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IBM Shifts 14,000 Jobs to India
Omar Khan writes "The New York Times reports, 'Even as it lays off up to 13,000 workers in Europe and the U.S., IBM plans to increase its payroll in India this year by more than 14,000 workers.' Slashdot previously covered the black-and-blue strike, in which the union wondered, 'if other cost cutting mechanisms could achieve the same effect without cutting so may jobs.'"
I'm sorry but IBM is speaking to European workers very clearly here, however I'm not sure they're listening. The constant strikes, the 5+ weeks of vacation, the voting down of the EU constitution to avoid US-style capitalism. These jobs are vanishing into India because of the cost and headache of dealing with European unions, workers, culture, and bureaucracy. Frankly it's a pain in the ass, and for a market that often has little growth potential. Asia isn't just where the cheap labour is, it's also where the growth is, and the governments eager to work with you, and the best bang-for-the-buck for companies seeking to invest. Until European workers learn to compete aggressively we'll keep on hearing stories like this of companies that just shrug and say "fine, have it your way." Apologies, but something's gotta give.
> 'if other cost cutting mechanisms could achieve the same effect without cutting
> so may jobs.'"
They'll just do that too!
And this happens just when I was starting to think of IBM as the good guys...
Have you ever wondered How to Take Over
Really shameful... first post too, also shameful
Here is the IBM Union website, if anyone is interested.
don't worry, you are not alone. accounting, HR, legal, even biotech and practically everything else you can think of is subject to offshoring. guess who's in the best position now? carpenters. plumbers. electricians. whoops, get ready for people to re-evaluate college and knowledge work on a grand scale.
That's just the free market at work. If the price of labor is cheaper there, then that is where labor will be purchased. It's just as simple as that.
Cyric Zndovzny at your service.
Does IBM now stand for "Indian Business Machines"? If they're scaling back so much on the two most developed continents, they don't seem so "international" anymore... what dinosaurs.
It must be Windows. It needs half a gig of RAM and a hardware-accelerated graphics card just to run Solitaire.
I guess a programming major insn't enough. Now I need to learn Indian as well.
lol: You see no door there!
The problem with outsourcing is that eventually the cheap work gets more expensive, then it becomes too much of a burden and things have to shift again ...
So, gradually, the corporations will pick random underdeveloped countries and beef them up to a point where the workers are too expensive, then they'll move on - until there are no underdeveloped countries left, just bloated overdeveloped cesspools full of unemployed engineers and white collars.
IBM may hire over 14,000 in India
http://us.rediff.com/money/2005/jun/24ibm.htm
labor arbitrage is not why they are doing it, you can be damn sure that's the primary reason they are doing it.
I am not sure many people realy believe the hype about a lack of availability of skilled labor in the US (and now maybe even Europe).
BP http://www.card-central.com
How is adding 1,000 jobs cutting jobs?
Do the Indians not count because they are brown?
IBM is adding to its workforce and yet is still critisized.
Wow, sent an e-mail as suggested when clicking on "use classic" banner, and got a fast response that addressed my msg
'if other cost cutting mechanisms could achieve the same effect without cutting so may jobs.'"
Probably not. For someone like IBM, labour is undoubtedly their biggest cost. If they can get equally good work from Indian programmers for a third of the cost, then I see every reason for them to do that.
Of course it is hard on the staff, but this is only going to happen more and more as time goes on, and increased union activity is only going to encourage large firms to outsource work.
The only way for IT workers in western countries to survive is to gain additional skills which workers in other countries lack.
Monday: We hate IBM
Tuesday: We love IBM
Wednesday: We hate IBM
Thursday: We love IBM
Friday: We hate IBM
[I am not saying anything either way.]
Companies are out for profit. It is not immoral or wrong for them to seek service and products at the lowest cost.
A job is not your property. It is the property of the company you work for. The company can take it from you at any time for any reason.
The company can do this because you signed a contract stating that your employment is "at will" and that your employment can be terminated at any time.
You don't like this? Don't work for the company.
Blame yourself for signing the contract, not the Indian workers.
Remember, it is YOUR fault for even thinking that your job is secure.
1) Outsource everything except the board members to India
2) ?
3) Profit!
...and then adding them back that is the problem.
I am not merely a "consumer" or a "taxpayer". I am a Citizen of the State of Texas
Individual companies can't get away with shipping jobs to India due to the offshoring stigma, so what do they do? They hire consulting firms like IBM who basically do the dirty work for them. Problem solved; good cheap labor at a fraction of the cost without it being a PR nightmare because technically the company isn't offshoring. I've seen this happening more and more. Kind of scary.
Top 10 Reasons To Procrastinate
10.
My job at Ford just got sent to India as well. I know it is easier said than done, but I think the thing to try to do nowadays is to steer away from jobs at large corporations. Maybe I am wrong, but I haven't heard of many small companies sending their jobs to India.
Freedom would be not to choose between black and white but to abjure such prescribed choices. -Theodor Adorno
IBM is losing its global IT services market share to companies like Wipro and Infosys. These companies have an advantage of cheaper labour force. If IBM needs to stay in business, they will have to use the Indian labour force to compete or else they will be soon be out of business or bought over by Infosys.
But the real question is, is this a logical shift or an arithmetic shift?
*ducks*
By STEVE LOHR
Published: June 24, 2005
Even as it proceeds with layoffs of up to 13,000 workers in Europe and the United States, I.B.M. plans to increase its payroll in India this year by more than 14,000 workers, according to an internal company document.
Those numbers are telling evidence of the continuing globalization of work and the migration of some skilled jobs to low-wage countries like India. And I.B.M., the world's largest information technology company, is something of a corporate laboratory that highlights the trend. Its actions inform the worries and policy debate that surround the rise of a global labor force in science, engineering and other fields that require advanced education.
Skip to next paragraph Multimedia
Graphic
I.B.M. Employees
To critics, I.B.M. is a leading example of the corporate strategy of shopping the globe for the cheapest labor in a single-minded pursuit of profits, to the detriment of wages, benefits and job security here and in other developed countries. The company announced last month that it would cut 10,000 to 13,000 jobs, about a quarter of them in the United States and the bulk of the rest in Western Europe.
"I.B.M. is really pushing this offshore outsourcing to relentlessly cut costs and to export skilled jobs abroad," said Marcus Courtney, president of the Washington Alliance of Technology Workers, or WashTech, a group that seeks to unionize such workers. "The winners are the richest corporations in the world, and American workers lose."
WashTech, based in Washington State, gave the I.B.M. document on Indian employment to The New York Times. It is labeled "I.B.M. Confidential" and dated April 2005. An I.B.M. employee concerned about the shifting of jobs abroad provided the document to WashTech.
I.B.M. declined to comment on the document or the numbers in it, other than to say that there are many documents, charts and projections generated within the company.
But in an interview, Robert W. Moffat, an I.B.M. senior vice president, explained that the buildup in India was attributable to surging demand for technology services in the thriving Indian economy and the opportunity to tap the many skilled Indian software engineers to work on projects around the world.
Lower trade barriers and cheaper telecommunications and computing ability help allow a distant labor force to work on technology projects, he said.
Mr. Moffat said I.B.M. was making the shift from a classic multinational corporation with separate businesses in many different countries to a truly worldwide company whose work can be divided and parceled out to the most efficient locations.
Cost is part of the calculation, Mr. Moffat noted, but typically not the most important consideration. "People who say this is simply labor arbitrage don't get it," he said. "It's mostly about skills."
And Mr. Moffat said that I.B.M. was hiring people around the world, including many in the United States, in new businesses that the company has marked for growth, even as it trims elsewhere. The company's overall employment in the United States has held steady for the last few years, at about 130,000.
To foster growth, I.B.M. is increasingly trying to help its client companies use information technology rather than just selling them the hardware and software. So I.B.M. researchers and programmers are more and more being put to work for customers, redesigning and automating tasks like procurement, accounting and customer service.
Yet those advanced services projects will be broken into pieces, with different experts in different countries handling a slice. This emerging globalization of operations, Mr. Moffat noted, does lead to a global labor market in certain fields. "You are no longer competing just with the guy down the street, but also with people around the world," he said.
Such competition, however, can become particularly harsh for workers in the West when they are competing against well-educated workers in low-
I once had IBM e-Services come out for a visit. They were deploying some test equipment (RS/6000) servers and WebSphere for us.
They had a guy that did nothing but open boxes. There were four training staff persons for all two of us that needed training. We had three account reps.
IBM has some talented workers, but simply too many. I applaud their staff cuts... I disapprove of replacing talented staff with cheaper labor.
Hell, dropping OS/2 legacy support could probably save them a few million... or any of the other several hundred divisions operating at a loss.
Does such a change pose a risk to the security of the United States and Europe? Indeed, the government and military have always been a large consumer of IBM's products. That is understandable, of course, considering the extreme reliability, durability, stability and ultimate engineering that IBM systems represent. But with the design and implementation of these systems being sent over to non-Western countries, there are always security fears. Will backdoors be inserted into IBM's software that will then be sold to Western powers? It's a very real possibility.
Cyric Zndovzny at your service.
But IBM is the good guy, it supports open source... Or is it just using open source as a marketing tool? Who cares, as long as it gives the open source people some purpose in life...
The PS3 and Xbox 360 are going to sell in droves worldwide. That's a lot of PowerPC chipsets that need to be manufactured cheaply, quickly, and consistently by IBM.
While I don't agree with off-shoring, consider that many of the jobs that get off-shored are jobs that Americans either want too much pay/benefits for, or are jobs that are "below" them due to the scheduled_hours/tasks.
Foreign nationals in developing countries can easily snatch these jobs up for much less pay/benefits and are actually happy/proud to have the job.
Up, Up, Down, Down, Left, Right, Left, Right, B, A, START
The problem with things like this is unions. Unions would be great if they actually existed for their original purpose - worker protection. Instead, they exist now for *job* protection, which is a fallacy. There is no longer any job loyalty (nor should there be company loyalty), and the fact that unions don't yet get that means there will be more stories just like this one in the future.
The unions need to stop making sure that one job that could be done by two people for $15 an hour is done by one for $25 an hour. Instead of finding a way to get that guy $20 an hour doing something else, and employing two more people for $15 an hour, they stubbornly insist that the jobs that exist now must be the ones that exist in the future, too, which is silly given how quickly things change. (In essence, they've cost three people jobs - the guy who can't get the $25 an hour any more but who could get $20, and the two people who could have gotten the $15!)
Don't even get me started on "specialisation" where people can't plug in a computer because they need someone from the electrical union to do it for them! Talk about a crock, it's the biggest forced job existence ploy ever, and won't stand up over the long term.
Unions also insist on healthcare benefits that are way out of the norms (see GM). Their struggle to preserve jobs, instead of protect workers, is doomed to fail, and they should learn to realise it.
Another score for capitalism!!!! If you want Socialism, go move to North Korea or China where the government thinks it knows best.
Capitalism is what made the USA the most powerful and free nation in the world....
Sweet, it's nice to know that the US is not the only country to fall victim to off-whoring(tm)!!
ACHTUNG! Das computermachine ist nicht fuer gefingerpoken und mittengrabben. Ist nicht fuer gewerken bei das dumpkopfen.
I see that you're claiming that Indians are unable to produce quality software and hardware designs. Can you please give some tangible examples/proof of this, and the resulting failures? Indeed, what makes an Indian any less of a programmer than an American or a European?
Cyric Zndovzny at your service.
Really, this just means 14,000 more EU and US programmers can now work on IBM's Open Source initiatives without having to be on payroll. Don't programmers seem to prefer that anyway?
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New Hire: "$4 a square foot is why I dragged you out here."
Suit: "Sure, it's $4 a square foot, we're in the middle of nowhere."
New Hire: "We're not in the middle of nowhere. How'd you get here?"
