IT's Last Hope — a Job In the Boonies?

GMGruman writes "Offshoring, cloud computing, automation, 'do more with less' — all of these have been chipping away at US IT workers' ability to have a job. But some companies now dangle a new possibility: Move to rural areas for lower-paying 'onshoring' jobs that can compete with lower overseas salaries. InfoWorld's Bob Violino talked to IT workers who've made the move and discovered that although it's no 'Green Acres meets Big Bang Theory' experience, a move from the big city to the hinterlands appeals mainly to just some IT worker segments, even as it provides new opportunities for others."

Comments

Sort of -- Don't Take The Pay Cut

[Bob9113]

The theory of free market economics is pretty sound: All labor (including management and executives in the broadest definition of labor) should get paid according to its contribution to GDP. That is how to maximize GDP growth in the long run.

We, information scientists and engineers, create an enormous amount of wealth. Like any resource, the long-term market stable price is determined by the long-term value of the resource. While it is theoretically possible that short run supply is outstripping demand, or that low-cost supply is outstripping high-value demand, I find that premise highly dubious. I think it is vastly more likely in this period of firestorm information technology advances that supply cannot possibly keep up with demand. Our long-term value is very high, and short-term demand may well be biased upward.

Said differently: The idea that short run supply is outrunning demand is at least highly questionable. The notion that we must accept lower pay in the long run relative to our contribution to GDP is pure hokum, and harmful to GDP growth.

By all means, if you feel so inclined, reduce your expenses and telecommute. Possibly for lower pay as a result of higher costs or lower efficiency associated with employing telecommuters. But by no means should you ever accept that long-run compensation should not be directly correlated to GDP contribution, nor treat the implication that supply is outstripping demand in the short run with anything but a very large grain of salt.

The only real threat here is that the myths being promulgated become beliefs, and hence lead to systemic bias. That would be harmful to our rationally self-interested selves, but worse, it would inhibit long-run GDP growth.