A Thoughtful Look at Indian Outsourcing 1772
thefinite writes "This article needs to be read by anyone interested in the outsourcing of IT jobs to India, no matter your opinion of it. It dispels some rumors (for example, if Indian IT companies do such bad work, why are over half of Carnegie Mellon's highest-rated programming companies Indian?). It addresses all of the arguments. Perhaps most importantly, it adds faces to the problem. It not only tells us about the American programmers who are out of jobs, but also about the Indians who are getting them. In the end of it, this is what Free Trade is about: people. This article makes that clear."
Cannonfodder (Score:3, Insightful)
Do yourself a favor. Realize that there are smart people in India, and there are smart people in the US. Realize that the amount of outsourcing done is ineffective and will change, but some outsourcing works and will work.
Re:Cannonfodder (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Cannonfodder (Score:5, Insightful)
17-18 million Chinese will migrate *every year* to China's coastal manufacturing provinces and cities *for the next 18-20 years*.
2) Game Over! Software/Hardware Engineering:
*320,000 engineers graduated in the Pacific Rim in 1999 (excluding Japan, where wages are high)
*65,000 engineers graduated in the US in 1999 (80,000 - if you count graduate students)
[[*1999 National Science Foundation, audited numbers]]
3) Game Over! American Technology Services Sector (e.g. Accenture, IBM (consulting), etc):
Massive infrastructure shifts to the services sector in Pacific Rim countries who have lost manufacturing jobs to China
There is virtually nothing anyone can do about outsourcing - and the fast developing intellectual capital resources of the rest of the world - that will insulate American workers, with the exception of regressive protectionism (which will result in an even worse situation).
In fact, *anyone* who's occupation does not *require* face-to-face contact
is at risk of displacement, long-term.
The next big 'thing' will be social entrepreneurial plays that bring social
and fiscal efficiencies into mature capitalism, on a large scale. Also,
people will learn - in general, and long-term - to be happy with somewhat
more limited material horizons (and probably enjoy life more). This is as
plain as day, and already in the cards.
Politicians will not/cannot do anything to abate the outsourcing trend. Why?
Because capital is "on the wire", and doesn't know national boundaries any
longer. Corporations answer only to fiscal mandates, created by law. Game over!
So, say "ta-ta" to the gravy train; let's learn to optimize our intellectual and social capital, learn to cooperate (intra- and inter-nationally), and become creatively and commercially fierce (like the rest of the world).
There are *three* general solutions to this problem, with the third being social 'adjustment', made by Americans:
1) Unlock the potential of American economic diversity with aggressive public policy. This means mandating changes - in telecommunications, manufacturing, education, and other vital sectors - that enable Americans to take advantage of their enormous intellectual capital.
2) Encourage the growth of social entrepreneurial activity, with the goal of creating massive private and public efficiencies from the great wealth of intellectual, financial, and social capital held by Americans.
3) Social adjustment. Americans will learn to cooperate (among themselves, and with others) more - over the long-term - and realize that there are limits and consequences to great wealth.
All solutions are related.
Here's to making those solutions happen!
Re:Cannonfodder (Score:5, Insightful)
God save this country from busybodies and good-government types who want "mandates" and "aggressive public policy". That horse shit has been tried for years in Europe, with unsurprisingly poor results.
Keep taxes low, spending down, and government regulations minimized and predictable. Everything else government does is secondary, if not counterproductive.
-ccm
Re:Cannonfodder (Score:4, Insightful)
Oh, we can bitch all we want about it, as we have the right to free speach.
Now, whether we have a good basis for our complaints or not is the real question.
Re:Cannonfodder (Score:5, Insightful)
They are efficient coders because of the relative cost advantage they have over US based coders. Probably related to there being 4 times as many. US didn't have a problem that needed 4 times as many coders.
being devoid of western egos
I don't remember any part of Hindu that promotes loss of ego. In any case Indians have their own impediments with caste and family ties that probably cause as much organizational difficulties as individualism does in western organizations.
Agree with the rest but then I'm not a coder so it's 'your' job not 'our' job.
Re:Cannonfodder (Score:5, Insightful)
It's all very remeniscent of the early days of computing and submitting programs to be run and then receiving the output a week later to debug. As I said above my experiences may not be common. Also outsourcing hasn't completely killed recruitment at the company and to be honest can be an advantage as we can pick the best candidates who then get exiting work to do rather than testing or writing test suites and the like.