Suit: "Airport."
New Hire: "Yeah, airport, highway, telephone."
Suit: "Internet."
New Hire: "Internet."
Suit: "Genius. $4 a square foot, and $4 an hour. You're fired!"
IBM. Solutions for a small planet. :)
Indeed. Supply and demand. I'm sure IBM will *try* to hire 14,000 employees.
http://news.zdnet.com/2100-9589_22-5730972.html
Guess what this means, Indian workers are going to be able to demand higher wages, so they will.
Deleted
Our small (under 10 employee) company just offshored a job for one of our clients. All of our clients had been beating us up over offshoring work, because it is fashionable. So we spent more time specking the work and administering it than if we did the work ourselves. But we had to offshore the work because offshoring is this decade's fashion, our generations bell-bottom jeans.
I agree with the person. This is especially true with headaches with dealing with EU. There is an article detailing speech from Tony Blair on this.4 9376&headline=Tony~Blair~spooks~Europe~over~India
http://www.expressindia.com/fullstory.php?newsid=
14,000 users of IBMs services had acount their details sold by employees of an Indian call center.
.cig
I don't think it's true to say that IBM "can get equally good work from Indian programmers." I don't think lack of quality American employees is what has caused them to switch, at all.[1] This is the part that is responsible: "for a third of the cost."
In fact, economically, it is quite viable for any company to at least test the waters with offshoring. Every single company. The simple reason is that if it doesn't work out, they can always rehire back in the United States. So, for the companies who offshore, it's a win-win. That's what you call business logic.
Businesses know that there is a good chance the Indian workers will actually be much worse than the United States workers. However, they know that at 1/3rd the cost, they are willing to take their chances with it for a year, just in case they are actually able to get 14,000 good employees.
[1] Similarly, when H1B's were coming to the US, the reason again was solely for the cost savings--not because there weren't equally good employees available in the United States.
Cover your eyes and click this link!
Whoa! That's what I call slave mentality. Your corporate oveloards must be proud about you.
Similar arguments apply to illegal aliens from Mexico. Under the aegis of the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA), illegal aliens flood into the USA and have essentially destroyed the wages in the market for unskilled labor. The normal market forces in the USA are now influenced/destroyed by Mexican government policies that have obliterated the economic opportunities and standard of living in Mexico. Without illegal aliens, the Americans working as unskilled labor would enjoy a sudden and dramatic boost in their wages, enabling them to actually buy medical insurance.
When American politicians tout free trade and claim that the American market remains a free market, they completely ignore the non-free market which is interacting with our free market and which is destroying the normal market forces in a (our) free market. The rub is that no one seems to care.
Free trade advances free markets in only one scenario: (relatively) free markets like the USA interact with other (relatively) free markets like Eastern/Western Europe, Canada, and Japan. To maintain genuine free trade, we should close our markets (including the market for services like labor) to India, China, and their ilk until those nations establish free markets. We lose nothing by championing genuine free trade.
To the USA and EU. The jobs disappearing from EU were preceeded by US layoffs some time ago. And it is not just IBM, but I think that many here know that already.
I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
For all of us Americans -- well, we have to live the mantra we've preached (and toppled governments for): The Free Market Rules. And please read today's NYTimes editorial: http://www.nytimes.com/2005/06/24/opinion/24friedm an.html
For the Europeans: Unless you break out of your coddled livestyles of state-sponsored laziness, there's little you have to complain about. Oh, and you'll have to have MASSIVE immigration to support your hopelessly unbalanced worker-to-pensioner ration, so let's all laugh while you import Indians and Chinese to work in your countries...
Nope nope nope nope!
Companies don't give a damn about the people. No matter how evil and wretched is what you're doing, just make sure it's not illegal, and you're fine.
(Only in America!)
so you think that it is wrong for IBM to layoff in USA/EU. What do you suggest to lower Labor costs for IBM? Would you be willing to accept a pay and benefit cut to what IBM is paying in India?
I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
I just want to say that I agree with you. I'd also like to say that it's nice to meet a person with a decent I.Q. and clue. No, I'm not coming on to you(I'm a guy). I'm being sincere. Good post.
I don't see how that was funny, more an interesting or insightful.
Say what you want but this is continued evidence of us decline. Why don't people get the concept that just because wages go up in the rest of the world, they will in the US also. It is clearly not happening. The world economy will "average" out. This process means an inevitable fall in standard of living in the US, Europe and probably Japan also.
In about a generation or so, things will _probably_ even out, but in the meantime the US if f*cked. In fact, in the long term the US may be f*cked also. The US as a market will be much smaller than India-Asia, and so employment and mfg will be centered there. It will be interesting watching the US devolve into a 3rd world economic classification.
There is no such thing as free trade.
Absolute statements are never true
A corporation can go "Listen, we can't change over to GNU/Linux, what with the cost of retraining, are you crazy?!" and most people would agree. At the same time many many turn around and go "And oh yeah, we're going to lay everyone off and move the whole company to India". Not much talking about "retraining" costs then.
I guess it's going to come as a huge surprise in a few years when their standard of living has equalized and the ask for more money to continue slaving away...
(though China will probably be good for a long long time, because they've got a nice little regime to make sure the people doesn't get to enjoy the full effect of a rise in standard of living. A vote for the corps is a vote for continued repression of the people of China, but hey, at least we get cheap clothes to buy for our tax-free dole-check.)
Belief is the currency of delusion.
Here in Denver, CO, I mostly hear Bengali and Gujurati spoken among Indians. I don't think the original poster, nor most Americans, can conceive of a nation where more than one language is spoken (except to mock Quebec).
Vizzini: INCONCEIVABLE!
Inigo Montoya: You keep using that word. I do not think it means what you think it means.
What is not talked about which is obvious is mechanization. It has not been talked about for centuries, really. When workers in England began to lose their jobs due to looms replacing them, Ned Ludd went into his workplace and smashed up his machine, and others followed them. Nowadays, those who own the machines we workers work on say that Ned Ludd was apocryphal, and say the people who smashed up those machines were Luddites, which means people who have an irrational fear of technology. But was it irrational? They lost their jobs after all, although that is never brought up, that aspect of the word Luddite has gone down the memory hole and the word is remembered from a boss's point of view now only, Luddites are crazy workers who have an irrational fear of machines for some reason.
Doug Henwood wrote a good (and short) article on this not long ago. With all those manufacturing jobs moving to China, there must be a lot more manufacturing jobs in China now, right? Henwood notes that actually, according to a study of twenty major economies done last fall by Joseph Carson, the chief economist at Alliance Capital, between 1995 and 2002 China lost 15 percent of it's manufacturing jobs.
Of course, if workers owned and had control over the machines they work with, mechanization would be a great thing, it would mean a choice of either shorter hours or a higher standard of living. But four out of five workers do not own or control the machines they work with, thus mechanization means higher unemployment, lower wages and so forth. Mechanization is only harmful due to the current socio-economic environment.
Well, no I guess not, but...
Executives are paid by the board of a company, not by the employees. There are many ways to manipulate a company so that the shareholders can make money from it.
Actually making a good product or providing a wanted service are not even very high on that list anymore.
I don't think keeping people employed actually appears anywhere on that list at all.
You'd be hard pressed to find another 'cost-cutting' measure that's as good and also has the fringe benefits of freeing up the assets of the equipment they work on and building they work in for 'liquidation.'
more's the pity...
I think in general that privately held companies can and will do the same thing, but often (not always,) privately held companies tend to think of the employees.
Has anyone else ever noticed that people who own a lot of stock tend to forget that at the other end of that certificate, there are a lot of people and not just an abstraction. Due to my recent employment experience, I know some of the lengths that people (in the military say,) will go to dehumanize other people so that when the moment comes, you can act without a thought towards the person you are acting against. Does anyone know if this is true in business school as well?
-- it's ridiculous how many people misspell ridiculous... (damn, damn, damn...)
Well, the same forces that make hidebound, bureaucratic economies make hidebound, bureaucratic customers. IBM used to cater to them, but they figured this out a few years ago. Vast parts of IBM still cater to those customers, but the company is leaner and meaner than a lot of people recognize.
However, as far as bureaucracies go, I still think India can give France and Gernmany a run for their money. But India seems to be in a mind to fix things these days.
Give a man a fish and you have fed him for today. Teach a man to fish, and he'll say "WHERE'S MY FISH, YOU IDIOT?"
What happens over the next few hundred years as the collection of services done by computers grows ever-larger?
We'll adapt. Our dependance on capitalism will wane, we'll incorporate more socialistic "dependance" on those who control the robots/computers to subsidize our existance.
I imagine population control will happen (or colonization of more exotic locales.. IE asteriods, undersea settlements, space stations)
I'd imagine with more people having more time on their hands, we'll have more drama. Wars, protests, Lawsuits, domestic disputes..
There are things robots simply can't do well. Deal with people. Especially people who resent them. So, most people will be dealing with people, in some fashion or another.
Anyone who thinks there is a point where a company decides it has cut costs 'enough' hasn't been paying attention.
It's hard to believe that's how Micronians are made. Why don't we see it right now by having you both kiss one another?
Last I checked, chips like that were mostly made in Southeast Asia. Has that changed?
---- It puts the lotion on its skin or else it gets the hose again. It does this whenever it's told.
Hence all the offshoring.
There are about a dozen native languages. India wasn't a single country till the Brits came along.
Deleted
Nope, I am not a corporate slave precisely because I think of my job as a privilege.
If one thinks of a job as a privilege then one will logically assume that the said privilege can be revoked at any time.
Therefore, one will not harbor corporate loyalty of any form due to the risk of said privilege being revoked.
Ergo, one will prepare oneself continuously for job cuts, firings, etc. by doing at least one of the following:
1) Improve professional skills
2) Gaining additional education (grad school)
3) Becoming more creative
4) Starting a small business on the side
Your jobs are belong to us!
insert inflammatory anti-microsoft comment here
It's not just manufacturing... Development jobs have been slashed. I don't buy that the IBM VP's claim that they're trying to get more skilled workers and not just pay less in wages. Almost everyone that I know that have been laid off have had to train their replacements or forefit their separation package. So, at least some knowledge transfer needs to happen from these supposedly unskilled workers...
If the union had all these great ideas for cost cutting, why didn't they suggest them earlier, at some point before the axe was in it's downward swing?
I understand why sometimes the labour and capital components of business have to have an adversarial relationship, but I also know that they need to have a co-operative relationship as well.
It's as if the union had these great ideas for saving IBM money, but kept them quiet until IBM started to cut jobs, and they said, "Wait wait wait...".
In the original black-and-blue article, the union made the point that IBM's "first quarter profit for 2005 was $1.4 billion, and $9 billion for the whole of 2004". Unfortunately, a corporation has a legal imperitive to make as much money as possible for the shareholders. The problem is not IBM, but rather corporations in general.
Some of the more interesting books on the subject are,
Myth of the Good Corporate Citizen
The Corporation (the book that the documentary was based on)
Confessions Of an Economic Hit Man
LOL! Stop it IBM! You're killin me! It wasn't too long ago that IBM was complaining about the decline in the number of students pursuing CS degrees in the U.S.. I guess another 14000 need not bother! Way to go Big Blue!
Of course this is good for India, but I wish these companies would quit complaining about the unwillingness of American students to pursue careers that have no future in the U.S.. They should be honest, education was never the real issue, it's always been wages and benefits.
To the making of books there is no end, so let's get started
The solution for us is Here
Seems like everytime there's a shift in labor focus, everyone starts whinging about the "death of the North American worker," which is just crap.
Auto manufacturers may have destroyed the livery business, but in the process they created thousands of jobs in other sectors - many of which never existed before.
Will the outsourcing movement create new positions here in North America? Absolutely. The geographical distance will be a huge boon to infrastructure companies, video-conferencing, wi-fi, and probably entire new industries that don't even exist yet - but will.
