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BusinessWeek on Outsourcing
hotsauce writes "BusinessWeek has a couple of stories on the outsourcing of white collar jobs to India. One is a cover story on GE's fundamental research lab in Bangalore where scientists work on everything from the aerodynamics of turbines to plastics' molecular structure. The other is commentary on "America's worst-kept secret", and the effects of the upcoming elections on it."
Another mistaken argument is that there is only a finite pool of labor in India and so an equilibrium will be reached soon. This won't happen. Because the current level of penetration of computers and internet connections in India is extremely low (e.g: 0.4% dialup and 0.02% broadband). As this situation improves, it greatly decrease the barrier to entering the IT workforce in India and will continue to bring in an army of new workers for years to come.
As with the open source revolution, the internet changed everything.
Work for the US governement as either a civil servant or contractor in a job requiring a US security clearance. No foreigners need apply.
Out of a population of 1 billion, 300 million = absolutely, wretchedly poor with barely enough to eat
300 million = low class, do menial jobs, earn wages just enough for two meals a day, probably send kids to govt. schools, but most probably make them work with them breaking stones, washing others' dishes, clothes, cars, etc.
250 to 300 million = middle class with cars, scooters, homes, and other "luxuries" of life.
Remaining = upper middle class to rich.
It is only the rich who can afford a Humvee, subject to govt. clearances and a 7 bedroom home.
For most others, it is either sleeping outside or in their 2-3 room home.
Please do not make fun of poverty or of poor people, whether in India or in USA.
You missed the point as to why they introduce themselves as "Jim" and "Bob." It's not because you can't learn to pronounce Sushruth or Ramu, it's because the gold collars back here don't want their customers to know that they've outsourced jobs. They fear a backlash from consumers when it becomes widely known that SBC Global, a public utility, outsourced its help desk.
Next time, try asking "Bob" where he's from or where he's located. Used to be you'd get answers like Lincoln, Nebraska. Now you get, "We're not allowed to tell you where we are."
I'm always surprised at how many /.ers love to whine about how terrible outsourcing is and that it makes everything worse. I'm working in a "developing country" (China) and managing for my company (European) outsourced productions. There are many problems which must be solved when outsourcing and if you don't monitor well enough then you will fail. Outsourcing mainly fails because someone doesn't think enough about it and falls for the "wow, 30% savings" trap. It's not a "we signed the contract, now where are the profits" situation.
I'm not saying that outsourcing is the cure-all as some people want to see it, but it certainly can work and then it can also provide good work to people in the home company. In our company most people are still employed and are doing the quality/project management now.
Outsourcing is an old topic (someone mentioned rightly the outsourcing that happened to the English textile sector in the 19th century). It cuts many people and they have to adjust to the new situation which is often painful.
But if the companies stop trying to be more efficient, then the US/European/Japanese economies can't compete with the new and upcoming ones (India/China). The only way to survive is to try and get higher on the skill ladder. This is true for the individual but also for an economy that wants to compete worldwide. You can't demand 5 times the price for something that can be had with the same or slightly less quality somewhere else.
Everyone wants his/her life to improve always but noone wants to accept changes to the current situation. This is not how it works.
Walmart doesn't sell at a loss.
They sell with slim margins, they also get lower prices due to volume.
Their selling price in some cases is even lower then other companies purchase price from the distributer.
Think about selling at a loss, first what do you gain. Secondly how do you explain to the owners that you lost money by selling below cost?
Earlier this year, the Los Angeles Times ran a three part series on the "Wal-Mart Effect" -- namely the outsourcing of jobs to China and other countries.
Last year, the traffic to my local Wal-Mart (at the end of the street my neighborhood intersects with) was so bad I couldn't get out of my neighborhood starting from about Dec 15th on.
This year, after they published the story, it's clear sailing all the way out to the freeway.
I think people are starting to see what globalization is all about -- screwing the little guy. It's one thing to lose jobs because of mechanization and automation: that's real productivity gain. But it's another to force people to work for less and less because you can find somebody even more desperate for work elsewhere. That's how Hollywood operates. For all their liberalism and supposed concern, the fact of the matter is that minimum wage earners at McDonald's are treated better than the sharks in the studios treat their low-level employees, who all too often are expected to work obscene hours -- and do so without complaint because of the very long line of people willing to take that same job.
Dog is my co-pilot.
What really kills me about outsourcing is that companies don't realize just how they are damaging their future in so many ways.
They realize it, they just DON'T CARE.
See damaging the company is different than damagine THEMSELVES. As long as they get their millions, they don't give a shit.
1) Gut a company.
2) Make Millions.
3) Move on
4) Goto step 1.
-------- -------- Support Wesley Clark for president!!!
What does "nigger rich" mean? Are you a racist?
This is an American expression from the past racist days, yes, but the previous writer used it in reference to a false sense of wealth engendered by current American automobile marketing practices.
The origin of the expression is the still-continuing practice of offering deals to undereducated working-class minorities that seem spectacular at first but turn out to be financial disasters later. At the time that these expressions were used in the USA, the better-educated white majority was expected to be aware enough not make such mistakes. Using these 'Jim Crow' expressions in the current politically-correct environment serves to give the writer the ability to extraordinaryly accentuate a point at the cost of being labeled a 'backward racist' by his audience.
For example, in the case referred to by the writer, a car company will make a giant bloated Sport Utility Vehicle from an old truck design for $15,000. Then they will market it people with misleading television satuation ads for $30,000 - $35,000. People are offered $4000 cash back immediately and no interest payments for a year.
What happens is that people buy these things to get the cash now and the low payments for a year. Then they find that the vehicle depreciates at a much faster rate than the payment schedule for the vehicle.
In a few years they have a giant gas-guzzler that is worth $18,000 in trade but for which they still owe $26,000. When it starts to break down, they get stuck with huge repair bills. If they go to trade it in, they find they must pay the difference between the cost and the current worth with a loan with very-high interest rates.
I believe that this is what the writer means by "n****r rich".
Americans are a bit too quick to dump their colorful but nasty expressions, and a bit too slow to dump the underlining racist attitudes that created them. But they are nowhere near a racist as they were only a generation ago.
US trade wasn't historically particularly "free". Until the 1940's, tarriffs were pretty high(in the 1800's, tarriffs were the main source of Federal revenue). From the 40's till the 60's, the US had a rather unusual situation in that it was the only highly developed country with an intact infrastructure. Since then, things have been going downhill-according to one Harvard study, the disposable income of a 2 income family today in the US is less than that of a 1 income family 30 years ago.