Re:Cannonfodder (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Cannonfodder (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Cannonfodder (Score:5, Insightful)
Well, forgive me if I'm not as self depreciating as you are, but I feel as though I have *plenty* of right to bitch about my job going over seas. What's with this hippy 'let the rest of the world succeed while destroying ourselves' attitude? Why must I sacrifice my job for someone from another nation?
Re:Cannonfodder (Score:5, Insightful)
You didn't sacrifice your job. Your job disappeared, and no amount of wishing, screaming, arguing, protesting, legislating, hoping, lobbying, letter-writing, bribing, petitioning, imagining, discussing, complaining, worrying, fretting, bothering, sign-writing, stalking, or planning will bring it back.
Your best bet is to find another job.
This is how it is; it cannot be otherwise.
Au Contrair (Score:4, Insightful)
You are quite wrong. Much of the debate of the next Presidential election will focus on the "free trade" policies that are gutting the middle class in the U.S. to the benefit of U.S. Big Business. Many many middle class people who used to have decent jobs who now are out of work, or working at WalMart, are mad as hell. American workers are coming to realize that they cannot compete with overseas workers who earn a pittance. In the end, no amount of money from Big Business will keep the electorate from kicking the guilty parties out of office. Thankfully Indian programmers cannot vote for American congressmen and Presidents.
Re:Au Contrair (Score:5, Insightful)
You are quite wrong. Much of the debate of the next Presidential election will focus on the "free trade" policies that are gutting the middle class in the U.S. to the benefit of U.S. Big Business. Many many middle class people who used to have decent jobs who now are out of work, or working at WalMart, are mad as hell. American workers are coming to realize that they cannot compete with overseas workers who earn a pittance. In the end, no amount of money from Big Business will keep the electorate from kicking the guilty parties out of office. Thankfully Indian programmers cannot vote for American congressmen and Presidents
if not anything else, americans are myopic forgetful idiots. Everything about america reflects this... Let me explain myself before you can call me a flame bait -
Everyone today is complaining about "Walmartization" of the country, at the same time enjoying the fruits of it i.e. cheap goods. Have you realized how much the dollar fell in the last 2 years or so? Did that reflect in inflation? Do you even know how tough it would be once the inflation starts spiralling? ( I do, because I come from a different country). So, if you stop walmartization aka globalization, the next thing you see is that a deoderant stick will cost 10 bucks in your *local owned* store and a replacement part for your computer will cost several times the cost of the market value of the PC u are using. At the same time, health care costs will spiral up and employers will be reluctant to increase pay while covering ur health care costs. The cheap mortgage you got because of other countries putting their money in US treasuries and bonds will no longer be viable and you will be forced to renegotiate for a higher interest rate or face forclosure, because those countries will shift investments to euro instead of the dollar. If u dont think this is possible, then pull up a list of nations that "invested" in USSR and not USA.
Having explained myself, let me point out your myopia - you are crying hoarse at the negative impact of globalization on you but not looking at what it has done positively. You are also forgetting that how protectionist measures have beggered countries - eastern bloc and soviet union and many other nations including India and Brazil. I dont have a solution to all your personal problems. But what I am telling you is that you are not factoring in many things into your own reasoning.
Bah, superstition! (Score:5, Insightful)
The reason businesses choose to hire cheap programmers is because that is how much they are willing to pay. If you artificially try to raise that price, they will not hire programmers at the higher price; the projects will simply go away.
You will not make your job come back. It is gone FOREVER. It is a dead issue. Politics and greed are simply irrelevant; this is the reality you must face and deal with constructively, by looking for ways to adapt your skills.
A brief aside:
I have little sympathy for the millions of my fellow Americans who charged into the gold rush of computers in the 90's who now have no jobs. I did not choose this lifestyle because I had dollar signs in my eyes. I chose it because it is who I am and have always been.
I am fortunate that people are willing to continue to pay me to do something which I enjoy and do well. But I am not so naive to think that this will always be the case; I am mostly concerned with whether or not I am providing more value to my employer than I cost. If I fail to do so, then it is up to me to find new ways to be productive.