You have to continually adapt and learn to remain a valuable employee and contributor to society.
A pet peeve in my own industry, are all those so-called "designers" who are miffed that Flash is becoming more of a code-based app - good for more that cheesy drag-and-drop animations and spinning logos. Time after time on the forums everyone whines about how its too complicated.
Knowledge isn't static, neither are jobs, and no company should be forced to retain employees just because "they live here" if better and more economical work can be found elsewhere.
We should embrace progress, not retard it because of some vague doomsday prediction of the death of IT.
The concepts of sovereignty and captialism are incompatible, and can't coexist in a free market.
Learn. Learn. And then learn some more.
Or else the tarpits avait.
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It strikes me that this is possibly linked to the high barriers to immigration into the United States.
A lot of skilled foreign workers have tried to enter the US. There has been great resistance to this, mostly on the part of US workers who fear that a great influx of labor would drive down wages.
But if these workers stay in their own countries it probably ends up driving down wages even more.
If the US allowed skilled laborers to enter the US they would be constrained on how little they are willing to work for. The cost of living in the US is much higher than it is in India and this would create a lower boundary for wages demanded.
If these workers where allowed into the country as permanet residents or even as citizens rather than on H1-B visas they would also have more bargaining power with their employers and demand even higher wages. This would also rais the lower limit of wages.
Furthermore, these workers would pay taxes in the US and this money could be used to further aid US workers.
Please excuse the somewhat simplified economic model.
14,000? The OP itself says 13,000 jobs, the NY times article says 10,000 t 13,000 jobs, AND the article on an indian website says IBM may hire upto 13,000 workers..
What gives?
http://efil.blogspot.com/
I for one welcome our new Ganges-bathing overlords...
When India becomes expensive they'll (by definition) have money and want to buy stuff too. Perhaps we should be thinking about what they might want to buy.
e ws/2005/02/12/wind12.xml&sSheet=/news/2005/02/12/i xworld.html
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/n
Deleted
One of the bigwigs in the Windows org once made a mistake in a speach. He told the workers that each one of them had generated millions for the company... The employees then looked at each other and wondered why they weren't millionaires.
The fact is that IT companies have made millions and billions off of the work of their employees. IT employees have only been handed a small fraction of that money. Now, IT companies are now handing those same workers pink slips because some foreigner can supposedly do the work for a fraction of the cost.
IT workers do deserve an "inordinately" large paycheck since they have made their companies inordinate amounts of money. It's a slap in the face for those companies to turn around and fire those employees instead.
We should all join a union and get rid of this BS.
What's going on is systematic disabling of the north american ability to manufacture and support goods and services. These guys think real long term.
Look at what's going on - things are so much cheaper overseas that it makes economic sense to make and support everything over there. One of our products would be $6 cheaper to make made than our cost on parts alone. In a sense, they would pay us $6 for each board they made. You can't beat that.
As more manufacturing / tech jobs leave the country, the number of laid off employees mean that nobody else is going to take up those trades. "It's impossible to get a job making products or working as a tech, so why would I take the training?" As workers retire / die / commit suicide, the number of people capable of doing any real work dwindle. Soon, we won't understand our own technology since nobody here l earned about it.
Eventually, nobody will be available to make the goods or support them, except those who undercut the prices so severely in the first place. They are then free to set the prices at whatever levels they want, since they have exclusive ability. At that point, there is no national security since we don't have a choice but to do exactly what they want. If they want more money, we have to give it to them or we stop getting stoves, microwaves, cars, etc. If we don't ignore the seizure of Kasmir by force, then the Interac network goes down.
As for backdoors, there's no cause for alarm. The products received will be so bad and bug-filled that there's no need for them.
I'm not saying that all Chinese made goods are crap; I'm saying that all the Chinese-made goods that I've seen are crap. I'm not saying that all Indians give lousy support; I'm saying that all the support I've had from India has been lousy.
---
ECHELON is a government program to find words like bomb, jihad, plutonium, assassinate, and anarchy.
Indian Business Machine
Society and consumers benefit very little from companies offshoring and using other methods to cut costs. They don't reduce the price of their goods when they do this, they just pocket more profits. Shareholders and executives of huge multinational corporations benefit from offshoring, the countries getting the work benefit, but don't try to pretend the people losing their jobs and being forced into lower paying unskilled jobs are benefitting from this.
IBM could easily keep workers where they are. But multinational corporations are designed to maximize profit at the expense of everyone else.
India's poor majority had their land and water stolen, by international big business. So they're starving, but the corporate-ruled Indian government is closing its eyes to the trend. They happily give government resources to the technology elite, and pass new laws to benefit monopoly capital.
The worst example recently, was their recognition of international patent law on medicine. This was a horrible triumph of profit over people, and is the moral equivalent of slaughtering sick people.
This is all unsustainable. But multinationals don't care. They're interested in short-term profit. Tech workers are just the latest members in the club of commodity labor.
"if other cost cutting mechanisms could achieve the same effect without cutting so may jobs.'"
You mean cut CEO's millions of dollars in bonuses? I've only seen those increase, not decrease.
The Doormat
If you're not outraged, then you're not paying attention.
Following the specs to the letter without discussion is a sign of either poor pay or poor management. A poor manager is one who gives out specs and expects them to be followed without question. That's not what a (good) developer (or development team) would ever do.. that's what a "programmer" would do. If you're being poorly managed or not paid enough, why argue with the manager.. it's a lot easier just to follow the bad specs and render yourself blameless even if the job turns out bad. Indeed, I'd say at least 50% of development budgets are spent on projects which never see the light of day due to this problem.
Of course, everyone is assuming that these are one for one job moves. Where did IBM say that the folks they are laying off in the US and Europe are the same types of workers they are hiring in India? I'd be surprised if they were.
IBM was founded, built, financed, and supported by Western countries, principally the US, UK, Japan, and Germany. The US, especially, protects IBM's intellectual property, provides a secure environment for business, and enormous amounts of government contracts. The great bulk of IBM's customers are in the West.
I honestly believe that IBM - and all of the firms so happily laying off their employees in order to find cheaper labour - are acting in an immoral manner. Outsourcing is destroying lives, destroying economies, for the sole point of increasing corporate profits - profits that go, essentially, to a very small percentage of the population. For goodness sake, having a 401k growing at 4% doesn't really matter that much when you're laid off.
IBM is not trying to help Indian workers - IBM is simply trying to cut it's labor costs. Globalization has accomplished the dream of so many capitalists - labor is now a commodity, and labor is powerless.
The American - and Western European - middle class is evaporating before our eyes. When the middle class jobs are sent overseas, the entire structure of our society is in danger. We'll became lands where the few with massive wealth dominate the increasingly poor masses. Democracy depends on a healthy middle class. Destroying that democracy is indeed immoral.
/* Dang, I can't type that well. */
Those in the US are not entitled to jobs at the expense of everyone else. I am glad to see developing nations get an opportunity to enjoy some economic prosperity. This is not the first time jobs have shifted due to technological advancements, nor will it be the last. There are many career frontiers for US workers to explore and even prosper in. Stop yo' whining.
One ring to bind them - should probably have more fiber and less rings in their diet.
The solution is to sieze all of IBM's assests and use them for the benifit of the unemployed.
Also impose an extrodinarily high tariff on anythng IBM wishes to sell in Europe.
If they complain too loudly, revoke their corporate charter.
A corporation has no natural right to exist. They only exist for the benefit of society. If they no longer provide such benefit, they should be disolved and their assets dispersed back into society.
Geez, with all of the sympathy around here for our 'overburdened' corporations, I'm not very optomistic about the future of the western worker. Yes, we're all appauled at those lazy Europeans, with their 5 weeks of vacation time, but CEO's pulling a cool hundred million a year while they tour the world's golf courses on their private jets don't seem to arouse much outrage around here.
As an American worker, I had always hoped that someday we in the U.S. could have a more "European" approach to how the average middle-class worker is treated, but apparently my future model lies in India. And free-market evangalists are going to tell me this is a good thing: "I'm sorry you're working long hours for low wages, but look at all of those cheap consumer products you can buy!"
Welcome to the Brave New World.
-G
www.pixelstatic.com
Indians are humans, too. Like the article says, they'll want the same goods and services that Americans and Europeans want: food, clothes, cars, jewelery, computers and other luxury items.
Cyric Zndovzny at your service.
what insight! India truly is known as a bastion of free commerce and governmental non-intervention. wherever you look, the License-Raj is a shining example of what capitalism should be.
IBM is leaving its development team to other countries due to the way Copyright protection laws are being developed in USA and Europe.
Laws like DMCA, and ancient CBDTPA, dead, thanks god, only onerates the development of new technolgies. Software patents are also another cause of cost increase.
While USA and Europe are too busy worrying about copyright protection, developing countries like China, India and Brazil are more worry about creating conditions to receive the development departments of huge companies like IBM.
-=-=-=-=
I know life isn't fair, but why can't it ever be un-fair in MY favor!?
Gartner just released a study of the top five reasons offshore deals go bust. I hope IBM was paying attention. It sounds like a lot of companies jump into these deals because of the labor differential and then find out later it wasn't such a good deal after all. There are a lot more factors to consider than just free trade, losing American jobs, and profit. Long-term viability has got to be high on the list of things to consider, right? (My blog on this)
I'm a recent ex-IBMer because my job went to India (3rd line server support operations), So this news comes as no supprise to me.
.. That'll be one long walk to the machine hall! :P
The only question I have is, how are they going to power-cycle a server thats crashed in the UK when they're all the way over in India?
Maybe 'Economics 101' boils down to:
(1) Look for ways to reduce costs
(2) Move jobs overseas to exploit cheap 3rd-world labor
(3) Profit!
but 'Economics 102' adds:
(1) Cheap 3rd-world workers spend new pay on basics like decent food, shelter, and medical care, thus greatly improving their lives, but have nothing left over to purchase still relatively expensive luxury goods and services provided by their American or European employer
(2) Unemployed or now-underemployed former American or European employees now can't afford expensive luxury goods and services provided by former employer, either
(3) Profits evaporate as sales plummet
Henry Ford understood this basic economic principle, and made sure his employees could afford to purchase the Model T's they built.
'Econ 103' goes on to explain how companies that move their labor and infrastructure costs overseas still get to deduct those expenses when it comes time to pay their US taxes, but none of that money stays here to generate income tax, sales tax, and other tax revenue, so government services must shrink. And every dollar moved offshore also costs many, many more dollars lost in other goods and services that lost employees can no longer purchase, resulting in additional jobs and tax revenues lost, etc.
It's never as simple as it first seems.
Serving your airship needs since 1995.
And I mean all the way up to the top.
Even if you assume that U. S. managers are currently more effective because of experience, training, etc. it is hard to believe a high-speed communications line and a culture gap won't be a counteracting handicap.
When all of the low- and midlevel tasks are being performed in [insert country here], the workers there will quickly learn whatever is needed to manage and then will have an advantage due to their understanding of local conditions.
There's no reason for this process not to continue up to the very top. It's hard to believe that someone can keep the corporate headquarters and all the money here indefinitely when all the work is being done somewhere else.
IBM treated India rather poorly a few decades ago, using it as a cash cow and a market for technology that was considered obsolete in the U. S. A few years from now I expect the CEO of IBM will be Indian, and the U. S. will be a backwater and treated rather poorly.
"How to Do Nothing," kids activities, back in print!
The part that 'outsourcing supporters' fail to understand/accept is that if all these high paying jobs are lost in the name of ' lower cost of goods', how do you propose that these people afford all this wonderful low cost stuff?
If they arent working, it doesnt matter much that the nice new shiny IBM costs 1/2 what it did when they were working for IBM..
