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Outsourcing To Rural America
An anonymous reader writes "News.com is running a story about Rural Sourcing, a company attempting to make outsourcing to rural America as cost effective as sending jobs to India."
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From the prices I've seen listed, it would be illigal to employ Americans (or even Amerucuns) for anything even close to the same amount.
"Have you ever thought about just turning off the TV, sitting down with your kids, and hitting them?"
It's referred to as a "soft cost". They can be very difficult to quantify, so, yes, there is probably some fudging of the number to make it work. However, the "inconvenience factor" as well as cultural differences are two of the items you will see on almost every outsourcing pros & cons list.
"I'd rather be a lightning rod than a seismometer." -Ken Kesey
Creative Labs, while they have outsourced overseas their development labs, their tech support is in a tiny town called Stillwater, Oklahoma. They pay their employees only slightly above minimum wage. So, rural outsourcing probably saved them quite a bit of money.
Greetings from Georgia.
Actually, we call "bums" "homeless" or "vagrants".
There are less of them, because the population is not as dense and because we tend to try putting them to work instead of propping them up forever. A lot of field and construction laborers are homeless men picked up on a corner and driven in the back of the boss's pickup truck to the job site. That doesn't happen up north because of all the labor unions.
Rednecks typically work for a living, either at manual labor or one or two steps removed from it. They're usually the ones driving the pickup truck that carry the homeless to a job site. A lot of rednecks own small businesses, usually something to do with farming or construction. They have 2 or 3 kids, watch wrestling, football and nascar and drive pickup trucks. Rednecks tend to be conservative and listen to country music.
Only on
Compared to... New York? Hey youzz guyzzz got a problem with your computer?
Or maybe Southern California. Dude your system has some seriously bad karma going on.
Yea what ever. If you look at the school system ratings you will find that best schools tend to be in the more rural states. Here is the top ten by % of students that graduate. Only one state New Jersey could be called urban.
1 NEW JERSEY 87%
2 NORTH DAKOTA 86%
3 UTAH 86%
4 IOWA 85%
5 NEBRASKA 84%
6 SOUTH DAKOTA 83%
7 WEST VIRGINIA 83%
8 MONTANA 81%
9 WISCONSIN 81%
10 MINNESOTA 80%
The big urban states of California and New York are ranked 35th and 39th.
My home state is at the bottom of the list. Why? Our schools suck. Too many retired people that do not want to pay for good schools because "they already paid for their kids to go to school". Well when they get the snot beat out of them by roaming gangs of drop outs we will see. When will people learn that you will pay for schools or for prisons.
See my blog http://ilovecookes.blogspot.com/ for light hearted technical information.
While I understand the attempt at humor, it should be noted (to the humor and research impaired) that the data is this graph is completely made up...
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http://www.snopes.com/politics/ballot/stateiq.a
-- stream of did I lock the front door consciousness
- Though you're not likely to find a small town with "world-class" healthcare providers, I live in a town of 200 within 50 miles of two pretty decent large hospitals, and within the helicopter radius of more. (Remember, since there is a lower population density, a hospital can serve a larger area.) In addition, private practice doctors really aren't that much different in small towns.
- Local libraries and other cultural things do tend to suck. However, you can use interlibrary loan and the like to get items you want, and, in my case, Charlotte and Asheville both offer decent cultural experiences.
- Shopping can be surprisingly varied. People come from all over the world to the furniture outlets in Morganton, North Carolina, for instance. Broyhill and the like. There are also good stationers' shops that I know of, some decent bookstores (though Barnes & Noble have killed most of them), and so forth. In addition, as always, there are cities of respectable size within an hour's travel.
- In the South, at least, the minority population is significant. North Carolina is about 23% African-American, I believe. Don't judge the region by stereotypes, either; the communities are more integrated and comfortable than you might think.
- No need to get stuck in traffic jams trying to get places, either. It takes 20 minutes to drive 20 miles, not an hour. You can get from my hometown to Charlotte in 45-60 minutes.
The quality of life can be quite high in the country; don't underestimate it.Actually, a lot of fledgling Indian telcos being run by tribal members and tribal governments do exist. They benefit from not having to pay state taxes on their land, and I think they avoid paying other state taxes. There are also many government grant benefits offered to startup American Indian businesses.
Rape, murder, and pillaging occurred in every war and military action of the time - not that it was a very nice thing to do, but back then "might makes right" was a valid statement. Isn't that what we're doing today, only instead of smallpox blankets we got bombs and bullets laced with Plutonium?
Acxiom...one of the largest dealers and maintainers of 'people data' started in Conway, and has expanded into Little Rock. Trans-Union relies on them for data needs...so, they do indeed handle a lot of data.
Alltel is based in Little Rock.
Steven's corporation and many other financial houses are in AR. So...it isn't quite a po-dunk as you might think. Hell, in Little Rock..seems that most people there are Dr.'s or Lawyers...UAMS has one of the leading eye centers and cancer centers in the world.
