Increasing the Value of the Domestic IT Worker?

KoshClassic asks: "To state it simply, in today's global economy, the IT worker in America is in direct competition with IT workers in countries such as India who are willing to do the same job for less. Much of this willingness has to do with standards and costs of living in these other countries, and without lowering ours or raising theirs, the American IT worker can not compete on even terms if the only consideration is cost. What should American IT workers be doing to differentiate ourselves from our overseas counterparts, to add the kinds of value for employers that will make them want to look beyond direct costs and see other benefits that will make it worthwhile for them to keep these jobs in the US? I'm not sure what the answer to this question is, but I am convinced that the answer lies in trends and industry wide changes, rather than just individuals polishing their own resumes. When an employer decides he needs to fill a programming position, what is going to make him want to fill that position in the U.S. rather than overseas, even before individual candidates are considered"

Comments

Vote!

[DrInequality]

I respectfully suggest that voting would be a good start.

Re:Vote!

[no longer myself]

Don't forget to vote with your dollars as well. Support companies that don't ship work overseas, and don't purchase products or services from those that do. I know that it's not always practical, but an honest effort will go further than apathy.

It may be a little more costly, but no one said defending principles or even freedom would come cheap.

Re:Vote!

[DAldredge]

Why do people that support 'free' trade always paint those that hold different views then they do as isolationists?

Most of the people who I know aren't upset because of trade, they are upset that the fucking playing field is majorly slanted against the American middle class.

Re:Vote!

[PatientZero]

Exactly which principles or freedoms are you defending by not buying from companies that use overseas workers?

The U.S. has laws governing polution, working conditions, benefits, etc. When American investors take their money and invest in overseas operations that aren't bound by those rules, people in both countries suffer. Locals lose jobs, and the country that takes on the work continues its policies instead of making the lives of workers better.

As well, the more a country depends on exports -- especially in the case where the investors are foreign -- the less it will focus on improving the working and living conditions internally. This also keeps the internal market from improving.

Keep in mind that the main reason for increased mobility of labor is to benefit the capital class of investors. First, they have access to depressed labor markets and lower costs due to fewer restrictions on their behavior. Some of that "trickles down" to the consumer, but not much. Second, local workers are forced to accept lower wages and fewer benefits to compete with foreign workers. This is the real win for capital as they can force all workers to the lowest common denominator.

The above is one main reason that our border with Mexico is so lax yet the rhetoric about the evil migrant worker is so crazed. Seriously, if we really wanted the border to be secure, it would be secure. But the investors here want all that cheap labor to make local labor even cheaper. And thus NAFTA was born.

If the cost/benefit of the product is the same then it doesn't matter if it's made in New York USA, Newcastle UK, Nalanda India, or Nanjing China.

That would possibly be true if consumers actually knew what the cost/benefit analysis was. But are you aware of the true costs of the shoes you're wearing? Do you know how many pollutants are pumped into the ecosystem to make them here versus in China? Do you know how the Chinese workers are treated?

Of course, if you did know ... would you even care?

Re:Vote!

[Anonymous Coward]

So, according to your point of view, exploiting third world countries inhabitants, running sweat shops, etc are both legitimate and moral decisions by companies?

Under what point of view are any IT staff in India or other current "offshoring" favourite countries working under "sweat shops" or being "exploit[ed]"?

Outsourcing of IT jobs is currently producing better living conditions for those doing the work in India and elsewhere. You only need to look at the past Slashdot story where the Indian people doing these jobs responded.

Yes there certainly needs to be protection for child workers et al, but simply boycotting things made overseas is in no possible way the method of achieving that, and simply reeks of arrogance and toy tossing.

My values with respect to the human condition are obviously quite different than yours and some moderators...

Your values are clearly short sighted and narrow. Depriving people in India of jobs just because you feel Americans are somehow "entitled" to them does not place any value on the "human condition".

Re:Vote!

[fmaxwell]

The freedom to deny people in other countries jobs?

If you want to quit your job so that someone in another country can have it, that's your business, but don't get your ass puckered up when those of us who don't live in our parents' basements want to keep our jobs.

Or the principle that the rest of the world owes American residents something?

No, the principle that American companies owe America something. The executive officers of these companies are happy to enjoy the benefits that come from being located here. They don't mind the tremendous infrastructure supported by U.S. taxpayers. They don't mind having great roads to transport their products, police to help secure their safety, and eager consumers who buy their goods. Most of them didn't mind building up their companies on the hard work of American workers.

Support companies that make products that are worth buying at prices that are worth paying - wherever they are made.