Now, i dont have the final answer as this is also a trap if left unchecked.., but i do know outsourcing overseas is NOT tit..
---- Booth was a patriot ----
Many of the more educated Indians (ie. engineers, programmers, etc.) have an excellent grasp of English. Remember, India was a British colony for decades, much like the US, Australia, Canada, and many other English-speaking countries. Indeed, many do speak English with an accent that differs from that in places like Britain or the US, but they still comprehend English perfectly.
Cyric Zndovzny at your service.
If you go to the US Gov't Small Business Administration website (surf it yourself) you can dig out the stats to back up the following assertion:
Small business drive most economic growth in the US, and is where the majority of new jobs and wealth are created. The sector is orders of magnitude higher than the 'public' as in traded sector. It doesn't make news, since if IBM lays of 14,000 that is 'a lot', but if 14,000 random people lose their jobs, apparently, it is not a big deal. Thnk about it - unemployment has remained in the 4-7% range in the US since after WWII, with a few TEMPORARY spikes (oil shock in early '70s), and our population has grown massively since then. Small businesses account for a lot of that job growth, and no - it isn't ALL McJobs, although there are quite a few of those - somehow we in the US don't seem to like paying for services like we like paying for 'stuff'.
People whine about offshoring like it's a one way street, as if India and China are black holes into which their jobs and money are disappearing.
As the Indians and Chinese get money, they buy stuff. They buy American stuff, European stuff, Indian stuff and Chinese stuff.
Trade is two way street.
Deleted
And the response of these workers and others in Europe is that they don't want to be chattel/wage slaves. Shocking isn't it? It seems like people in Europe can somehow envision a world where there is such a thing as enough profit, and that at the end of the day corporations exist for the betterment of all of society - not vice versa.
One of my old bosses had a great expression - "Trees don't grow to the sky." It was in relation to commodity trading, but it's applicable in many areas of life. Growth can not be infinite - it's simply not sustainable. At some point you need to be satisfied that you're running a profitable business, creating valued products.
Causing unemployment in Europe and the U.S. to save a couple sheckles on the front end will ultimately result in less wealth and less growth in the long run. You need someone to buy your products, and as others have already pointed out, the unemployed and minimum wage workers of the world aren't going to be able to do so. All the arm chair "free marketers" need to dig a little deeper with their analysis than parroting "corporations are in business to make money" and thereby whatever they do in that line makes sense - that may be a primary goal, but it certainly doesn't valildate or justify every decision corporations make.
Greed is good only works up to a point - after which you start eating your own young.
While I don't agree with off-shoring, consider that many of the jobs that get off-shored are jobs that Americans either want too much pay/benefits for, or are jobs that are "below" them due to the scheduled_hours/tasks.
No matter how many times this gets repeated, it's not going to come true.
All you have to do is look at EA to see how low people will go to work in their field.
If I have been able to see further than others, it is because I bought a pair of binoculars.
Your argument is based on the peole being able to buy goods and services. If they are laid off they won't be buying any IBM products will they? When you slash the work force in the name of profits the ONLY people who benefit are the shareholders and corporate management. The common man gets NOTHING of value out of it.
People, if you want to see the future of the IT field in a world market look at manufacturing. How many products are made in the USA anymore? It does not bode well.
There are plenty of skilled people here in the USA. We have the best colleges, and some of the brightest people. If it is about saving money then why not set up operations in the midwest where housing and the cost of living are low? That would keep the jobs in American hands as well as re-vitalize the economies of the poorest states and counties in America.
Now THAT would benefit the workers.
Slashdot previously covered the black-and-blue strike
That has got to be the dumbest thing I've ever heard. Over unionization, law suits, and labor laws which serve no purpose but to make law suits more effective are the reasons they are moving out of the US.
Canada is particularly popular, though the wages there are often higher. Does anyone actually think they treat their canadian employees worse?
Latewire
Well, they are packaged there, but the actual "guts" of the chips are usually made in the USA, as that is where most of the PhDs currently reside(not to mention export problems with China) but that may very well change. However, packaging is the most labor intensive part of creating processors, while the fab plants are the most intellectually intensive process.
Monstar L
I'm not disputing that there will always be a need for someone to fix plumbing problems, build or repair homes, fix cars, and all those other things.
But at the same time, those tasks rely on someone using their hands and doing work that they might not otherwise prefer to do.
The "knowledge" fields require exactly that.... detailed and complex knowledge of the area, in order to perform the work satisfactorily.
If I'm an intelligent person with no major physical disabilities, I can fix my own house - even if it means buying a couple books and a lot of trial and error. Heck, a while ago, my wife put up bathroom tile in our bathroom we remodeled, and she'd never done it before in her life. Looks completely professional and it's been up there for about 3 years now.
Same goes for cars, really. It might require a lot of tools and a lot of time tinkering around with things, but most people coming from these other "tech" fields could do it if they set their mind to it.
On ther other hand, even the smartest, most talented carpenter is not going to be equipped to do biotech work or even H.R. without paying for some formal training/schooling first.
Therefore, people practicing trades will always be in demand, but won't get the kind of pay they once got, if the other people are out of work and deciding they have to "do it themselves" rather than pay someone else.
There are plenty of skilled people here in the USA. We have the best colleges, and some of the brightest people. If it is about saving money then why not set up operations in the midwest where housing and the cost of living are low? That would keep the jobs in American hands as well as re-vitalize the economies of the poorest states and
Because there are lots of people in the USA who are "too good" to live in those places. A lot of them want to live in a 'cool' place and, while much of the MidWest is quite chilly in the winter, it is a different kind of 'cool' they are talking about. It isn't 'cool' to live in a MidWestern town, much less what is considered a city there.
Me? I've always moved to where the work was and I've lived/worked in a fairly small town or two (~20k people sometimes).
You pathetic TOOL!
WAKE UP PEOPLE: CAPITALISM - IT DOESN'T WORK!
When the global housing ponzy scheme collapses next year, and gas in the USA goes to global norms (like $6 a gallon) all you stupid fucking suburbanshee retarded tools of the Right Wing dickwads are going to be screaming "MOMMY!!!" and demanding someone's head on a plate, when the visage most deserving of such a fate IS YOUR OWN.
Meanwhile, your corporate masters will fly off in their corporate jets and leave you idiots to go garbage sorting in the wreckage of debt, unemployment and misery you so fucking richly deserve.
AC
Said another way:
It is easy to have lofty principles such as helping the developing world until such time as it actually starts to cost us something.
Outsourcing is a sign. It is a sign that we're not doing the right things in the (more fully) developed world. If a programmer in India can do my job for half the wage and still look good (relative to his cost of living), then I'd better either learn Gujurati, Hindi, or one of the many other tongues and move to compete with him, or else I'd better be thinking of doing something else.
Does it shock anyone that at the same time as the US and the EU are bleeding skilled jobs to new centers of skill (India is developing quite a few of technical skill centers!) elsewhere in the world, that we're busy arguing about cutting back to a 35 hour work week (bits of the EU) or about making Intelligent Design the latest 'education' in our schools?
This is the 21st century. If you trained as a computer geek, realize computers are commoditizing and start looking at an exit strategy. Software is busy doing this now too. No one anymore says "I want to manufacture machine screws by hand!". We know this process is automated and you can now have them for a very low price. Similarly, software will go that route over time.
So, if you want to remain a highly educated worker at the cutting edge of the newest field, realize that computer software isn't going to be it. It was in the 1980s and 1990s. By 2120, I don't imagine it will be. So what are you doing to start sorting out 'the next area of innovation' and to prepare yourself to work in that field? Or are you buying a $400K+ house, driving a $40K+ car, and spending all your money on toys?
If you aren't saving up for your next stage of education and you aren't thinking about what it is and investing in continuing education steadily (and that may well mean 'into another area of study'), then you are essentially the woolen worker put out of work when the mills closed, or the hatpin maker who found out the machine could do a better and faster and cheaper job.... and you weren't looking ahead to see it coming.
So, you've got a warning. The trend is clear. Stop cringing and whinging and get out there and do! Plan, act, educate yourself, and move on to 'the next new thing'. If you have the brains to make sense out of assembly code, if you can write multi-threaded client server apps, if you can make a database sing... then surely you can use that brainpower in some other endeavour to equal effect, given some investment in training.
Ultimately, we're still stuck in the old model of 'go to school, get an education, carry on with life after education'. We should realize the new model is 'get a part of an education, work for a while, see the changes coming, re-educate, get a new job, work for a while, rinse, repeat.' That's living on globalized internet time. It might not be all that palatable if you feel like saying 'my brain is full' or 'but I've spent my time in school' but it is what the new world's rate of change will require. Be agile or be roadkill....
-- Mal: "Well they tell you: never hit a man with a closed fist. But it is, on occasion, hilarious."
is to ensure that we drop prices so low, that by the time we have to go on public assistance we'll still be able to afford that $2 plasma TV.
For IBM, the manufacture of chips for consoles is just a drop in the bucket of their gross income. I would be cautious to say that this was a major reason for moving the 14,000 jobs to India.
Won't be buying any of your hardware, software or services now.
Free as in dumb that is.
All you liberal whiners are gpoing to complain about the transfer of jobs, then go back to giving your intellectual property away by coding Open Source projects for free.
If you code for free, what difference does it make where you live?
Open Source is Free, Free as in Dumb
I'm still working on a clever footer.
Which one of these disgruntled 13,000 workers is going to start a fight club?
We can now all work for IBM for free.
Uhmm...wait is IBM the good guy now or not? I need slashdork groupthink to tell me.
In case you missed it, the current administration has made the US national debt explode like never before. The country is billions in the red, and a sizeable portion of that debt is owned by--you guessed it--China.
Furthermore, the financial security of practically every US firm that does anything involving electronics, is dictated by China. Apple computers are built in Taiwan and shipped straight from there to the purchaser. Even companies that don't go that far, depend utterly on a steady supply of "just-in-time" electronic components.
Any time China wanted to, they could call in the debts, blockade Taiwan, and destroy the US economy in the space of a week or so. Sure, we'd send the Navy out, but it'd be hard to keep a war running with an economy that looked like the Great Depression Mark 2.
Of course, China has no real interest in destroying the US economy. Much better for them to use their influence to control the people who count, and make sure that nothing stops the flow of wealth from us to them.
GCHQ Quantum Insert installed. If only our tongues were made of glass, how much more careful we would be when we speak
The position that outsourcing is just good business and benefits the consumer may be true in the short term but has dire implications further down the road. By outsourcing these middle class jobs you are in effect removing the purchasing power of the former employees. The majority do find new jobs, but with lower salaries or with fewer benefits (forcing them to pay the cost). This is coupled with the fact that the US is importing more products than it exports. Which means that jobs that should involve Americans working to manufacture products for other Americans to purchase are becoming scarce as well. This leaves only the services industry which tends to pay bottom dollar salaries and provide few benefits (if any). My question is that what good are lower priced consumer goods if there is no middle class to purchase them and what economy can rely on a service based model if the service cannot be afforded?
[I am not saying anything either way.]
Way to straddle the fence at the end there. Did you put that there because you actually have no opinion or were you afraid of the random Slashdot mods?
You probably would have gotten -1 Heartless Capitalist if you'd said that the Indians should have the jobs.
And you probably would have gotten -1 Economics 101 if you'd said the jobs should stay in the US.
I salute your ability to attain a +4 Insightful (as of the time of this writing) without actually saying anything at all.
--------
This isn't the sig you're looking for. Move along.
...is some propaganda. Get a bunch of people from the US/Europe to India and start spreading around "rumours" that people like themselves earn $75,000/yr - heck even $45,000/yr would do - in "civilized" countries. Next thing you know everyone in India will want to be treated equally and *bang* jobs will be homing back to where they were taken away from. Simple! M.