And I'm lucky in that my employer actually asked me to provide weekly status reports. Imagine that -- he actually ASKED me to do something which I really wanted to do anyway: Once a week, I remind my bosses how I am contributing more value to him than he is having to pay me. And by doing so, he is happy because he feels he is getting a bargain, and I am happy because I am well-paid, enjoying my job, and likely to keep it.
But there's more than that. I'm also keeping up on the industries we're in, and the trends in those industries. And I am using that to get advance warning of what skills I will need to brush up on, and the likelihood of my company succeeding in certain areas, and most importantly, when the project I am is in danger of becoming cancelled by the company.
My resume' is a marvel of marketing: It tells an employer not just that I have skills, but that I do this because I enjoy it, have always enjoyed it, and have a history of seeking to make value for my employers.
I don't have to like doing this. I just have to do it. That is part of being a professional. That is part of adapting to reality.
This is how you deal with a down job market constructively! You can go ahead and do your superstitious lobbying and your arcane petitions to the witch doctors in Congress to somehow magically summon your long-dead, buried, and decomposed job from the grave. There is no evidence that such mythical sorcery has ever managed to successfully resurrect a job, and it's not for a lack of trying!
Fuck politics. Instead, market yourself well. Learn about the industry you work in. Make your goal to produce more value than you cost. Do these things, and you never need worry about having a job, regardless of what you do or where you do it.
Re:Bah, superstition! (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Bah, superstition! (Score:4, Insightful)
That job you're so proud of? Dust in the wind. Good luck to you...
Re:Bah, superstition! (Score:5, Insightful)
I wasn't aware that only the upper middle class voted in the United States.
It's called capitalism. Americans have reminded the rest of the world of this fact for decades, remember?
Re:Au Contrair (Score:5, Insightful)
Nor do prices go down substantially when products are shipped overseas, have you seen any sort of dramatic drop in the cost of any sort of software(buisness or otherwise) accompanying this move to outsourcing overseas, or even to the continued use of contractors for jobs here rather than salaried employees with benefits packages. I haven't.
The problem with free trade, at least as it exists now is that it doesn't really help the regular American populace at all, the companies benefit(temporarily) because they can sell products at American prices while paying overseas costs increasing their profits. The overseas employees benefit because for them, the lower costs earn them a good living.
The problem is that the system relies on people being able to pay American scaled prices for the items, as more jobs get shipped overseas this simply won't be possible anymore. We're not talking about people being forced to work for less, we're talking about people being out of work all together. Even if prices did drop people who are out of work all together or working for close to minimum wage don't really care, even a 50% reduction if cost wouldn't make up for an 80% reduction in income.
Re:Cannonfodder (Score:4, Insightful)
India has some of the highest import tarrifs in the world, local content laws, and property ownership laws.
Re:Cannonfodder (Score:5, Insightful)
There are two types of wealth: natural resources, and everything else. You might argue that natural resources are "distributed" in some unfair way, but by far most of the wealth in this world is created by people. Emphasis on created.
If I mow your lawn, fix your car, or write some software for you, I've created wealth. In return, you give me money, which is a token of the wealth you created and gave to other people (unless you happen to own a lot of oil, timber, iron ore, etc., in which case you got the money by selling off this wealth that you "found").
The west didn't get all its' wealth given to it. The economic climate was designed to be (and lucky enough to be) the most conducive to economic growth. It encouraged people to create wealth because they get to keep some of it.
As more countries reform their economic systems, the populace will create wealth for themselves, and the other nations with wealth to invest will see these new markets as profitable, and do business there.
That doesn't stop you from making wealth for yourself, it just means that you have more competition.
I say, bring 'em on!
Re:Cannonfodder (Score:4, Interesting)
This makes it sound like the western countries got wealthy by plundering everyone else. In fact, countries become wealthy (increase per-capita income) almost exclusively by growing their own economy. Why economies grow has been one of THE questions in macroeconomics for a long time. In the early 1900s, Argentina was as wealthy as either the US or the western European countries. They have fallen behind, rather than being plundered. Several factors important to growth have been identified; consider how India or China (or Argentina) has stacked up until recently in these different areas.
Re:Cannonfodder (Score:4, Insightful)
So when are you going to give me all your stuff? Come now, don't be selfish!