That's typical short-sighted stupidity! Support companies that lay off your neighbors, family members, and close U.S. plants. Support companies who will take a large portion of your U.S. dollars and ship them overseas, throwing off the trade balance even further. Support companies that will lower the standard of living for the majority of people in the U.S. Who do you think pays unemployment benefits? The tooth fairy? No, taxpayers like you and I.

Let's put this on a smaller scale that you can better grasp:

* Company X outsources, laying off 1,000 engineers who made an average of $75K/year.
* Those 1,000 engineers are out of work an average of six months each.
* While they are off of work, they collect unemployment benefits, draining money paid into the system by taxpayers.
* Because they can't make ends meet financially on unemployment, they stop buying TVs, stereo equipment, DVDs, CDs, computers, video games, telephones, camcorders, digital cameras, etc.
* Because of a drop-off in sales, Best Buy closes the store near the now abandoned bulding that used to house the engineers.
* The Best Buy employees now have to find jobs, too, and while they are looking, many of them go on unemployment.
* Both the engineers and the Best Buy employees are forced to take jobs that, on average, pay less (since there is now a labor glut).
* Because the engineers and Best Buy ex-employees aren't paying as much in taxes, funding for schools, police, and road maintenance falls short of needs.
* Because there is a tax shortfall, property taxes go up, sales tax goes up, gasoline taxes go up, and business taxes go up.
* Because it costs Company X more money in taxes, their profits don't soar, as they assumed they would as a result of outsourcing.

Communication

[kingred]

One thing that limits how fast jobs move overseas is communication. If you've worked with a group overseas, you're probably acquainted with the problems. For instance, if you give them an assignment and they do it wrong, they won't get your correction until the next working day. And running a meeting means that you either have to get up really early or they stay up really late.
My job might be more easily done by someone overseas, but my boss has told me how much he values having me right here and being able to walk over and talk about a project.

This is all sorting itself out as we speak

[JusTyler]

Consider this. Both India and China are in the middle of economic booms, but neither country is 'rich', as such. Therefore, it made sense for the Indians and the Chinese to work for US companies, and make a lot more than they could locally, despite the inconvenience and quality issues of working online.

However, the Indian and Chinese economies are reaching points where their own citizens are crying out for advanced services. Who will code them? Those Indian and Chinese programmers. Yes, eventually the Indian and Chinese economies will force salaries up, closer to US rates. When an Indian worker's salary reaches 75% of the comparable American's.. guess what? Outsourcing will not make economic sense anymore.

From my own experience of shopping around for coders, the rates the Indians charge have SHOT UP in the last year or two. Two years ago, if I were a big company, I would have outsourced what I could. Now? No way! The salary expectations of US workers have fallen, the Indian rates have tripled, and now it makes more economic sense to hire a local American worker!

But, as always, I suggest that American workers simply work on their natural benefits.. The benefits are that they can meet me 'in the flesh', that we share a culture and can understand each others' jokes (damn necessary on big projects!), and they tend to be smarter, and not just code monkeys. If you can reply to my e-mails within the work day, be pleasant on the phone, and sound excited about the projects I'm giving you.. you're going to be hired over a half price Indian any day of the week.

Do you think you stand a chance?

[ObviousGuy]

If an employer is already willing to overlook the obvious benefits of hiring locally, do you think he can be convinced otherwise.

1) Location. The programmer is nearby and likely in the same time zone making questions easier to ask and schedules easier to sync.

2) Language. While most Indian programmers speak English, they speak it with a heavy accent that is difficult enough to understand, even more so over the phone. Local programmers most likely speak with the same English dialect as the program manager

3) Labor laws. America has some of the most lax labor laws in the Western world. "Fire at will" laws allow employers to get rid of dysfunctional employees at the drop of a hat instead of having to deal with heavy government restrictions like in France and Sweden.

4) Guaranteed ownership of ideas. Local programmers are much less prone to simply taking their employer's ideas and reselling them to the next bidder. Foreign companies with vast distances between them and their hiring companies sometimes decide that because they wrote the software that they have the right to redistribute it. Lax foreign IP laws and (lack of) enforcement do nothing to discourage this kind piracy.

But in the end it is the hiring manager's decision. If he wants to go ahead and make the decision to forego all the benefits above in exchange for maybe 100,000 a year cost reduction, then there really isn't much you can do to stop him.

Money and benefit to society

[syousef]

Under a capitalist system the chief responsibility of a company is to make money for its shareholders. Looking after the rest of society is a very secondary issue and currently most companies only look at this to comply with legislation or when running marketing campaigns (profit again being the main motivator).