The message I heard was speaking to the United States, it spoke very clearly, and it said "you can give us all the concessions we could possibly ask for, you can let the be balance of power be tipped as far toward the corporations and as far away from the workers as it can realistically go, and we'll still drop your jobs and ship them to developing Asian countries, the exact same way we do to noncompliant, socialist Europe".
Hmm.
Irritable, left-wing and possibly humorous bumper stickers and t-shirts
IBMers'll have to say a home. (Then you'll see a BIG increase in telecommunications.)
Sadly, the hand writing is on the wall for EVERYBODY who works with their head.
Its one thing if you hoist boxes for a retail store, its quite another if you've got to compete with someone who's living in 'po'nuff' Braziania who's just underbid you for your job in the 'developped world'.
If you're working for dirt now, you're going to be indispensable (but competing with everybody else 'cause anybody can hoist a hundred weight of finished goods,) and that will be you saving grace.
Wall*Mart is the future of America. Isn't that aweful?
MSBPodcast.com The opinions expressed here are my own. If you don't like 'em... Think up your own stuff.
Yes. The result, without illegal aliens, is called "allowing the genuine free market to reallocate resources". A consequence (and a good one at that) is that people in the unskilled labor market earn a decent wage allowing them to live livable lives.
The free market does indeed work and enables people (including those at the "bottom") to live acceptably -- as long as you ensure (by banning illegal aliens) that market forces are allowed to operate normally and freely (i.e. free of obliteration by Mexican-government policies).
Genuine free trade, not fake free trade, works.
The Indian worker will not accept that they have to charge American wages. It works like this.
You have two people, one in India, one local. They both cost the same ( fallout from your concept ), they are roughly equivilent in terms of productivity. Which one will you chose? I cant help but think you will chose the local person. You can set up face to face meetings anytime you want, and it will, by and large, work out. No locality issues, no time zone issues.
emt 377 emt 4
IBM is now on my bad-guys list. They've sold out the US worker, and the European one as well. There should be strikes called by the unions. This globalization is getting out of hand. We need to stop it before it's too late.
Work hard, Love Jesus, be loyal -- It is all a sham. In the end we will all get cancer. And since, we lost our jobs and can't afford medical insurance, we will just suffer and die.
I say Fuck the Church, Fuck the American way of Life, Fuck the Man. Who really needs a big screen TV and all the other crap the world wants the American consumer to buy. Sorry for the rant. I feel like America treats its citizens like ATM machines and I find it annoying. Why is it after the world trade center was destroyed, Bush said [paraphrase] we can't let the terrorist win, go out an buy stuff? freedom is not consumption. I support an open-source world where all contribute to the collective intellectual expansion.
Apparently the indian workers make at at most 93% less than us for this to have been an improvement. Great.
Question everything
You never expect irony, do you?
Want to be a professional wrestler? Visit www.iyfwrestling.com
@iyfwrestling
until somebodies IP is poked out.
Seriously though, there is a great risk in doing this sort of outsourcing as a software company. What's to prevent an industrious developer from stealing the IP and selling it to the highest bidder? You are bound to the laws of the country and quite frankly... the laws seem to be lacking there.
I got tired of repeating what I say below, I actually put it on my web page here:
e w=5
http://www.windbag.us/index.php?module=article&vi
1. Outsourcing equals Importation
There is no economic difference between outsourcing a job and importing a good. If company A outsources its customer services calls to India, and company B imports a bunch of computer hardware from Taiwan, then both companies impact the US economy in the same way. The only difference is in the particular sector impacted (hardware manufacturing jobs vs. customer service jobs). If you prefer, you can think of outsourcing a job as importing a service.
2. Importation equals Technological Innovation
There is no economic difference between importing a cheaper good and implementing a labor-saving technology to produce that good for less. If company X imports cheaper computer (or potato) chips from China, and company Y reduces production costs by substituting robots for humans on a chip assembly line, then both companies impact the US economy in the same way. The sectoral employment disruptions and the effect on consumer prices are identical. If you prefer, you can think of the discovery that goods can be shipped from overseas as a labor-saving technological innovation.
3. Conclusion
Whenever you're tempted to cheer Lou Dobbs on when he blathers about 'Exporting America' on CNN, consider whether you'd be willing to send your PC back to Taiwan and insist on more expensive (and now non-existent!) US-made computer hardware. And anytime you feel the urge to insist on US-made goods, ask yourself whether you'd support outlawing the automobile so that buggy-whip makers can get their jobs back. This may seem rhetorically outlandish, but these are the types of equivalences the two propositions above force you into.
Imposing Libertarian views on everyone online since 1992.
You tell 'em, brother! Bring us back to the 7 hour work week! The minimum wage is a curse straight from the mouth of Stalin! It's not "child labor," it's "child labor freedom of choice!" Fire codes are socialism! (So what if a few proles burn up because we chose to save money by omitting some windows and exit doors from the factory floor plan.) I think those crippled beggars, missing eyes and hands and legs on the side of the road are truly the sign of a healthy economy! And who dares force anyone to put a coin in their cup. We already bought and paid for their $12.98 acid-wash denim jeans on sale, the transaction ends there, buddy! One day, when the EPA is gone and we handle our environment Russian-style, maybe then, America will be great again!
Tired of Political Trolls? Opt Out!
This kind of quickie-mart reduction of economic reasoning is why the Average American in trouble.
C ourses/so11/stratification/income&wealth.htm
Autos/livery business.
The reasonable livery worker said, "This automobile industry uses like skills, so I'll try to get a job there."
In 2005, can the IBM worker move in a similar way? Not likely because he's competing with similar workers who are being paid 1/5 less.
Outsourcing Creates New Opportunities.
Economic thought says the most likely answer is the place that maximizes profit. And that place is NOT the U.S. because our wages and living standards are so high relative to other places.
Progress
Ah, the cult of progress:
What goods/services will Americans sell to other global that they can't get anywhere else? They can get your precious Flash programming lots of other places for a lot less. Then what will you do? Likely sponge off your wealthy parents until you find something else you can feel superior in.
Sovereignty & Free Markets
The U.S. is an economic sovereignty with the top-10% of its citizens owning 72% of everything. That's using data from 1983! They got it using a heavily modified set of free market tools. http://www.faculty.fairfield.edu/faculty/hodgson/
Live and Learn a little about America before you put your foot in your mouth again.
http://www.maxineudall.com/2010/02/should-economists-be-sued-for-malpractice.html
We simply can't compete with people who only need $150 a month to live on.
"Thanks to the remote control I have the attention span of a gerbil."
Wow, I see that at least one Slashdot moderator considers me a troll for thinking critically about this issue rather than taking a dogmatic stance.
I never signed a contract with a company that guaranteed me a job. I'm quite sure that 99% of the population of the US has never signed a contract with a company that guaranteed them a job.
So, there is no betrayal when you lose your job and are replaced with someone overseas.
People in the US spend their lives working for someone else and expect to keep their job even when that someone else thinks it makes no economic sense to do so. They expect entitlements.
What I'd like to see is more people going to work for themselves rather than be dependent on someone else. But most people I've suggested this to complain that it is too hard. They, apparently, want their employer to do all the hard work.
FYI - There is no language called Indian. So before you set out to learn something I guesss you should improve your general knowledge.
This has been going for years and is the part of globalization that can benefit other countries not just India; for instance Latin America has been buying IBM products for along time, same as Europe and US, but opening jobs in these other countries gives some of the money paid up back in the means of jobs; I would like to see more of these companies placing jobs overseas in Latin America and other parts of the world.
I don't see the point of keeping a company exclusively on US or Europe if it sells its products worldwide; they just want other countries to buy form them, without collaborating in their progress otherwise than selling products.
Here is an eye-opening article about India/China and western countries. http://service.spiegel.de/cache/international/0,15 18,358800,00.html
To quote Thomas Friedman "It is interesting because French voters are trying to preserve a 35-hour work week in a world where Indian engineers are ready to work a 35-hour day. Good luck. Voters in "old Europe" - France, Germany, the Netherlands and Italy - seem to be saying to their leaders: stop the world, we want to get off; while voters in India have been telling their leaders: stop the world and build us a stepstool, we want to get on.
I feel sorry for Western European blue collar workers. A world of benefits they have known for 50 years is coming apart, and their governments don't seem to have a strategy for coping. "
- Sh!t
The economics of these decisions obviously haven't been thought out. That's 13,000 less jobs, which means potentially $455,000,000 less revenue (assuming median salary of $35,000) for that country, which is close to half a billion dollars. That affects the GDP, and will help to reduce the buying power of that country. Sure, now you can sell your products in India because India will be gaining that much or more GDP, but honestly, India is so poor, that they won't buy your products, they will buy food, clothing, housing, mostly it will all be spent locally. This is a very poor decision for IBM, I see their CFO's are too busy looking at the bottom line and not seeing the effects it will have on their customer's economies. This is of course, not including the loss of knowledge, which must be tremendous. Ultimately, if I had stock in IBM, I would sell it all right now.
if the message they got was, end free trade?
:)
Horrors! That would be an "economic catastrophe," you say. I want to try it and see. Or rather, go _back_ to doing it. Weren't we protectionist throughout most of the "good" years in the USA, for instance?
What would _really_ happen if we just let the countries that practice slave labor (i.e. China) do business with themselves, instead of letting the American and European labor markets be affected by slavery?
I know the canned answer by heart! Spare me! My cup of coffee will cost $100. You know what? I _want_ to see what the world looks like when nobody gets exploited anywhere in the labor market.
If first-world labor conditions are not economically sustainable for all, I want to say we tried and failed. I actually got the impression, from the supposed "good years" of American history, that we tried and had a rousing success!
Free trade, as far as I can tell, is nothing more than crypto laissez-faire capitalism. Plutocrats can undo all of the pro-labor laws in nation X by skipping across the border to nation Y or Z. Yes, it's cheaper to pick cotton with slaves than uppity high-school educated first-worlders. Wow, Adam Smith is a genius. Then a little while later the job market delivers the bad news to the benighted proletariat.
The punch line? The companies just lost to the prisoner's dillemma. They saved a bit of money and (if they needed it) had price leverage to beat their competitors in the marketplace. It takes a while before the macroeconomic reprecussions blow back, and you realize that big economies are driven by "consumers," not aristocrats, only now your consumers aren't so healthy anymore. Welcome back to the 3rd world.
In a global economy, the labor fleet only travels as fast as its slowest national ship.
Tired of Political Trolls? Opt Out!
http://zazona.com/ShameH1B/JobDestructionNews.htm
In a recent newsletter I wrote about a new corporate plan by Honeywell that some of their executives called a "Census Adjustment". Their cutsie corporate terminology is just another way of describing their new policy of replacing U.S. labor with cheaper foreign labor. I equated Honeywell's "census adjustment" to a corporate policy of "ethnic cleansing".
Since that newsletter was published I have received credible
information about several of the specifics of the Honeywell plan. The following information may seem like a spoof, but I assure you that it's no joke and nobody at Honeywell will be laughing as of July 1st.
DISCLAIMER: Although this information contained in this newsletter is from a credible source, there may be some factual errors. I have no way of independently verifying any of these factoids below.
***** Dictionary of terms used by Honeywell corporate executives
*****
Learning the dialects used by the corporatists can help us understand how they view the world. These are a few terms that I learned by studying information from Honeywell.
Census Adjustment: mass replacement of higher priced American employees with lower cost foreign employees. They don't make a distinction between foreign workers that come to the U.S. on H-1B/L-1 visas and workers that are in offshore positions. In most cases the foreign workers are high-tech workers from India or Eastern Europe. This term
is going out-of-favor among Honeywell executives because so many employees made derisive comments and jokes about it.
Globalization: the use of workers as a global commodity to lower cost. This term can be used interchangeably with "census adjustment".