*pure* capitalism isn't a good thing.
*pure* communism isn't a good thing.
*pure* democracy isn't a good thing.
We must use common sense. No single ideology will succeed. The United States Government has a duty to protect the interest of it's own citizens. It does *not* have the duty to ensure that Indians get wealthy. I personally hope some sort of penalties are applied to those companies out-sourcing vast amounts of jobs. Or that large benefits are given to those who refuse to do so. Probably the latter, as I prefer to use the carrot than the stick...
Re:Cannonfodder (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Cannonfodder (Score:5, Insightful)
But the consumers won't have money anyways, because all their jobs were shipped to India.
Get it? That's the problem. It's called the "race to the bottom". In a world with totally free trade, wages would quickly become as low as possible. I'm talking "don't ever think about owning a car or buying a house" low. This is not a good thing. What you end up with is not this magic thing where "everyone gets uplifted". What you get is companies bargain-shopping for the hungriest people.
Sure, tariffs and such can hurt if relied on to much, be they exist for a very good reason.
If you want to know what you're talking about, you should do a little research on Flint, Michigan. Sure those cars got made cheaper, but do you think any of those new workers in Mexico could afford to buy one? And what about the total devistation of Flint? There's more to worry about that "costs being passed on to consumers". There are things like human costs.
Re:Bull5hit (Score:5, Insightful)
First of there's not just one IIT; they are a system of seven institutions of higher education (Kharagpur, Mumbai (Bombay), Chennai (Madras), Kanpur, Delhi, Guwahati and the newest Roorkee).
Second, it's important to realize that many of the students from India who do the best in their undergraduate class become graduate students at those American institutions you listed as well as other institutions (some not very impressive at all) in North America and Europe. It is still a big deal in India to go a major American university. I have a few friends who did their undergad at an IIT campus. All of them left India for graduate study, because the research opportunities there are just not as good as in the West (although the situation has been improving steadily over the years). I will grant that the undergraduate education there seems to be particularly strong though.
Furthermore, it's important to realize that just because IIT admits such a small fraction of its applicants does not necessarily make the educational opportunities there better. Selectivity does not always equal quality. If anything, it calls into question India's ability to offer access to quality higher education for its population.
Learning is a cultural thing. While many american kids are focused on TV, Britney Spears, video games, etc, these kids start training hard for school at a young age, in the hope of their families to be able to enter IIT years later.
I do have to agree with this in general. In America, there is a very anti-academic tone culturally (even in schools). However, you have to question the quality of a life where from the womb all you do is study in order to get into a good university where all you do is work in order to get a code-monkey job which is your life.
Even when I went to highschool, there were probably a couple kids in a graduating class of ~400 I'd consider truly gifted students. Often I'm seeing the gifted students were foreign born, because their parents don't indulge their children with crap culture, but expect them to start preparing themselves to be citizens at a young age. It's usually the second and third generation parents who fall into the typical american lack of concern and discipline.
For this, I think you have to look at what kind of people are first-generation Americans. It doesn't just take a lot of work and/or a lot of money to immigrate to a foreign country. It takes ambition as well. Immigrants are therefore more likely to be ambitious about themselves and their kids.
Re:Bull5hit (Score:4, Insightful)
This is true, but from the American perspective, it's not very encouraging to see that you can work hard, study, blow some serious cash on school, and then have your job sold out from under you, leaving you with $7/hour flipping burgers and trying to pay off those student loans. That's one aspect of the Wired article that was almost completely ignored - with all of the people saying, "just move laterally into another field", no one seems to have a good idea just how to afford that lateral move and the training it entails, especially for the poor schmucks that are just now graduating.
There are lots of comparisons made with the steel and textile industries, but those didn't require an expensive specialized education that suddenly became worthless. Also, there is *such* a gap between the COL between here and India - the Wired article mentions that the project manager they interviewed makes $11,000 per year and lives quite comfortably - that's practically at U.S. minimum wage and not really a sum you could live on here.
I guess that this whole thing is an object lesson in going into business for oneself - when it comes down to it, you're the only person that can really be trusted to look out for you, because you can't trust an employer to give a damn.
Re:Bull5hit (Score:4, Interesting)
Well, actually, the idea is pretty obvious, and has been used repeatedly for the previous wave of outsourcing in manufacturing jobs.
