of hiring now. borg bill will finally
get the programming talent he (obviously)
needs, and at rock bottom, fire sale prices.
First of all, the mainland is not entitled to Tibet. Understand? Separate country, separate culture, separate language. Get it through your head.
Second, all bets were off after the revolution. If Taiwan wants no part of a brutal communist regime, then they don't have to. You may want hegemony over traditional Chinese provinces, but that doesn't mean you'll get them.
Third, just how deeply does mainland China brainwash the kids? Taiwan a threat to U.S. security?!! Bwah-hahahahahahahahaaa!
Heh, thanks again. China MUST get its ASS out of TIBET, NOW.
Big Daddy, Johnny, Burp, Aunt Zelda, Scott, Slurp, Big Momma
I could have skipped the expensive college and gotten vocational training as a plumber. Instead of worrying for my job and seeing skilled and motivated friends in the tech field scrounging for whatever work they can find, I could be earning twice my current salary as a plumber?
Geeez, I picked the wrong career.
Search 2010 Gen Con events
i heard that microsoft is doing a lot of hiring now
yeah but are they turning dateless geeks into millionaires?
-kgj
As a former H1B worker now settled happily back in India, would like to share my experience.
Way back in '97 I was working for a large telecom company's office in Holmdel NJ as Unix sysadmin. Like me there were 6-7 H1B holders mostly from India. Even in those days there was a talk of "you guys come here and steal our jobs". However people who used to talk tay way , most of them were just high school graduates who had no backgrounds in computer engineering, worked as mechanics/ construction workers who later became computer operators before becoming SAs.
1. H-1B employment but no outsourcing.
2. Outsourcing but no H-1B employment.
The second choice is best and will result in the long-term gain of jobs for Americans.
Hmmm...seems very obvious to me that if those were the only choices, we'd be better off with #1 rather than #2.
With the 2nd choice, we lose all the income taxes we'd collect if the jobs were located in the USA. And we'd also lose out on all the purchasing/consumption that would take place here by the programmers located in the USA. How much does this add up to? BILLIONS PER YEAR! Has it occurred to anyone that California is in deep shit partly as a result of all the high-paying tech jobs formerly in CA being shipped overseas?!?
As you know, budgets eventually need to get balanced so we'll need to cut government spending to offset the declining revenues (taxes). This means firing govt. workers and cutting back on programs like education, scholarships, medicare and social security. (in other words: make it too expensive to get educated, keep only the rich healthy, and screw over Americans who worked hard and diligently paid into social security every paycheck for dozens of years)
So the laid-off techies and govt workers will have to fight over who gets to flip burgers. But it isn't about techies and govt workers...it will be about ANY job that can be offshored (like doctors who read x-rays overseas and send back diagnosis via internet).
When the purchasing power of the population declines in the USA while growing rapidly in places like India, why would executives and marketing folks be needed here at current levels? Many will need to get their asses out to where the customers are located. Keep in mind that we're not talking about low-paying jobs--we're offshoring six-figure jobs and will continue to do so.
In the end, some of you will get your revenge because you'll be managers at the burger joints when the execs and marketing folks start to get laid off. The smart execs will retire to avoid the bullshit & humiliation but the others who've spent their income on flashy cars and clothes will be sending in their resumes to flip burgers under your supervision.
Toyota and Honda are excellent examples; they have built huge manufacturing and design facilities in the USA.
You were right when you said, "Common sense can be deceptive"--among other things, automobiles weigh more and take up more space than software so consequently, autos cost a lot more to ship across the ocean than transmitting software over the internet.
From the postings, some common reasons why people think outsourcing is bad :
You will find shitty programmers all over the world just as you will find good programmers. One guy gave an example of code to check the zip code. Any vendor that has even a half-good QA will ensure that such code will never be shipped. Ditch the vendor. Look for another one.
To some extent thats true. But all good vendors have onsite co-ordinators who are in touch with the clients continously & act as an interface between the clients & the developers. And lets face it; you don't generally find clients and developers chatting together near the coffee machine and discussing changes in the system.
Its easy to say this when you have many years of economic development behind you. For a developing country where much of the population lives in abject poverty, such policies are very difficult to implement. They are leveraging their only advantage (cheap labor) to boost their economy.