Globalized engineers: usually used when referring to foreign engineers
that come to the U.S. by using H-1B and L-1 visas, but it can also be
used to describe overseas engineers that work for Honeywell (the exact
meaning depends on the context). The phrase is a clever code-word that
corporate execs and HR lap-dogs use for "Cheap engineers".
Infill - the process of filling job positions with workers. There is no
distinction made between the hiring of new workers or the transferring
of workers from one Honeywell location to another. "Infill" is a trendy
term that is very popular with borks and HR departments.
----- Honeywell's Plan for Census Adjustment by Globalization -----
Honeywell executives have decided that revenue spent for engineering
must go below 15% of their total expenditures. In order to cut costs
they will "globalize" their engineering departments. This globalization
process will focus on cutting the cost of labor by using the following
methods:
* Replacing current Honeywell workers with L-1 visa holders. These L-1
visa holders will come mostly from Russia, Czech Republic, and India.
* Whenever possible all positions in engineering and its support
functions will be outsourced to overseas locations.
* All new IT jobs will be required to be outsourced offshore.
* No external hiring will be allowed, and transfers of employees within
Honeywell will be discouraged until the job terminations are complete.
* Open job positions will be "backfilled with globalized engineers at a
lower cost." Managers that refuse to go along with this process will be
replaced with more cooperative ones.
* American subcontractors are currently being eliminated and replaced
with foreign companies.
The following factoids pertain specifically about Honeywell's Component
Engineering in their Commercial Electronic Systems (CES) on Deer Valley
Road in Phoenix, Arizona and Aerospace (AES). Similar tactics will be
used at other Honeywell locations.
>> Honeywell CEO, Dave Cote, has ordered Roman Jamragowiecz, VP of
Engineering, to globalize 25% of AES engineering. It is generall
AZspot
Dastardly IBM had been producing nefarious devices which think. Each of these devices, which are called 'computers', can replace a dozen typesetters, clerks, accountants and secretaries.
If this 'comp-sourcing' continues at the present rate then by 1970, 99% of America will be unemployed and society will be run large
thinking robots controlled by fat cat IBM executives.
"IBM uses what I like to call the 'hole-in-the-ground technique' to destroy the competition..... IBM digs a big HOLE in the ground and covers it with leaves. It then puts a big POT OF GOLD nearby. Then it gives the call, 'Hey, look at all this gold, get over here fast.' As soon as the competitor approaches the pot, he falls into the pit" - John C. Dvorak
Sorry I don't have any moderator points, or I'd "mod" you up. You are exactly right. Without disposable income there is no one to buy all the stuff that the factories all over the world are churning out. Currently purchasing power is supported by credit. Money taken out of home equity, credit cards and the massive trade deficit. This will not continue forever (or even for that much longer).
I finished a essay on this in 2004 titled An Economics Question, which includes an extensive set of annotated, largely web accessible, references.
I would rather pay a few dollars more for something made in the US that provides US jobs that pay rock bottom prices and hollow out our economy. This would still allow competition within the US (and kill off the buggywhip makers) but would still provide a healthy local economy. People forget that the free trade religion in the US is certainly not shared by countries like China and Japan.
But only if you hold onto the stocks and the stocks pay dividends.
Otherwise, you're 100% accurate. The "buy low, sell high" stock market mantra is pure speculation and speculation just moves the existing money around without creating anything of value.
http://www.bell.lib.umn.edu/Products/tulips.html
What happens is lots of money goes to a few people who spend lavishly on extravagent luxuries. That money comes from the many losers in that game.
And that is the problem with the current "investments" in the stock market. It's great when you're the winner, but there are far more losers than winners. No one likes to look at what happens if you aren't one of the winners.
Not to mention, who's going to buy IBM anything when the quality is in the toilet? /gam/
"In theory, theory and practice are the same; in practice, they are not."
that's where the shareholders see all the profit being drained off to - and that's why this is happening.
Not the owners (shareholders) - the execs (elitists).
-- Tigger warning: This post may contain tiggers! --
From the news.com version of this:
"Maybe the shareholders should look offshore for competitive executives who would collect less pay and fewer benefits," said Lee Conrad, national coordinator of the Alliance@IBM, a union-affiliated group that has 6,500 dues-paying members at IBM
...when we invent replicators and then we reach the state where the ammasing of wealth is no more the driving force. Everyone will work to better themselves and mankind... :D
and then we will go where no one has gone before
(sorry i thot everyone could use a little star trek)
They just don't get it. The winners are the consumer who gets to pay lower prices for the products and services.
Yeah, I just can't wait! I'm sure my electric bill will be going down soon and so will the price of gasoline. How about health insurance? I'm sure that it's about to plunge too. Food? No problem it'll be practically free soon. Housing? Yeah, we'll offshore that and it'll be cheap soon too... All this stuff has just been getting cheaper the last few years what with all the offshoring going on... Uhhh... Oh, wait...
Nice fairy tale you've got there.
Being in Michigan you are probaly familiar with a certain union that is a little less flexible.
I think you must realize that unions which demand too much are going to run themselves right out of ajob.
What things does your union do to ensure it remains flexible and efficient.
How do you handle the lazy employees or those that excel?
Any hints on how others can help ensure interaction with union workers is productive and beneficial, rather than confrontational?
I don't know where you are getting your data but Mexico has benefitted tremendously in trade with the US. According to our own government, there has been ZERO reciprocal trade with Mexico. It is nearly 100% flowing from them to us and they are the number 3 deficit trading partner with us.
. html
http://www.census.gov/foreign-trade/balance/c0005
[RIAA] says its concern is artists. That's true, in just the sense that a cattle rancher is concerned about its cattle.
I think you have it a little backwards.
If something can be done cheaper it is a more efficient use of resources. This allows a given company to produce MORE for less.
Look at cars, computers, air conditioning, microwaves, cell phones. All these things started out as expensive toys for the rich, but through cost reductions have become available to the population at large.
I'm in my 20's and I remember watching people use manual washing machines on their clothes, now most people I know not only have washers and dryers, but dishwashers too.
Why does democracy require a healthy middle class, I know that money is power in the US, but unless I'm mistaken the rich get the same vote that the poor get.
"if there's no scarcity in labor, there's no money."
p ower.htm
Horsepower, kiloWatts both measure how quickly work can be done.
e.g.
http://www.school-for-champions.com/science/elect
Same thing. Machines do things faster because they consume energy faster. We'll move to an economy based on energy consumption rather than labour.
Deleted
http://management.silicon.com/itdirector/0,3902467 3,39117645,00.htm
This is not unique to India, several countires (including the US) do this in other areas (agriculture is a big one).
[RIAA] says its concern is artists. That's true, in just the sense that a cattle rancher is concerned about its cattle.
Why not move the entire company over there? They'd be doing us all a favor.
We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence then, is not an act, but a habit.
10% increase in wages is 10% no matter the currency conversion. Add to that the fact that the dollar is dropping in value. That drop is going to continue until the Americans start making and exporting stuff instead of importing.
Deleted
"This kind of quickie-mart reduction of economic reasoning is why the Average American in trouble...Then what will you do? Likely sponge off your wealthy parents until you find something else you can feel superior in."
As opposed to your "quickie-mart reduction" of the speaker of an argument you happen to disagree with to mere tired stereotypes - he's a Flash developer, so he must be 19 years old and living in his mom's basement right? Wrong.
Enjoy your own "Pied Panini".
Single? Canadian? We can help. Visit http://www.l
I don't know about the advisablility of the protectionist strategy - look at Europe to see where that'll lead us.
:
m an.html?hp
Europe has been Socialist (read aggresive protectionsm) for a long time now, while the US has been relatively welcoming of
1. industrial + manufacturing outsourcing
2. immigration
3. now technical and IT outsourcing.
By all indications,the US seems to have gotten the better deal. http://www.nytimes.com/2005/06/24/opinion/24fried
I'm not an expert at economics, but if you try to meddle with the free market, you are going to end up with all the attendant headaches of a Socialist economy, viz:
1. ricdiculously high taxes (the scandinavians pay 60%+ taxes - and all is not so hunky dory there
2. stagflation
3. depressed industrial growth and innovation
All this talk is fine, but sure as hell, I want my next paycheck !
The insightful mod was made for this.
Open Source Sushi
When they came and got some legislation to prevent any copy of copyrighted work, I didn't protest, 'cause after all I was buying my CDs.
When they came and pushed software patents in Europe, I didn't protest, 'cause I didn't care about patent as I'll never develop software by myself.
And when they came and took my job to India, I didn't protest, 'cause after all people in India have to feed their family too.
And now, would you want fries with that?
N.B.: I'm a fscking IT conslutant, the evilest race to roam this earth, and certainly one with the lawyers that will be taken last to India. But believe me: one day it will happen, as this trade, and more and more trades with it are only dealt with an eye on money, not on customer satisfaction.
One last thing: before doing some consulting by myself, I was an employee of a little company making software. The package was sold for around US$200,000, and my mere presence in the customer premises was billed a whole US$1,200 a day (which is my any mean quite cheap for an IT company). And my salary at the end of the month was a huge US$2000 excluding taxes!
Now, I'm billing US$700 to my customers, and I get around US$6000 per month.
The difference? The villa of my ex-boss.
The day we'll pay people for what they're worth, instead of trying to screw them at any cost, everything will be far better.
--
Arkan
I've been saying this for years, no one seems to care. What country consumes that greatest amount of products produced anywhere in the world. Answer: the US. So if you kill off the middle class, as is happening now, who can afford to purchase those goods? It's a losing scenerio all around. If this keeps up at this pace, there won't even be any "you want fries with that" jobs left, there won't be anyone around to afford burgers.
If Kerry was the answer, it must have been a stupid question.
The UN - The largest "political" cause of death.
Comment removed based on user account deletion
Listen to yourself, dude...
People go to school and learn and better themselves... but you say, getting everyone educated is just a waste of time that fills your head with propaganda... youd rather have us kids working in your factories than learning right?
Yeah you people are creeeeepy, want to keep everyone ignorant... down with those public schools... education only for those with $$$ right?
What did your mom not breastfeed you or something?
Comment removed based on user account deletion
Tommck essentially supports the "fake free market", identified by the grandparent article.
Tommck supports (1) integrating the American free market and (2) the Mexican/Indian non-free market and insists that preventing such an integration is tantamount to opposing the genuine free market. In this economic system that Tommck advocates, the Mexican/Indian-government intervention (i.e. strangling regulation and corruption) are consistent with free market principles as long as the American government is not doing the same. According to Tommck, Mexican/Indian-government intervention helps to build a free market.
For the rest of us who have studied macroeconomics, Mexican/Indian-government intervention violates the principle of a free market. In a unified economic system, where the American market and the Mexican/Indian markets are unified, the Mexican/Indian-government intervention damages the free market in the USA and turns it into a non-free market. Economic laws and theory state so. They apply to every aspect of the unified economic system.
Tommck, like many American politicians, claims that economic laws and theory no longer apply in a unified economic system that integrates the USA and Mexico/India.
Who is right? Macroeconomics or Tommck?
Once the economy collapses the revolution can begin! I can't wait to spit in the face of capatilism!!
1. repeal all tariffs
2. repeal all taxes that raise the cost of business or investment
3. open the borders
4. ???
5. profit
(the ??? is the sound that the world makes when investing in the United States)
MORTAR COMBAT!
Laws against child labor and the 7 day work week only came about after the practice was largely aboloshed already in the marketplace... and was intended to cripple the ability of small family owned buisness to compete with large corporations, not to protect children or workers.
We can stop right here.
This is complete nonsense, about as truthful as denying the holocaust.
I dare you to provide one shred of evidence to support this.
Or perhaps you'll just claim everything is part of this pro-government conspiracy, and that's why the overwhelming conclusion of history goes directly against what you say?