The basic notion of free trade is it that it makes people richer. (If not, the parties involved wouldn't trade.) We all buy electronics made in Asia because they're cheap; that's a great deal for us as consumers (because we get to have more stuff for the same money) and it's a great deal for Asian manufacturers and their employees (because they get a slice of our wealth). In the long run, everybody is better off.
But as you point out, in the short run people whose jobs go overseas are in a pickle; they have trained for a job that's no longer available. The solution is to tax consumers a bit (so their cheap imports aren't quite as cheap) and pay for job retraining and income support.
There are some programs like this for lost manufaturing jobs, and there should be more. And their needs to be support for those harmed by the new wave of white-collar jobs. Write your congressman!
But the solution isn't to block trade. Trade makes us all richer, and blocking it makes us all poorer.
Re:Bull5hit (Score:5, Insightful)
While I take offense and you trying to rank IIT above Caltech (as I'm sure the many Nobel prize winners from Caltech would as well,) I think you hit on an important aspect of American culture. We have a culture that does not promote education. We ridicule our smartest people (look at how many words we have in our vernacular for making fun of smart people.) We praise athletes or singers or pleasant looking people, but not scientists or mathematicians...
Large corporations (HP and Intel immediately come to mind) are fond of saying that they 1.) have to offshore to stay compettitive but 2.) America needs better education system because they can't find quality engineers here. These two thing seemingly contradictory at first, but they're not once you realize that maybe Intel would outsource to Arkansas if it was possible. Don't you think that if Corporation XYZ could open a new office in Arkansas, or South Carolina, or Wyoming, i.e. a place with lower cost of living and lower pay scales, then they would've done that before they "sent" their jobs to India? For that matter, even here in California you'd have a hard time hiring 100 programmers in Fresno, which is only a few hours from Silicon Valley and has 500,000 people living there. Of course there's no shortage of programmers in Silicon Valley, all needing $70K just to pay rent, but you cannot go to less expensive parts of the country and find skilled labor.
Re:Cannonfodder (Score:4, Insightful)
Why don't Indians create rather than accept being cheap labor? Let's be honest, they are no different than Mexicans who come to California to pick grapes. They just have degrees.
A national economy cannot be sustained if it doesn't encourage the creation of local businesses. This is why Mexico's primary foreign relation impetus with the U.S. is making it easier for illegal Mexican immigrants to gain legal status -- They want the money these illegals send back to Mexico.
Why can't they create jobs for their own people?
India and other countries like it may enjoy the benefits of outsourcing for now, but in the long term they are suckling at a teat that is drying up.
Re:Cannonfodder (Score:5, Insightful)
You better stop visiting Slashdot then, because their parent company VA Software is a big producer of software that assists in "offshoring" of jobs.
Just see their recent press releases here:
http://www.vasoftware.com/press.php/2003/1164.h
Hell, just look at their home page!
Re:Look at this: (Score:5, Insightful)
scripsit rmassa:
That's a somewhat misleading statistic. I assume you're basing that on median income or something similar rather than cost of living data (I didn't find where you got your figures on the site you cited). As someone who has lived and worked both in the States and in a developing country, I fully appreciate how much farther a dollar goes in a poor country. It is quite nice, for example, to be able to afford to eat out all the time, have a maid, etc., while making less than U.S. minimum wage. However, once you move beyond food, domestic servants, and (to a lesser extent) housing, you realize just how poor you are. Want a car? Those are quite a bit more expensive than in the States. Ditto for any kind of electronics (computers, stereos, TVs). Travel abroad? That costs you just as much as it costs an American.
Bottom line: That $11,000 may make you as rich, compared to other Indians, as making $700,000 does in the States, but it still makes you poor on a global scale. For a geek, that's significant: imagine how rich $700,000 would make you feel if the shiny new laptop you wanted cost $200,000, and if a compact car cost about $2,000,000!
The end of the industry as we know it (Score:4, Insightful)
Realistically, IT workers (non-management) need to consider their jobs redundant and over in five years. Make sure you've got skills that require onsite presence, like cabling.
The industry is just about finished, people, and it's getting worse. Give it a little longer and we'll see the likes of Sun vanish, HP is exiting the Unix market and the Linux bubble will eventually burst.