Move up the food chain. Become a PHP and spend your life doing powerpoint presentations
I should not point out the irony that gold prices have been declining over the years as demand decreases and production continues at the same level.
Not even gold is immune to market forces, why IT workers thing they somehow should be beyond them is a puzzle to me.
IT people are educated and should be able to understand why this happens and should be lobbying for a fair game (i.e. labour market liberalization between different countries) not for stupid protectionism.
IANAL but write like a drunk one.
... the compete on quality, move to a niche market, change profession to a less crowded more profitable endeavour.
You have not got a right to earn a living doing whatever you currently do. Educated people should understand this and have alternatives ready in case their current job is lost.
IANAL but write like a drunk one.
You can whine all what you want; educated people are suppossed to have studied history and perhaps rudiments of economics. No amount of whining and even protectionist measures will keep investors flowing to where cheaper labour is.
Whine too much and US comapnies that currenlty outsource some work to other countries may decide to incorporate elsewhere and then you country will also loose the tax revenue generated by them.
Reinvent yourself or die. Plain and simple. I have no respect for "professional educated" people whose only solution during a mild recession is to go and flip burgers.
IANAL but write like a drunk one.
During NAFTA years befor the IT crash the US economy flourished. Of course nobody thanked NAFTA as one of the contributing factors for that ....
IANAL but write like a drunk one.
If you are unable to compete in a given market you abandon that market.
Draw your own conclussions.
IANAL but write like a drunk one.
... one should stop acting like if one lives in a closed one.
Buy USian was OK in 40s and 50s, but now it makes no sense at all since it means to reward inneficency.
If you buy quality at the best value, bad companies die and good companies have a real incentive to prosper.
IANAL but write like a drunk one.
First, all those workers, even illegal ones, pay taxes, eat, use ammentities, pay rent, etc. so the local economy still benefits.
Second, US people are not willing to take many of the jobs that foreign workers (illegal or not) are happy to take. There is a good reason most illegal foreign workers do menial tasks: is the path of less resistence towards a pay check.
Third, when those wokers are back home, specially to Mexico, they consume products that may be of USian origin, as do their families. Specially in Mexico, where NAFTA has ensured than more than ever most Mexican imports come from the ole US of A.
If people would be allowed free movement between countries, those people would have to pay taxes and USians that wished to take those jobs would not be at an artificial disadvantage.
As you see your protectionism mindset can be easily debunked because has no base in economic realities but in wishful thinking, based on a political agenda that has been completely discredited.
IANAL but write like a drunk one.
While I was working in Mexico for $BIG_OIL_COMPANY i was making 50% of what an equivalent USian Engineer was doing back then. I am not going to boast much about my abilities, suffice to say that during shared training with USian colleagus I was a couple of times asked to help the teahcer who did not have the appropriate graps of some concepts and ignored a few tricks.
/.ers want to ignore but that decision makers are fully aware of.
Late on in life I gain a few contracts in the far East, since I was living there my rates had to be similar to the local people. Some stoopid companies would bring Engineers from developped countries that would charge them innordinate amounts of money when local people were perfectly qualified to do the work.
So I am sorry to say, but you can and do get 150% quality at 50% of the cost. That is the harsh reality many
IANAL but write like a drunk one.
Considering that IT covers vertical and horizontal markets, the issue is this money, once invested into western economies, will flow FROM these economies into third world economies. This money will be spent - and cycled in those economies. How can this be good for any nation to give away an economic driver?
But, more sinister, would be the flow of knowledge to a place where, due to the pace of IT, that knowledge may not be recovered. Do you seriously think that once that leading edge is gone - India will give it back, and where will it go then.
Now this would be okay, IF, workers in those countries had similar conditions to ours - but the fact is - they don't, and the crux of this argument is (no matter what type of work it is white or blue collar work) a corporation perceives that some sort of return is to be made from being able to work a coder with a sweatshop mentality.
Problem is 'A man isn't a camel'.
And a shoe isn't a production system that people depend on to work.
Anyone who has tried to code past a 16 hour strech will understand what sort of result is produced. Development does'nt mean plug a into b and glue to assembly c.
Now don't get me wrong - I have respect for indian coders - some of them are really good, the thing is - the good ones end up in western countries, because they don't want to live in a third world country.
But none of this replaces EXPERIENCE, and that is where the main difference is.
