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Outsourcing Evolving

Posted by ryuzaki0 on from the onward-and-outward dept.

Shree writes "An article at NYTimes suggests that the outsourcing mantra is shifting to reasons of hiring global talent, tapping new potential minds and amassing top global human resources. Its not just software companies trying to save a buck by outsourcing; now its about Berkely trying to hookup with Tsinghua University and institutes in India, and companies like IBM and Microsoft looking to setup R&D labs in Asia."

10 of 270 comments (clear)

  1. And people wonder why. by massivefoot · · Score: 5, Insightful

    If nothing else, this should serve as a short, sharp shock to Western governments. Why are we having to outsource these kinds of technical jobs? Most people don't quite seem to appreciate the crisis that the UK is going through in maths, science and engineering. I'm guessing the situation is similar abroad?

    1. Re:And people wonder why. by massivefoot · · Score: 4, Interesting

      Is that the entire reason? My aunt works in chemical engineering, and they regularly outsource their mathematical modelling to Polish universities. It would be cheaper to employ people to do it, but they don't for the simple reason that you can't get the mathematicians/physicists in the UK.

    2. Re:And people wonder why. by Fred_A · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Because of course mere survival is the purpose of one's existence. The fact that a century ago people have fought and sometimes died for the right of working for more than a mere pitance, for the right of not seing their chilren mangled by machines in factories, for the right to be able to afford a doctor, for the right to be able to rest every now and then may mean nothing to you. They must be spinning in their graves.

      In that case, you can feel free to go work in a US meat factory. It sounds like your dream environment. Workers are daily wounded or killed, they have no benefits whatsoever, they have the most basic of pays, the very idea of unions is ludicrous. It's the least protected work environment in the US with the least benefits. Maximizing shareholders value at its best.

      Nowadays if office or factory equipment is reasonably safe to use, doesn't irradiate you or chop your hand off at a whim, it's because of those damn workers that demanded too much. Don't you think safety goes against the bottom line ? In the short term it certainly does. And what matters nowadays except the short term ? People in Wall Street can't count beyond a couple months anyway.

      Sure, let's have a level playing field, leveled at the bottom. The chinese have factories with truncheons to motivate workers, fine, truncheons for everybody, we wouldn't want those poor western businesses to suffer now would we ?

      It's not as if anyone was paying the price except for the actual population of your country. Except of course for the happy few very top execs who will keep on enjoying their insane lifestyle.

      It's nice that suicidal sheep like you (still spitting "communist" like a good brainwashed 1950s TV watcher) are still alive and well. The abusive corporations still have sweet days ahead of them...

      In the mean time I'll stick to Europe where we're still trying to do something around it.

      --

      May contain traces of nut.
      Made from the freshest electrons.
  2. whatever they say... by elynnia · · Score: 5, Insightful

    ...it's all about the money.

  3. We've been doing this for years by ishmaelflood · · Score: 4, Insightful

    In Australia we have always been short of technical talent. The company I work for has been trying to recruit 200 engineers for the last couple of years, fortunately the recent collapse of engineering in Europe and to a lesser extent the USA means we'll be filling those jobs pretty quickly.

    Personally I'm pretty annoyed that we can't recruit locally, but basically our graduate recruitment program cuts fairly deeply into the available pool of graduates (ie we recruit more thickies than I'd want to). The truth is, you have to be bright and motivated to do well in an engineering course, and when you leave, there are far more superficially attractive options than working for people like me.

  4. I've been thinking... by boomgopher · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Everyone tends to agree that Americans/Westerns have a hard time competing with outsourcing, due to the huge differences in labor costs between the first and third world. Fine.

    But what I'm beginning to see is that the real problem is the cost of housing in the West.

    Yes, everyone bitches about high gas prices, health costs, etc (which all seem tend to be trumpeted by politicians with alterior motives), but these won't bankrupt you. Housing can destroy you financially if you aren't careful.

    If housing was cheaper, I would be okay making a lot less than I do now. However, I'd personally be screwed if I made much less than $100K (rent is over $2000/month in my very plain, old neighborhood in California). I don't really spend much on anything else.

