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Small Town USA Competing With India
William Hood writes "According to a news article at ABC, companies are sometimes opting to outsource to rural USA rather than foreign countries. Although it still achieves the same result of lowering the value of a job, I think the idea of moving to a larger house that costs less in a town with no traffic is a much better option than flying to Bangalore to train your replacement." From the article: "Sebeka is 14 miles from the closest traffic light, hours from the nearest Starbucks coffee shop and a far cry from the Chicago suburb he left. 'There is no traffic,' said technical consultant Clayton Seal, who also works in Sebeka. 'Anytime, day or night, you can cross Main Street -- almost don't have to look 'cause there's nobody there.' Seal also lost his job to outsourcing."
Although it still achieves the same result of lowering the value of a job
We are still a capitalist society. If someone is willing to do a job just as well (or better) than the guy currently doing it, and for less money, what do you think will happen?
For the guy that is accepting the job out in the country this may be an good thing idea because the cost of living is often much less out in the country than in the burbs or in a big city. I'm sure there are also people out there that like both working with computers and living on farms, all with the added benefit of having little to no commute to worry about.
Another good side effect of this would be bringing money into smaller, rural communities without bringing in Walmart (I live in Kentucky and there are many such areas neighboring the town that I live).
Regardless, I agree with Hood, I would very much prefer to hear that jobs are being outsourced more and more to Americans rather than being sent overseas to India.
Some positive things I can personally attest to about living in a rural area:
Your kids can graduate as Valedictorian or top 10% with relative ease
You can turn your TV/music way up and no neighbor cares.
Because it takes longer to get from A to B, you get a lot less visitors, particularly annoying visitors.
You actually take grass for granted (note: When I went to college, people were surprised at how I would cut across a grassy area without even thinking about it--apparently grass was respected if it was next to a sidewalk).
More space for personal projects.
Less traffic (as pointed out in the article).
No "Homeowners Association"...if you want to do home improvements or park cars in the yard, have at it.
An excellent view of the night sky.
Those are just a few of the things I miss about living in a rural area...
On the other hand, a company that gets massive tax breaks and general corporate welfare on the cost of american citizens should not be able to sell those same american citizens out for cheaper foreign labor that the citizens that helped get and keep the company running in the first place could not ever possibly compete with, simply because they had the misfortune of living in a top-society that values the Fortune 500 more than they value employing americans and keeping the economy strong?
How is the economy going to work out when the only jobs in this country are service jobs and everything that is consumed is produced overseas? Including knowledge and intellectual property.
No, nobody has a "right" to a job - but that doesn't mean anyone has the right to sell the entire country short, either. There is a serious difference between the freedom of the employer and the freedom of the employee in this country. You probably couldn't even live on the street for what they're paying in a lot of cases overseas. Are you suggesting that people in this country are just whiney and lazy because they can't compete with a position that requires 10 years of experience and a 4 year university degree on $6/hr?
Wake up and stop buying the Fox News Channel business-line hook and sinker. Not everything big business does is glorious and representative of democracy and freedom. A lot of it is underhanded, backstabbing and unpatriotic. Like using offshoring as a forceful threat to induce Americans to accept lower wages and worse working conditions.
Obviously written by someone with no knowledge of the housing market.
Most large metropolitan areas are, and have been the last 5 years or so, in the middle of bubble markets. Some are worse than others, but in almost all cases, those that make the median incomes cannot afford the median home.
Take where I live, Washington DC. We're in one of the worst bubbles in the history of the United States. People who make six-figure salaries cannot afford homes within 50 miles of the District. Even housing in far-flung communities like Fredericksburg VA, Waldorf MD, and even Martinsburg WV are skyrocketing.
The reason is speculation. People are willing to purchase homes they cannot afford out of the concept that they will make massive returns on it later on. They're right -- up to a point. Eventually (many are saying within the next couple years) the price point will level off because there simply aren't enough people who can afford those prices, then once it levels off, the speculation will end, and prices will plummet. Personally, I think it's all a scam engineered by real estate investors, which is why I'm renting.
Rural areas have been spared this. Making 100k a year, you can only afford to rent in and around DC. Making 50k in a rural area, you can afford a large home with acrage and still have enough left over for a very comfortable lifestyle. You won't be wearing the latest fashions and drinking at the finest clubs, but, you won't be expected, to, either.
There's always other friends, and besides, children would probably be better served growing up in a rural area vice a city, with all the problems that they come with.
It's all contingent on what's important to you.
" How exactly do you buy a larger house on a smaller salary? Chances are, if they move you to a more remote and cheaper part of the country, they're going to reduce your salary to an adjusted range for that region."