Can *you* make coffee?
Re:The end of the industry as we know it (Score:4, Insightful)
I've had ZERO luck doing so much as speaking with a non-HR person in any of the large companies, but I've had a much better time of it with smaller companies. My advice for those of you that are unemployed and pissed off about outsourcing is to start reading the local business journals, something many geeks are adverse to doing, because they only care about the code (administering Linux boxes, etc), and find out who are the growing, privately-owned companieis in the area, and get on the damn phone and start calling. There's likely very little you can do to stop Dell or IBM from outsourcing to India, but I guarantee a 5-person development company in the US is not going to outsource your job.
Getting pissed off about the whole thing is just a waste of energy.
Outsourcing is a good thing... (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Outsourcing is a good thing... (Score:5, Insightful)
Bigger boats
$15,000 watches
Expensive artwork
Marble dog-houses
McMegaMansions
The little guy doesn't get to assemble these either, by the way. Those jobs have also been outsourced. We get to sell them if we're lucky. This isn't the economy Adam Smith envisioned. It's capitalism to it's logical excess. The rich keep getting richer. The poor keep getting poorer. There are 5+ billion people on the planet, right? Once the 2 billion or whatever in India become too expensive, they have 4 billion more they can exploit.
Re:Outsourcing is a good thing... (Score:5, Interesting)
There will be a revolution once the riches are sufficiently concentrated.
Re:Outsourcing is a good thing... (Score:3, Informative)
You must be single. (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Outsourcing is a good thing... (Score:5, Insightful)
Mortgage -
$127,006 financed at 6.5% after 3% down for 30 years fixed. Property taxes (currently $3900/yr) and property insurance (currently $1019/yr) included. FHA-required mortgage insurance ($53/month) included.
Monthly: $1276
Annual: $15,312
Checking account balance: -$4132
And that's for a modest 3 bedroom, 2 bath house in an inexpensive suburb of Dallas.
For those of us who have a family to support, and have made the "mistake" of buying into the so-called American Dream, $11,000 per year is nowhere near enough.
Re:Outsourcing is a good thing... (Score:5, Insightful)
That's essentially the problem for many of us. We did what we were supposed to, or what we thought we had to to compete. We saw the manufacturing jobs fleeing, so we took out student loans, etc. to get better jobs. We got those better jobs, which came with higher taxes. So we bought houses. Now, all of a sudden, we have no jobs. Still have the houses. Still have the student loans. Now I'm supposed to live on $11,000 a year? Come join the real world (not you, but the poster before).
Re:Outsourcing is a good thing... (Score:4, Interesting)
I have the desire, btw. I worked 40 hours a week and put myself through college. Then I worked 40-70 hours a week for the last 7 years while also putting time in to teach myself new skills. I deserve success. I've earned it. The fact that the jobs just aren't here is the problem.
Re:Outsourcing is a good thing... (Score:4, Insightful)
WHAT?!!?! You mean you've worked hard for the last seven years or so - to be succesful and "earn" it you have to demonstrate alot of value to people who are willing to give you wealth in exchange for that value. You have *not* done that, obviously, or you would not be on here bitching.
The old adage of "work smarter, not harder" has never been more applicable. If you're not getting what you want from your chosen direction, chagne it. No-one owes you anything, hell you owe OTHER PEOPLE money in the form of student loans for your education, and it looks like you made bad choices there... they were your bad choices though, and you reap the consequences.
Re:Outsourcing is a good thing... (Score:3, Insightful)
Yes, but that doesn't change a damned thing if you got laid of and still have a wife, two kids and a little Jack Russel called "Bono" to take care of.*
NOTE:
* = Does not apply to me. But I would feel pretty fcked if it did.
Re:Outsourcing is a good thing... (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Outsourcing is a good thing... (Score:4, Insightful)
Their reasoning is that we're supposed to be nimble and get educated again. To what end? When I have 7 PHDs and $1million in student debt will that be enough? Will their be a job I can get? Or should I just go apply for Wal-Mart greeter now? Because this "learn more and keep up" crap is stupid. I already know what I need to know to do my job. So my choices are spend more money going to school or get a service job. Great choice.