This is great news. My grandmother was feeling a little left out, being the *only* person on the face of the planet not have their opinions published for the "real" reason Apple switched to Intel.
/. for posting notes for my grammy).
Spin away grammy! There's a hungry RSS feed propagation system just waiting to hear from you...No, you don't need to know what in the sam hell I'm talking about.
(I apologize for using
Yes motherfuckers. Yes.
There's going to be a lot less people in India to hire if this goes through. At least a hundred thousand less.
This IBM incident is just an example of a much larger problem which crosses industry boundries.
---- Booth was a patriot ----
You seem to be ignoring a couple of little facts which is the real problem here: money value and standard of living.
The conversion rate favors Indian workers. $20 will go much farther in India than it will in the US. Not only will $20 buy more goods in India than it would in the US, the people in India aren't used to having all these goods, while an American/European worker expects it. The standard of living is much lower over there. While we're here in the US worrying about having a nice new car like the neighbor's, they'd be lucky if they had any car at all. It costs less money to keep them happy. At $10 an hour they're making quite a nice jump in salary and standard of living, while a US or European worker will be taking a pay cut.
I'm afraid that the real issue here isn't one that's easy to solve. When you have a population of people who are used to living with less, they'll be willing to work for a wage that a country of rich people would scoff at.
> ...the 5+ weeks of vacation...
Oh my, the HORROR! We wouldn't want people to
actually have time to enjoy some of their life.
Same old crap. Companies think nothigg of drop-
ping 50-100 million on a crappy acquistion that
the mail room boy could have told them would fail
but if you need to get a new coffe pot for the
workers, well, hold the presses; do a study to
see if it would be really beneficial, etc, etc,
after all you start buying coffee pots who knows
where it will end.
What about the coming oil crisis? Is this gonna have an effect on oursourcing? Considering the price of oil is gonna rise to unacceptable levels, there is no way anybody is going to afford a plane ticket to/from India. .. let alone to build and power computers...
I just want a sense of the number of IIT grads who post here. The McKinsey people I know are Srikanth, Shajii, and Priya. If I were an Indian working in the west I'd be happy to see my friends back home get a good job with an American company. Why not go home and work in India someday? It will be where the jobs are anyway :).
It's good that all of those that were laid off will be open to make today's small businesses into big business that will beat old school IBM at its own game.
That could fucking well be the Western Motto.
See, the economic theory is quite simple: it says that, under conditions of free exchange, the prices of a commodity tend to converge within the area of free exchange. So that's what's going to happen. Wages in the unindustrialized world are going to rise *and* wages in the industrialized world are going to fall. Like it or not.
MOD PARENT UP
I get the idea that you don't work in IT, and don't know what it really takes.
A BSCS is about as difficult to get as an engineering degree. That, a load of certs, constant study, many years of experience, and a lot of luck, might get you a decent salary.
I know of lot of people in IT, they aren't expecting six figure incomes for nothing.
Right - and then you wake up and that darn CEO has still shipped your job out of the country. What a dreamer you are, dude!
Well... Slashdot needs an extra moderation item - -1 [misinformed, misguided and never been outside South Carolina].
Did you really need to put that troll in? Cheap shots are well and good, but I think you could've done without.
1) Get out of IT if you possibly can. It's a crappy field, and it won't get better any time soon.
2) Gear yourself for something that's difficult to export.
3) Discourage others from the entering the field.
4) The future is obvious: soon all wealth in the USA will produced by people suing each other. If it's not too late for law school, you ought to think about it.
5) Medicine and bio-tech might be worthwhile.
>They just don't get it. The winners are the consumer who gets to pay lower prices for the products and services.
Techies, in the US at least, are THE MOST LUCRATIVE CONSUMER CLASS. They represent the 'sweet spot' in the mid to upper middle class. They have disposable income.
I asked an Indian coworker what he thought of all this, and he said "America is easy... your schools are designed to disadvantage the poor, and what comes out of your universities represents those who could afford it, not the best. And the funny thing is, the US does not HAVE a CASTE system..."
That day can be held off for a long time by utilising the freed up work force to spread democracy around the world. You know Axis of evil and all that. ;-)
Are we talking about the skills that it takes to head the entire information industry off in bogus directions like putting the presentation layer of web applications on the server where it doesn't belong just so you can continue hiring more programmers trained in Java by third-world diploma mills?
It shouldn't have taken GoogleMaps to shake the industry out of its worship of zombie legions trained in the latest Java library.
No, Mr. Moffat, what is going on is wealth centralization pure and simple. India is better adapted to play this game than the US because the US is, well, was a country that hadn't gotten around to making its middle class subsist outside the cash economy. Or perhaps I should say India hadn't gotten around to making its agrarian clan-based society give up its subsistence culture for grocery-stores and mortgage debt as prerequisite to reproduction if not bare survival.
Seastead this.
A most excellent point.
Time flies like an arrow. Fruit flies like a banana.
India only has to be more expensive than their competition for US companies to switch. That will happen long before India becomes wealthy.
my piece keeps getting smaller. Really, it does. My raises at my current job aren't keeping place with inflation. Meanwhile, I'm more productive then ever without a coresponding increase in wealth (google for the phrase "productivity up real wages down"). That productivity is going somewhere you know. Some of it's the global market leveling out, but a _lot_ of it is getting into the hands to the rich. This isn't something to be surprised about. Throughout human history most of society's wealth was in the hands of a lucky few. What's surprising was the idea that the trend might reverse permanently after WWII. Welp, so much for that.
Hi! I make Firefox Plug-ins. Check 'em out @ https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/youtube-mp3-podcaster/
A lot of stocks are now owned by super funds (or whatever the equivalent term is in other countries). Call your super fund and tell them you want them to ask company boards to keep jobs in your country and you are prepared to take a smaller return.
"I wont win any mod points for this but ya know bashing Wal-Mart is easy but the fact is that company is successful because they play by the rules of the game and they play really well."
m art/
That's debatable.*
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/wal
*If "playing by the rules" is the way our society should conduct ourselves? Then the YRO section should be disbanded. Because practically everyone mentioned is "playing by the rules".
To claim that globalization is the result of the U.S. welfare state is impressively illogical.
If anything, the limited welfare system the U.S.'s got has grown its economy by redistributing money to the people who will actually spend it, and so encouraging consumerism, increasing demand, and in turn creating jobs.
The parent poster hasn't yet figured out that the Biography channel and just about any mass media outlet is 99% a PR/marketing channel. Some of this is surely true, but I can guarantee you that Wal-Mart helped provide, shape, and vet content for this biography. This still doesn't necessarily make them "bad" in terms of Capitalism. Just let's not act all starry eyed about successful businessmen.
West need to wake up, start thinking more innovatively, and compete with our best tools: our creativity, education, and tremendous freedom to explore new business opportunities.
Entrapenurship is NOT for people with families. It is high risk and long hours except for the few lucky. Been there done that.
Further, education is not a comparative advantage anymore for US citizens. Think about it. The total lifetime wages of the people taking our tech jobs is probably less than US tuition in many cases. How the hell can education be our comparative advantage?
Table-ized A.I.
I for one am glad: the third world needs well-paying jobs much more than the first world. Hopefully we will finally start to slowly move away from the terrible inequity in living conditions in today's world.
A race to the bottom is on and the slashdot crowd will cheer at this.
...
USA/Europe to India to Ethiopia to Uganda to
And the wages are lowered each step of the way....
To all the mindless people parroting useless corporate cliches, think about what you are saying, because you may be selling your and your family's future short.
Pragmatism as an ideology is not particularly pragmatic in the long term. Keep it in mind when you dismiss Free Software
What the hell? Strikes? Five weeks of holiday? I have no idea what you mean. If you mean to say France and Germany then please make it clear. Don't tar a random collection of countries with the same brush. Some of us are enjoying sustained growth and historically low levels of both unemployment and inflation.
Also you are wrong about the EU constitution; it was voted down because it wasn't going to bring any form of free-trade, unless by US-style capitalism you mean rampant protectionism and illegal tariffs. We shall see what Blair suggests in the coming weeks but clearly the constitution-as-was wasn't going to do much for Europe. I very much doubt you've read the document so I'll leave it there.
The fact that there is a debate and continued argument surrounding the EU constitution should in itself suggest to you that we are by no means a homogenous grouping; Europe is just an area on a map for the time being. I don't think you'd be very keen if I talked about "Americans" and then tried to suggest the behaviour or economy of, say, Argentina was representative of the USA and Canada.
People who don't think companies have a moral duty have been brainwashed by those very same companies. This amoral corporation hogwash is a recent, self-serving invention by those companies who do things like changing their names from WorldCom to MCI to try to escape their immorality.
No, thats not true. Theres a book out recently called "The Corporation". I suggest you read it. Early on the author establishes precisely where companies stand on morality; they are LEGALLY OBLIGED to have nothing to do with it. If it can be shown a company made any form of decision for moral rather than financial reasons, its an offense and the directors of the company can be sued by its shareholders. This was established in the Ford vs. Dodge (1917) case. Ford had some moral theories about business and thought he should pay his people more and charge customers less. The Dodges (then shareholders) saw the issue somewhat differently. They won. And so was the modern corporation defined.
For this reason even Noam Chomsky is on the record as saying that for corporations to take a moral action is in itself immoral. See, the board's duty is to look after someone else's money, not express their moral and ethical personalities. That they can do on their own time and with their own money, not someone else's. Thats how it works.
I share your sentiment on a personal basis but its in the very nature of the corporation, not in any decision anyone makes. The real brain washing is that people could think something other than that was even legally possible, much less practically possible.
Plays violent online games as: Nerfherder76
"The winners are the consumer who gets to pay lower prices for the products and services. "
.001 cents per month and 99.999% of the wealth from their labor will go to 0.01% of the population, who happen to be in on the political sweeheart deals.
And what excactly is it that makes you think any of these saving are going to be passed on to shareholders, let alone customers?
By your logic, the greater good will be achieved when 99.999% of the world population makes
Oh yeah, of course such a mentality is really just Christian charity in disguise.
Blessed are the fools, for they will inherit the earth.
Anonymous Catharsis... Nice Rant.
Assuming you can go by with 10000 a year you either are dreaming schemes in which you get outlandish interest rates or you are planing to jump from a bridge aged 43.
No wait, you are jumping from that bridge tomorrow and paying your only son's college education in advance.
You would have to be living in a cardboard house eating boiled rice only for the rest of your life for that money to provide as much as you claim. Even in a poor country.
IANAL but write like a drunk one.
What a load of tosh.
Honestly, if you are going to argument about something at least have the good maners to check for consistency.
Unemployment in India and China is vastly greater than in the US and Western Europe. Heck, there are people dying of prventable deceases in India and China, so jump off that bandwagon, The situation is so bad that Western companies can pay peanuts highly trained professionals over there because there are many willing to earn peanuts (by western standards) to do a highly qualified job.
SO let that one rest, people in Inida and China are not better of tha USians or Western Europeans. To even pretend that is a vulgar lie.
Your view of shareholders is cavalier to say the least, specially for somebody that seemed so worried about employment just a few paragraphs before.
Shareholders bet, with their money, in the success of a company. That money is what allows people to take a wage back home. Without shareholders there would not be jobs. It is that simple.
If you prefer to abolish or curtail shareholders then you would be better off advocating for other economic systems. After seeing the results of other economic experiments last century you better come with something very original, otherwise you and your marxist (ingorant marxist mind you) ilk will be sent back to where they belong: the scrapheap of failed ideas.
IANAL but write like a drunk one.
If IBM is saving money, that money gets reallocated somewhere.
That may be more investment, better dividends, savings, or a combination of all.
All these generate jobs. All of them.
The money that was being wasted paying overpriced technicians will be reallocated increasing the eficiency of the economy where IBM is based (last time I checked that is the US).