I did find the IT wages were a little low about 10 years ago...especially compared to TX. I'm wondering what bill rates are there? There is a lot of rural left in AR, but, Little Rock is nicely metropolitan. Not as much to do there as where I live now (New Orleans)....but, people are pretty nice...southern friendly...and a good place to raise a family.
I wonder what their bill rates are there? Cost of living is pretty low...
Light travels faster than sound. This is why some people appear bright until you hear them speak.........
His sentence is correct as it stands.
See my journal for slashdot ID's by year. Mine created in 2005. http://slashdot.org/journal/289875/slashdot-ids-by-year
It's used by the military for an unusual property -- when DU munitions strike armor or metal, they basically vaporize themselves in a heat flash, allowing DU shells to cut through tank armor.
Unfortunately for anyone nearby, or living in the nation being attacked, when the DU vaporizes, it leaves an extremely fine radioactive dust in the air, which then settles and pollutes the area, as well as being inhaled by anyone nearby.
Radiation levels in many parts of Iraq are way above normal background, and since the first Gulf War, the incidence of birth defects has risen dramatically. You can google for references yourself.
-30-
Just using this Salary Calculator here are some examples of what you would need to make if you were to move from Queens where you made $100K:
Little Rock - $73,660
Albuquerque - $83,996
Durham, NC - $86,865
New Orleans - $88,257
Billings, MT - $71,391
They come up with these by measureing five categories: housing costs (33%), utilities (8%), consumables (16%), transportation (10%), and other services (33%). Most of the savings you see are because of housing cost differences. I did rent for these comparisons because most people living in a large city like New York and don't own.
Phillyspeak:
... you commn' widges?
Water is pronounced "wooder"
With is pronounced "wit" ex: Gimme' 2 eggs wit scrapple
Beautiful is pronounced "Beauty Full"
Curb is pronounced "curve"
"The Eagles" are "da' Iggles"
"I'm goin down the shore this weekend" - Trip to Wildwood beach
"Up the mountains" - Trip to the Pocanos
Schuylkill is pronouced the "School Kill"
"Widges" means With Us - ex: Yo, we're goin to the bar
Arthritis is pronounced "Author-Ritus"
ACME is pronounced "Ack-A-Me"
Bagel is pronounced "Beg'll"
Meet You is "Meetcha"
Vowels is pronounced Vails
It's used by the military for an unusual property -- when DU munitions strike armor or metal, they basically vaporize themselves in a heat flash, allowing DU shells to cut through tank armor.
Actually, the reason why they went through tank armor was because, by volume, they're the heaviest thing you can throw at the enemy. High mass, small impact zone = massive penetrating power. Thus they can cut through armor not because they're on fire, but because they're bullets which are 15% heavier than lead, and about 63 times harder.
The uranium burning is useful inside the tank, after the shell has been penetrated, where it burns like potassium and takes out whatever's inside. The burning doesn't help with the penetration as much as the density and hardness.
But don't just take my word for it. Read this:
How Stuff Works - Bunker Buster Bombs
Coming soon - pyrogyra
1/5 = 20%. Are you saying something different?
I agree that i was not entirely accurate in my figures. I do know that a person in India can have a decent meal in an average restaurant for about Rs. 50 (~$1), can buy a coke for Rs. 10 (20 cents), can buy decent shirts and trousers for about Rs. 500 each ($10). Yes, these figures vary according to quality, location, brand, etc. but it's still way cheaper than in the USA. For example, a movie ticket in a good theater costs about Rs. 50 - Rs. 100. That's $1-$2!
Yes, certain things are expensive, like white goods for example. However, even these items are becoming cheaper, and not more expensive. Another thing is that the aspiration level is also much lower in India. A 25" TV is considered as an expensive, with 21" being status quo. Plasma and LCD is only affordable for politicians and government servants who take bribes.
no, his/her sentence is correct, if you wanted to use well it would be:
speaks English perfectly well
as well is an adverb that should modify a verb, whereas in his sentence, good, an adjective, modifies the noun English.
-ashot
Rural outsourcing would help people living in rural areas get jobs. Because business looks at an areas pay scale before they decide what to offer the tech style jobs will be lower in rural America than in the cities and that will probably be good for business.
The rural techs would "steal" jobs from their urban counterparts and would cheapen the overall value of technical jobs.
The truth is there are already a lot of underpaid technical types in rural areas. Today you can consider mechanics technical types and people with these analytical skills do live in rural areas.
I grew up in a small midwestern town. I left. I left because I like computers and I like being well paid. You don't find many computer jobs in small towns and you don't find hardly any decent paying jobs in small towns.
Still keeping the jobs in the US is a boon to the country and getting rural areas jobs will help with the chronic unemployment in these towns. But there is nothing to stop these folks from gaining experience and moving to the city in search of better pay! If that happens there will be a larger surplus of us tech types in the city and our pay will slide closer to the rural folks. So for me, perhaps it is bad.