The fundamental problem here is that companies are able to make money in ways that do not benefit society. We need to ensure this is not the case by changing a lot of fundamental systems, and this is itself fundamentally difficult.

So any move towards lowering the standard of living in a country, for example by outsourcing to a third world country should not be rewarded. I don't know what the answer is. Taxation and legislation are the only two ways I see this happening but I'm no expert in this area.

We should definitely be striving to raise standards of living worldwide, otherwise you have large groups of people with nothing to lose wanting to take the wealth out of wealthier nations. Never a good plan no matter how good the technology you defend yourself with is.

Flexibility is Security

[malia8888]

From the post: What should American IT workers be doing to differentiate ourselves from our overseas counterparts, to add the kinds of value for employers that will make them want to look beyond direct costs and see other benefits that will make it worthwhile for them to keep these jobs in the US?

Since the current administration has the interests of big business above those of the common IT worker; the IT worker has to become a guerilla of sorts.

A friend of mine who lived through the Cultural Revolution in China where his parents (Norwegians) were thrown out of Shanghai. Their palace of a home had to be left behind. This family were totally disenfranchised and deported penniless.

From this experience he taught me that "your only security is your own flexibility, currencies collapse, and governments fall."

The IT worker in the U.S. is going to have to use the immense brainpower it took to become good at his/her craft to find something else to do. Checking out other industries where there is a dearth of qualified workers is a good start. There are worse things in life than becoming a nurse. That field needs good help. Look around, find a "hole" and fill it. Trying to go against such a large trend is counterproductive.

This is not trolling, this is wishing my IT brethren good lives with lots of money. Remember that one time buggy whip production companies had to go out of business. In a way the home grown I T worker has the same problems as they did.

Why this pisses people off.

[DAldredge]

Where is the advantage to the average American in offshoring? It looks like it is helping the people at the top of the companies get very wealty while hurting the wages of the middle class.

BusinessWeek has once more surveyed executives of major corporations, and the folks at United for a Fair Economy (www.ufenet.org) have used its data to calculate that the average CEO collected $155,769 per week, compared with the $517 earned weekly by the average production worker. This means CEOs took in $301 for every dollar earned by rank-and-file employees.

Re:Get a new Job?

[hiryuu]

I see so many of those particular professions are in the service or retail sectors - so what happens when the middle class is no longer able to afford many retail products, or eating out at places other than fast food joints (if even that much)? We can't exactly be a nation of food servers, cash-register-jockies, and appliance salespeople - such folks don't have a lot of disposable income, and the upper-crust will only shop so much.

There's nothing wrong with keeping money close.

[Lux]

Civic pride. Keeping your dollars as close to you as possible, by giving them to companies that are close to you, keeps that money within your local economy, ultimately benefiting you as well. What 'close' means can vary a lot. It can mean buying books from your local bookstore instead of B&N, so more of that capital goes to the same guy who may spend it at the very company you work for. Or may buy coffee from the coffee shop you like, keeping it in business.

Or it could mean, as it does here, keeping money and jobs within your country. Keeping the trade deficit less up (can't say down, can we?) Researching which companies outsource and giving them your patronage instead of buying a Dell might keep a laid off Dell techie with three more years experience than you from getting a job you otherwise would have been given.

Going out of your way to support companies whose policies you support is an admirable thing to do. It encourages corporate values that go beyond shareholder value, in a culture where corporate ethics need a lot of shaking up.

Re:The Myth of Exploitation

[Allen Varney]

Exploitation is not a dirty word. Coercion is a bad thing (if you can spell it) but everybody exploits and this is a good thing.

The fallacy of this viewpoint is the assumption that exploitation and coercion are separate. Maybe in some airy theoretical world, but not on this particular planet. The problem with the fallacious viewpoint is that you can use it to justify child labor, inhuman working conditions, and chattel slavery. "Hey, it's just 'exploitation,' the same way I exploit my skills or the farmer exploits the land, so stop complaining and shut up, okay?"

Comparing the "exploitation" of your skills with, say, child labor in Hong Kong -- that's just word games. There is very little exploitation of human labor in the Third World (or, to use the new politically correct term, "the South) without overt or implicit coercion, not to mention numerous human rights abuses.

"Don't blame the corporations for doing what all corporations do. You might as well blame the wolf for killing the sheep." Please! Corporations are human enterprises, not imponderable forces of nature. If we have problesm with corporations, the solution is not to sigh heavily the way we would about an earthquake, but to change the institution of the corporation. It's not like trying to move a continent or stop the sun in its tracks, and to make it sound impossible is to be complicit with the abuse.