Technology - and it's pace is a western phenomenom. America, England and to some extent Australia have lead the way in technological achievment. You Seppo's should remember that it was your technology that gave you the leading edge over the USSR, now you corporations want to GIVE - no PAY SOMEONE ELSE, to have that edge - I'm suprised your military Industrial complex isn't more hesitant about where control of even the mainstream technology goes - money has never been an issue for them - and they are a big IT customer.
It wasn't so long ago that a Playstation 2 was classed as a super-computer and restricted for export, so how can exporting a big chunk of the technology base overseas be a good idea - from any perspective.
Guys, because our PHB's and politicians look to YOUR country for guidance, this is as much a threat to us as it is to you guys. Think laterally about solutions to this. Perhaps these could be some starting points
1. Terrorism, infrastructure in third world countries is exposed to TERRORISTS, data centres are not under local control - more expensive.
2. Pakistan can lob a nuke onto and Indian city - is this a risk the customer is prepared to take?
3. Investment in Internet Infrastructure in India, IIIIII can't beleive that it's as reliable as western infrastructure
4. Power
5. Transport etc.
There has to be more to it than the CIO articles went into. A pragmatic argument attaching some dollar sign detremental effects to this trend is what will win the argument - Why is it gonna be cheaper to keep this in America.
What political reason exist that make THIS A BAD IDEA - like
1. What benefit exists in the long run from investment in overseas economies.
2. What are the national security implications
3. How will foreign control of technology hurt the U.S - can you stop the technology ending up in the hands of THE ENEMY (make the paranoia your FRIEND)
Like it or not IT has gone mainstream, but only in western countries. As a group of professionals we must think of ways why this trend is bad for - not just techies, but the managers, sales people, directors, shareholders and all the other groups that depend on technology to do
IANAL, but as far as I know, in order to get an H1B you have to show that no American is able or willing to fill the job. My company just hired an Indian and got him an H1B to fill a spot as a VB programmer. Anybody out there willing and able to program in VB near Philly? Guess the answer is no since we are now stuck with a guy who can't code his way out of a paper bag.
The opinions expressed here are not mine, but those of these dang voices in my head.
you can code wherever you live. whether or not you can convince someone to pay you for your code is another matter.
Damn straight. What would you rather have, protectionism, favoritism, and nepotism? Things go wrong, but if you don't take risks and prepare yourself, they tend not to. It's amazing how all the "bad things" seem to happen predominantly to those who don't plan and don't work hard. For those who don't, I have exactly zero pity. For the truly unlucky, that's another story, but that's not what we're talking about with programmers, is it?
Only businesses run by the lazy and incompetent fail.
Employees who sign on with small, weak businesses generally do so for more money, knowing the risks. Enron happens, and for those employees I truly feel for them. That's not what we're talking about here. We're talking about people who suck at their jobs making too much money having it farmed out to a half-assed third-world programmer. If "that guy" is, on average, as good a programmer as you, you don't deserve your $50,000 a year.
There are a lot of poor minorities because they are lazy and stupid and didn't prepare for the future.
What a ridiculous, racist strawman. There are poor people of all colors who didn't plan for the future. There are successful people of all colors who do. With programmers, we're talking about people who went to college here, your "minority" strawman isn't even applicable to this discussion.
Anyone who wants to can go to a "top 5" college, no matter what their background is.
First, they can if they're talented, because those schools are falling all over themselves to let underrepresented minorities in. Second, I did my undergrad at a crappy, cardinal-direction state school, where there were many poor and disadvantaged. If you do well enough wherever you are, you'll get noticed. I did. Believe me, I grew up closer to the "underpriveleged" category than not.
Essentially, if you're poor, it's your own fucking fault, so stop crying in your beer.
You don't know what the fuck you're talking about. I grew up poor. I guarantee you, you took things for granted that I never even thought of having when I was growing up. It's called pulling yourself up and doing something with your life instead of asking for a handout and "crying in your beer." And that's still a strawman, because the truly POOR isn't what we're talking about. We're talking about college-graduate mostly priveleged programmers losing their jobs. And by your own admission, you were FINE with the blue collars losing THEIR jobs, ya goddamn hypocrite. It's only now that the "white collars" are losing theirs that you care. That totally invalidates your whole "bleeding-heart" angle, which only applied to the blue-collars. Such damned hypocrisy. If you want, reply with a non-strawman response that actually applies to what I said instead of inventing off-topic, inflammatory things for me to have said.