I am tired of people whinning when companies do what they do best: allocating efficently resources.
US people have one of the higest standard of living in the world (even the poor people, that live immensily better than poor people in poor countries) but keep whining about "their" jobs.
Jobs are like air or sunlight: they are avialable in nature but are not the birtright of anybody in particular.
IANAL but write like a drunk one.
... of laptops and other computer goods.
Beccaus markets become more efficient. And Indians that may have never dreamt about buying such things may now aspire to buy them.
But lets not reality intrude in your protectionist dream....
IANAL but write like a drunk one.
What made China and India poor, their enormous populations, is now an asset.
What made ths US desirable for so many people, its better level of life, is not a competitive disavantage.
The circumstances change, the ones that use them better thrive, but those same people may miss the next big thing.
IANAL but write like a drunk one.
Europeans are as productive as USians, there are many looking forward companies (Nokia, Siemens, Vodafone, Ferrari) and guess what, they are not killing themselves to achieve it.
When people in Europe hear about people in the US putting weeks of 70,80 or more hours a week understandably they roll their eyes and pity the poor sods.
ANd don't bring the startup excuse, very often used by "capitalists". If a startup does not have enough resoruces to do its work without enslaving people then not enough capital was raised, the business model and working practices were not planned properly, or the product or service was not great after all.
There is no excuse to demand from people to throw their life away for the very dubious honour of being in the edge.
Albert Einstein was on the edge and he was a very laid back person. WOrk intelligenlty, not hard.
IANAL but write like a drunk one.
... don't expect an answer.
Not everyone is going to be unemployed or "barely making a living" in the US.
Many people in the US will benefit from lower prices and thus money will be freed to spend in other things creating new industries (all the programming jobs, SAs, DBAs, software Engineeres, etc. were created from the ashes of the ld manufacturing industry, and thos in turn were bron from the demise of agriculture).
IANAL but write like a drunk one.
And is a complete disgrace that it gets rated up.
Compaines in Europe can cover 24x7 *every day* if necessary simply by using shifts, incentives and compensations. Oh yea, being light years ahead of the US in broadband and cheap public transportation also helps.
I have never worked more than 40 hours in a week for 6 years but I am part of a team that provides 24x7 coverage.
And my 5 weeks of holiday per year have never been denied to me.
Maybe, just maybe, EU companies have one or two tricks that US companies could learn in regards to organization?
IANAL but write like a drunk one.
If you really believe that, you have no redemption of any kind.
For goodness sakes, lets ask IBM to give people IBM's money and get done with it then.
What a dumbo.
IANAL but write like a drunk one.
.... speak more than una language and have travelled to other countries. They did not murdered Sikhs thinking that they were associates to OSama bin Laden because they knew the difference.
Many have worked abroad.
I think they are a multinational human beings.
While Europe and East Asia look for better ways to organize themselves the US can't sign a free trade agreement with the mighty powers of Central America and has many common traits with parngons of decendy and democracy like Saudi Arabia when it comes to human rights.
Guys, if you don't have it in you to take advantage at a personal level of globalization then move aside and let the ones of us who know how to do it become prosperous.
Keep electing religious nuts that happen to be oil barons and you may miss this trend, which if you are unlucky may signal the end of your era.
IANAL but write like a drunk one.
look we are going to outsource to india because it's cheaper, faster, and frankly more polite than working with money grubbin constipated US development teams. And the Indians are going to document and dumb down things for our techs over here. it's a no brainer.
If those West/East coast yuppies are too good for the MidWest, that's their problem. The companies should move to the MidWest so the "uncool" people who live here can get jobs. BTW, I live in the MidWest, and I don't give a damn that it ain't "cool". I think it's cool to laugh at the fools paying $,$$$ per month for housing while I pay $200/month for my 100 year old house in a 100 year old "bad" neighborhood, and despite common opinion, I've lived here 40+ years without getting shot.
Slow down, cowboy! It has been 4 hours since you last posted. You must wait another few hours.
companies that move jobs to save money lack long term vision.
if you are the only company doing it, its one thing. But if you are jumping on the gravy train, you best factor in the long term costs of moving the jobs and knowledge again and again as your current low rent employees demand more and more money...or your turnover creeps up with competition.
bottom line - the savings long term is not very impressive, and there are some disasters such as knowledge loss that comes out of frequent turnover and job migrations. but hey, if you make this quarters figures, why should you care...unless of course you have stock in the company or care about all the people who are financially displaced by this faulty strategy.
How long will developers in India accept that they get less payed that other developers in the world?
The payroll will slowly increase until they reach European and U.S. levels.
As soon as the living standards improves in so called 'low cost' countries, the cost of living will also increase. Then workers will have to charge more for their work.
It would be sad if the western countries didn't have any good developers left when this happens.
Another thing is that many companies have bad experiences with Indian consultants. I have heard from 2 different CEOs that they tried to use Indian consultants on different project. The projects were unsuccessful and the code had to be rewritten from scratch. So the money went out the window.
This doesn't mean that all Indian developers are bad developers, just that not all Indian developers are good developers. They are about the same as everyone else I guess.
So, I don't worry too much.
I have a little idea for a startup. How hard would it be for accountants in india to learn US and European tax laws, and then add numbers ?
Or that house renovation, lets send the plans to an idian firm. Fixed price. Have cheap "sales" guy that collects requirements, and feedback. $200-$5000 dollars fix'd price house planes for your renovation. And not just 1 plan, how about 3 alternatives. All engineering done (its just math right ?)
Need a new will - send the dollars to a inda firm. How hard is it to write a document to laws ?
Doing conveyencing (purchasing property). With electronic records exchange, banks online etc. lets off fixed price - $50 + fee's. It's just writing a few letters, easily trained.
so lets see... if we can outsource software development, which is actually a very hard thing todo, then the other industries which have very well developed procedures (unlike the IT industry) should be easy. We can remove most middle class jobs easy. ie. accounting, architecture, civil engineering (you can do maths just as well in india as in the usa, better if the latest stats are to be believed).
think i am kidding ?
You're being melodramatic. Programming jobs != middle class.
How much of the middle class do programmers really represent? There are plenty of non-programming jobs in the US.
Outsourcing benefits the economy.. it just doesn't benefit you and a small group of IT people.
My problem with sending so many jobs to India has been trying to communicate with them. Yes, they have a good grasp of the English language. When it comes to understanding English that's a different story. One of the reasons I have stayed true BLUE is that IBM's customer service has been execelent for the over 20 years I've been in the industry. But, all it took was one phone call last week to change my outlook of the once awsome company. Here's how the phone conversation went. IBM: "Hello, my name is Ann, how may I assist you." ME: "Hi Ann, I need help in verifing an extended warranty." IBM: "I'm sorry sir, I can not sell you an extended warranty." ME: "No, I don't need to buy a warranty, I need to make sure of what my server has." IBM: "Like i said sir, you will have to contact your sales respresentative for purchasing an extended warranty." Ok, the conversation continued like that for 10 minutes until I gave up, frustrated.... Speaking English doesn't mean understanding English!
is when the people realize that they can vote to confiscate the wealth of some in order to enrich themselves. Hence Fabian Socialism; use taxation to ease the burden of paverty on the most vulnerable of society in order to maintain a stable democracy that respects property rights. Now that communism has supposedly 'fallen', (yeah, right, tell it to the North Koreans, Chicoms and Vietnamese) the corporate mogules are dismantling the middle class one job/indujstry at a time and auctioning it off to enrich themslves.
the rich will always be rich
Immobile Factors of Production are things like weather/climate, natural resources, soil conditions, etc. In actual free trade theory, nations trade their excess products that they can manufacture at better quality and less cost, but that is NOT what todays so-called Free Trade is doing as there is no natural obstacle to the moving of jobs to overseas nations that have free schooling, free medical care, strong extended family networks, little to no worker safety/environmental protection, etc. Also the cost of labor is a small factor in al this. Nike for example is paying Vietnamese workers pennies per pair of shoes and would end up paying American workers probably a few dollars per pair instead. But when Nike charges US$60+ for those shoes, it is plainly not going to increase their costs appreciably to emply Americans instead of Vietneamese, or to start paying a competitive salary to its Vietnamese work force. The way to even the playing field is to also move our political leaders to: 1) compel plants overseas to meet US labor and environmental laws, 2) compel foreign exporters to America to allow for an equal import of American goods which is not the case across the globe except for Europe. 3) end the tax subsidies to American businesses that reloacate overseas. There is no reason to continue to provide the tax breaks these manufactures get for abandoning American labor.
yep that's right, the work is so much better quality out of India. They can also comunicate so well and really know what they are doing Technically. It has nothing to do with Unions it has to do with Greedy senior management screwing people over by cutting costs and moving jobs offshore. So at the end of the quarter they can say " wow look how much money I saved the company" do I get my bonus. There gutless and should be ashamed of themselves why dont they take a pay cut if there so interested in saving money. You need to wake up and smell the coffee !!!
Well, there are 2 issues here: is moving jobs to lower-paying parts of the world immoral, and are knowledge work jobs here at risk?
If the management of a profitable company displaces workers in order to increase personal wealth, then I consider that unethical and immoral. If you go read something like the Computerworld executive surveys on offshoring, then it's quite obvious that knowledge workers' jobs are being exported to low-wage countries. So the answers are yes and yes.
For the first part, you've yet to present an argument that it's immoral. Sure, it's a potential betrayal of trust, if employees were made a false promise of lifetime employment, but that's a sperate issue.
I just did, and I did so before. If you don't consider betrayal of promises and trust immoral, I can't help that. Greed is considered immoral, so any decision made for that reason would be immoral. The feds made a huge mistake some years ago when they passed "reforms" that tried to link executive compensation to stock performance. The only result was to ensure that executives work to make stock prices volatile in a cycle that matches their options grants and vestings.
The fundamental point is that one guy in Europe lost his job, and probably won't miss any meals as a result, and another in India gained a job making 30 times what he could otherwise make - so much in fact that it will provide not just for his extended family, but for the families of several others as he has a new house built, hires staff to clean his house and take care of his children, and so on. In the big picture, I don't see the moral issue, and in fact it looks good to me.
So stealing from the middle class to give to another middle class in order to increase the wealth of corporate executives is ethical in your book, Robin Hood?
In the small picture, working for a company doesn't give you some moral right to continue doing so.
I didn't say it did. I'm saying some corporate raider shouldn't have the right to fire productive workers in order to line his/her pockets, which is what is currently happening.
I have no moral right to be paid more than anyone else of the same skill level to do a given job, no matter what I might have been paid in the past.
Your experience and hard-earned knowledge are worthless? Besides, I've said before it's not about salary, it's about jobs. Teachers in the US make more than teachers in India. Truck drivers in the US make more than truck drivers in India.
Aside from the moral argument, it's just you telling a manager at IBM what decision would be best for IBM. You can argue that management hurts the stockholders in order to pad their bonuses, but the stockholders have to approve the board, and the board has to approve the bonus plan, so it's not like the stockholders aren't involved.
Heh. That's like saying we all voted to go to war in Iraq. Stockholders have a yes/no vote on directors. If one is denied, another one just like him and the CEO will take his place. The real problem in our system is that we have an exclusive club of corporate directors and CEOs. They are a class unto themselves - an aristocracy. I'm not saying anything new - there have been books written about the situation. The Europeans don't have similar problems or insane management compensation.
In fact, there has been a near-revolution by stockholders against excessive executive compensation in recent years, and I've seen heads of companies get the axe more than once when they abused stockholders.
A revolution? Do tell. After Carly got finished screwing HP and its employees and demolishing what was once a good corporate culture, the board gave her $40 million, outplacement services, and a company-paid secretary to get rid of her. Darned right, those directors showed her! Julian Day got $12 million in severance after making K-Mart's stock worthless - the stockholders really won there. Gary Drook got million