Easy they cut your salary by 20% and homes cost 1/5 what they do where your from.
I am thinking of doing this with our current tech support center. The difference is that we are planning on paying the same as we currently do. We are in South FL and frankly we can not FIND anyone that will work for $12-$15 an hour to do tech support. Home prices have gone up over 100% in the last 4 years. The average home costs over 200k now. The schools are over crowded and traffic is out of control.
Depending on what is important to you small towns can offer a better standard of living than a big city for a fraction of the cost.
If you want.
Clean air.
Good primary schools
little traffic.
Outdoor activities like, cycling, hiking, camping, hunting, and fishing.
Then a small town might just be perfect for you.
If you want
clubbing.
bars.
Chinese food that will melt your eyeballs at 2:00 am
Art galleries.
Live Theater.
then yea a big city is a good choice.
Yea you do sound bitter. My customers do not care that that a home is going to cost 300k here soon. They do not care that gas is almost $3 a gallon. They do not want to pay twice what they are paying now for technical support. I do care that the people that work for me can not afford a home and that the schools that they have to send their kids too suck.
We will give them a choice. They can stay hear of move at the same pay.
See my blog http://ilovecookes.blogspot.com/ for light hearted technical information.
What surprises me is that firms seem more than willing to outsource entire projects to another country or to some out of the way rural place, but as soon as the subject of current employees working from home comes up, it immediately get's dismissed for reasons usually related to "making sure the work is getting done".
I moved to a rural area 9 years ago and I lost so many of those big city conveniences. I lost all the metal detectors to protect my kids. I lost the drug dealer on every corner. I lost all the street gangs. I lost all of the crime. I lost having to lock my doors. I lost having my car broken into. I lost the traffic. I lost $250k houses and replaced them with $50k to $100k houses that are bigger with land measured in acres. I lost having to pay $10 a person to see a movie (In the next town admission for 2 adults to a movie, a large popcorn, and 2 20 oz bottles of pop is $10). I lost crowded schools (my daughters high school graduating class will be 18.) I lost crowded state parks. I lost fighting for hours every weekend to put my boat in at the lake. I lost crowded camp grounds. I lost all the lovely air pollution. I lost 3 hour waits to renew my drivers license. I lost high priced doctor's office visits (a visit to the local hospital emergency room at 2 AM, x-rays, doctor's fee, cast, pain medication, and follow up for a broken hand was $409. The one local doctor who still make house calls for $35 moved into town 5 years ago.) I lost having to worry if my wife breaks down that the car load of 5 or 6 teens that pull up behind her are up to no good. I lost the shitty workers at local stores (they bag my groceries for free and ask which of my cars I was driving today so they can carry them out.) I lost the fear and distrust of the big city (the day I moved in I was at the local hardware store and forgot my check book they just asked me for my phone number and address and would send me a bill if I didn't make it back to the store.) Your right I lost all of those wonderful big city things.
As for moving your kids so what, I know more then a dozen IT workers who moved over 500 miles to get a better position. Sorry you didn't get to enjoy the dot-com boom but I did and still had the life style of a rural area. I flew to either the west coast or east coast every week and loved it. At this point in my life I want to make a change and I am back in school full-time as is my wife something I would never be able to afford if I still lived back east.
In rural areas of South Dakota you can buy houses for $7.5k - $20k that are the equivalent of the older homes that are rental property in most larger cities. Want a lake front home that is $150k to $350k. It is a small lake and you can only drive your jet ski for 60 miles one way and have to turn back.
Spend the rest of your life trying to find a job where you can't be replaced is a dream. When you grow up and want to join the big boy's world come back and talk to the rest of us. You remind me of the whiners on my first job after I finished my engineering degree they pissed and moaned that I was paid a lot more then them. Sometimes you have to make sacrifices to achieve something. You want your cake and eat it to. Sometimes you have to make changes in life you don't want for the benefit of your family or career and relocating is one of them. You think you will ever find a position where you are indispensable you are nuts. Virtually anything and anyone can be outsourced over seas.
The point of the article is that while you can hire a moron 10 time zones away that has no idea what a vertical producer of something does for $5 an hour you can also hire an American in a rural area $20 an hour who does understand your company and market. In a rural area that person can live better on $20 an hour then you can on $40 an hour in most big cities because of a lower cost of living. I am willing to bet a lot of IT workers are paid a bit below $40 an hour. The midwestern work ethic is something you most likely wouldn't understand either. If I was going to open any kind of manufacturing or high tech company it would be in a rural midwestern area because people out here tend to be less likely to job hop because of limited opportunities and they tend to stay with the same companies for many years because most people here never move away. Where did it say in TFA that they are tr
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