That sum it up? God, you come across as a real cock,
First, it may surprise you,but I don't really give a damn what you think. Second, you don't have a fucking clue. You don't know what disadvantage is, how it works, nor what to do about it. You grew up rich (by my standards, middle class was rich), so you don't know what you're talking about. And yeah, if a bunch of untalented upper-middle-class programmers lose their jobs, I ain't cryng for them any more than I do for the machinist, and probably a whole lot fucking less. Maybe the machinist wouldn't have been expected to know better, but the programmer SHOULD HAVE. By your own arguments, the programmers HAD the opportunity. They were IN college. They could have DONE MORE with their lives, and they either lacked the talent or initiative to do it. Wherever they got a job, if they were better at what they did, their job wouldn't have been the one farmed out. Survival of the Fittest, not the Shittiest.
I don't cry for the lazy.
-Looking for a job as a materials chemist or multivariat
Anonymous Coward writes:
Quite so. The most effective arguments, though, are those of raw political power. The politicians of both stripes who have been in favor of this don't yet realize that they have kindled around themselves what may turn out to be the hottest political firestorm of their lives. Even more universal than IT is employment, and the combined guest worker / offshoring problem is affecting far more than just IT.
This problem will be addressed when U.S. policitians realize that they have to choose between campaign donations from promoters of H1B/L1 and offshoring on the one hand and votes on the other. Even the lowest, poorest, sorriest, out of work, former IT person can still .
As usual, the politicians are seriously lagging behind reality in this, still thinking that they can A) take the money and promote job loss with globalization and cost-saving mumbo-jumbo, B) take the money while talking like they care about jobs, or C) ignore the issue. As this heats up they will slowly come to realize that they have created a monster. The greatest danger will be in overreaction, both by the electorate and the politicians who will at some point be running very scared.
A sovereign nation doesn't solve its leaky border problem by making suggestions to another sovereign power to raise the standards in that country. Moreover, India likes its present ability to tap into the U.S. economy.
This is fundamentally a problem of lack of control of our borders, not of globalization. Go find out how an office secretary can afford to live and work in Zurich or Geneva and you'll realize that Switzerland preserves its standard of living by jealously controlling its borders, the entry, conduct and exit of guest workers, and the manner in which citizenship may be obtained. Children of foreigners who merely happen to be born in Switzerland do *not* gain Swiss citizenship, for example.
It's also essential to understand that the guest worker programs and offshoring are inextricably related. If H1Bs and L1s are abolished or severely curtailed and controlled, it will be much more difficult for companies to offshore significant areas of their work.
Look at the bright side: there's always seppuku.
swapsn writes:
That's a disingenuous argument. It's like the railroad workers' unions trying to save the caboose positions because they claimed to be consumed by concern for the safety of passengers. Yeah. Sure.
Code quality may be bad, but that argument is going nowhere. If it's true, the marketplace will severely punish those who tread that path.
Again, its just plain silly for the complaining programmers to expect anyone to believe that they, the programmers, are altruistically concerned about what happens to clients after outsourcing and that they're not concerned first and foremost about their own jobs.
There are serious conextual problems in outsourcing... language, distance, culture, creativity, initiative, scope, dedication to making things work right, business practices, etc., but when the folks who are threatened try to hang their hats on those arguments, it rings false. These are the same people who regularly abandon their employers to move down the street for a few $K more, and they don't worry about what happens in their former environments when they do that. Why should anyone believe that they worry about what will happen to "clients" after their employers abandon them for outsourcing or offshoring?
Maybe they should, but that argument is also without compelling force. If the offshore and local outsourcing players were competing on an equal footing, they wouldn't be doing much competing. They're only in this game because they have an unequal advantage -- tons of cheap, skilled labor.
One area where our gummint is completely falling down on the job, though, is in making sure that A) H1Bs are only granted for positions that truly can't be filled from U.S. labor pools, and B) that H1Bs are not used as indentured servants worked at long hours and at low pay to give their employers and clients undeserved advantages over U.S. workers.