    I'm approaching middle-age, and this is the number-one factor that I face trying to safely raise a family. Frankly, health costs pale in comparison as to how much I have to pay even to rent a halfway safe home.

    I think the financial industry has pulled a fast one on us, and are milking average folks dry. The environmentalists don't help either, with their 'smart growth' policies (i.e. 'no growth').

    --
    Your hybrid is not saving the environment. Its purpose is to make you feel good about buying something.
    1. Re:I've been thinking... by antifoidulus · · Score: 5, Interesting

      EXACTLY! Mod this man up as much as you can.
      Younger Americans are really caught between a rock and a hard place now. Renting is one of the worst financial moves you can make(the others being credit cards and interest only adjustable rate mortgages). Even if your home doesn't increase in value you are still better off owning than renting, because every month instead of paying a landlord, you are paying a bit to a bank and the rest to yourself. And by the time you totally pay off your home, you don't have to pay a monthly fee to anyone(well, perhaps the government :P), saving you tons of money you can put to use in investments etc.
      The problem for people who got to the game too late to get a house cheap is that it's almost impossible for us to own homes. First and foremost you have the cost: Home prices AND rents have been spiraling ever higher, but wages have not. So while we are making money, what little we can save after paying outrageous rents hardly makes a dent in the downpayment we would have to pony up just to get a mortgage at a reasonable rate.
      The second of course is job security. Owning a house doesn't make any sense if you aren't going to be in the area more than 5 years, but how many of us here can say they have a job secured in their area for that long? If you sell it before is up, all the interest and fees would have made it hardly worthwhile....
      I see the US becoming more and more like places such as Italy and Japan where kids live with their parents till they are married, and maybe even a bit after that. When I was working in Japan, my co-worker was a 30-something graduate of the University of Tokyo making good money, but he still lived with his parents? Why? Because he could actually afford a decent lifestyle that way(such as owning a car!) As much as people like to make fun of nerds living in their parent's basement, if I wasn't in Germany right now and could find a job close to my mom's house, I would live in her basement for a while. It's getting harder and harder not to....

      --
      Monstar L
    2. Re:I've been thinking... by jcr · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Even if your home doesn't increase in value you are still better off owning than renting,

      This is not always the case.

      Housing prices don't only rise, they sometimes fall, and when you buy a house you are making a very highly-leveraged investment. If you buy a $400K house for $10K down and $2500/month, and the price falls to $380K, your equity is now negative $10K. Lose a job while you're in the hole, and you're screwed.

      -jcr

      --
      The only title of honor that a tyrant can grant is "Enemy of the State."
  5. Blasting the Indians by HampiRocks · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Slashdot at its weekend best.

    Let the slashdot readers go back to blasting the Indians and the asians. How pathetic and incompetent they are, if it was not about the prize they would not get anything to do, we are so great they are so bad, blah blah blah .....

  6. Re:How to tell whether you're outsourcing by bushidocoder · · Score: 4, Insightful
    I don't buy that argument at all. A senior engineer at a CS firm in Omaha Nebraska is probably making less money than a mid-level engineer in San Francisco. The flat dollar amount of salaries are determined by the cost of living in that area - it costs more to live in SF or NYC than it does to live in the midwest. As such, the cost of doing business there is substantially higher.

    The same applies to international workers. The question to ask is "What is the buying power of the salary provided". If a senior level engineer in India is making the same salary as a junior level engineer in the US, you might think they're getting paid less. From a payroll perspective they are. But the buying power of that quantity of money in India is substantially greater - in fact, the overall quality of living for someone collecting 65k per year in India is going to be much higher than someone collecting twice that in the US.

    Outsourcing shouldn't be defined based on salary. Whether or not a job is outsourced should be defined on this simple question - Is the job in the other country a new job, or was it a position that previously existed elsewhere that was relocated without the prior occupant? In other words, did someone in the US lose their jobs so that jobs in India could open? If not, then its simply global expansion. Take for instance Microsoft - Microsoft has been hiring like crazy in India, China and Ireland. No one in the US is losing their job for these positions though, so no job is being outsourced. An international company is simply growing in international locations. IBM on the other hand laid off a substantial number of engineers in the US, and hired a large number of Indian programmers to fill the positions priorly held by Americans. Those jobs were outsourced.