Another is in ensuring that L1s cannot just be hired off the street in Bombay or Bangalore, shipped here as intra-company transfers, and then formed out to stupid, cost-cutting American pointy-haired employers.
Well, this is really what it's all about, isn't it? And there's nothing wrong with that. This is a legitimate concern because this is our country.
Unless and until the entire world is raised to the U.S. standard of living, it will never be possible to throw open the borders to foreign workers without dropping U.S. salaries and wages to the lowest common denominator, say the lowest that an equivalently skilled person in the backwoods of China may be willing to work for.
Until then, any developed nation that doesn't want to be completely gutted must exert sovereign control over its borders, not keeping all things out but jealously controlling those things that will destroy its economy.
Look at the bright side: there's always seppuku.
You're telling your working peers that they're on the rich side of the fence. I'm telling you we're on the "poor" side, and the only thing keeping us off of a dirt floor is luck, hard work, and a lot of pissing and moaning. Part of that luck is being American. Being a "citizen of the world"
is the luxury of first world college students and intellectuals, while all around them are a sea of citizens, tribes, coreligionists. Belonging to a nation-state that provides so richly is a gift. I'll be damned if I'm going to take it in the ass quietly just because I'm lucky enough that I don't have to sleep among livestock.
Since you are a university student, I'll presume that you've studied - at least in passing - the roots of unionism and socialist movements. That you've seemingly overlooked our own past when commenting on the current American *labor* market shocks me.
Microfinancing has been shit-hot, and puts the capital right where it's needed. I'm aware of Bangladeshi experience, in particular. Go for it.
Luke, help me take this mask off
Somebody with modpoints has a serious beef with me. My last 10 posts have been modded off topic. I'm sure that'll iron out during MetaModeration.
"Learning is not compulsory... neither is survival."
--Dr.W.Edwards Deming
I didn't notice the handoff, sorry. Previous poster mentioned that it was only the blue collar jobs that were supposed to be sent overseas by NAFTA (not that NAFTA covers India, but I digress). Hence the hypocrisy angle. I didn't notice when he stopped posting and you started.
It's really not terribly appropriate to make wild-assed guesses about people's economic backgrounds. You have no way of knowing if I grew up with money or not.
I'm playing averages, and I guarantee, not having ever seen money growing up that the son of a Kodak lifer would have, that I was right.
Anyway, the point I was trying to make is that the world is not as cut-and-dried as you seem to be planning for. "If I work hard and make myself indispensable I'll have a job forever!" might have worked at one point, but it doesn't any more.
Two points - I'm not talking about unemployment, which most certainly can strike the qualified. I'm talking about outsourcing, and that's a different animal. Therefore, my goal is to develop skills that someone who speaks poor English and received a subpar education wouldn't have. I'll put it this way - I may get laid off, but my job won't be shipped to India.
Second, even for unemployment, if you keep your skill set relevant, you'll be less likely to have a long stay in the unemployment line, though, as you say, the world no longer guarantees a 50-year tenure and a gold watch.
-Looking for a job as a materials chemist or multivariat
2 points:
If you don't agree with outsourcing and you know a company which is participating in this practice, you can:
1) Stop purchasing product from this company.
2) Stop investing / sell your shares in this company.
As we do live in a capitalist society, if the corporations do not view it as profitable, they will not continue the venture. So start voting with your dollars and stop the spineless complaining. Read the article, learn that corporate exec's are scared of lower corporate profits. Corporate profits are determined by YOUR spending habits.
Americans don't take months off at a time during summer...they are lucky to get 2 weeks for holiday every year and most don't use it, they work on average a minimum of 60 hours a week, and in most jobs they are overburdened and underpaid as American businesses are preponents of doing more with less. Consider all that, plus the extrememly low unemployment rate nationally for such a large population and I think that most Europeans fall far short. oh yeah, and you are a penis!
That may come, but first the Indians will have to do some genetic engineering and selective breeding to raise a crop of candidates stupid enough to qualify.
What do you call 1,000 CIOs at the bottom of the ocean?...
What's the difference between a CIO and a garden slug? In a pinch, a garden slug can run corporate IT.
What's the difference between a weasel and an Enron executive? One is a slinking, sneaky carnivore that eats rodents for breakfast and the other is a small mammal commonly found in Britain.
Look at the bright side: there's always seppuku.