Re:Outsourcing is a good thing... (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Outsourcing is a good thing... (Score:5, Insightful)
In this case India is showing that they have a competitive advantage in programming. They can produce code at the required level and do it for FAR less than the American programmer.
It is not, however, a race to the bottom. The Indian salary will not remain static. As the number of jobs and the complexity of the problems increase (remember, workers are a market just like anything else) the salary will begin to rise. As the rest of the economy begins to feel the benefits of this economic boon in India, more and more IT workers will begin to do other things. Eventually the global market will achieve Equilibrium and the competitive advantage will close.
We talk about how these theories are untested, well we've seen the results of this same phenemenon in auto manufacturing. After all, remember all of those car building jobs we 'lost' two decades ago? Well, they're coming back in droves. The Japanese auto makers are now turning to American labor to build those same cars, as the Japanese workers salary has now surpassed the American auto workers salary.. factor in the cost of shipping those cars across the ocean and American labor makes a ton of sense for that field.
Of course, you almost never hear about that outside of economic nerd circles.. I guess we all just like to whine.. A LOT.
Re:Outsourcing is a good thing... (Score:3, Interesting)
Remember that outsourcing is a good thing from the perspective of Finance [wikipedia.org]. Because business is the slave of financial markets, preaching outsourcing to business is really like preaching to the choir.
On the other hand, the social aspect. Forget posessions, forget per capita income. People like the idea of being respected and being safe in their IT jobs. They're being torn apart by outsourcing.
Which party is right? Neither, probably. Just remember that when you join a typical
Re:Outsourcing is a good thing... (Score:3, Insightful)
This is not about economics, this is about culture and people. Even Adam Smith would agree that a broke consumer is no good.
Take a look at other cultures/societies and see what they do for each other. In the US, smaller ethnic groups _pay more_ for products from others in the same ethnic group so that they help each other (take that Adam). In Japan,
Re:Outsourcing is a good thing... (Score:4, Insightful)
Tough. Yes, you heard me. Tough. I want my job. My company is based in my country, and I say they have an obligation to support their own country first.
One must mix capitalism with a healthy dose of patriotism. It's in the best interest of the United States that jobs stay within the nation.
Re:Outsourcing is a good thing... (Score:4, Insightful)
Why? Are Indians fundamentally less deserving of well paid jobs than Americans?
While I am very worried for my career, I just can't bring myself to think, "I was born an American and therefore deserve a higher standard of living, even at the expense of others." Reports are claiming that these $11,000 a year jobs are creating a healthy middle class who enjoys roughly the same sort of lifestyle I do. While I do see the specific appeal of "I would rather have a good job than someone else," it's harder to say, "I would rather my country has jobs instead of your country having jobs." Ultimately we're all on the same planet and we're all human beings.
I love my country, but I can't bring myself to wish ill on other countries, and that's exactly what you're suggesting.
On a barely related note, if you want world peace, we need an international middle class. Once you're reasonably comfortable it's hard to justify putting your life on the line. There are exceptions, but on the whole terrorism is an activity of the poor and desperate.
Misplaced scorn. (Score:4, Insightful)
OF COURSE it is a "good thing" to the recipients of the work in underdeveloped countries. However, CEO salaries are on average thirty times what even the President of the United States makes. The CEO of Abercrombie & Fitch makes about half of the compensation for the entire House of Representatives and Senate combined. The AVERAGE CEO compensation is $11,000,000 per year--thats 39,285% more than the average American. A Dilbert cartoon recently opined on this where Alice is speaking to the CEO and asks, "I work 70 hour weeks and I don't make $40 million per year. Do you work twenty-eight thousand hours per week?" Note, this is a characterization of someone making $100,000 per year -- in the top eight percent in the United States.
This "they need the jobs more than we do" is ridiculous. That's a race to the bottom. Almost EVERYONE needs the jobs more than we do. By comparison, the unemployed computer programmer needs the $60k that used to be his salary about two hundred times more than the CEO who outsourced his job. Put your scorn for the overpaid where it belongs.
$60k in 2004 is $27k in 1980 dollars. Anyone who remembers 1980 remembers that was a painfully modest salary then. We're getting lost in a collective memory lapse where the numbers we see today are impressive compared to what we experienced a decade or two ago. In 1980, the pay gap between worker and CEO was only about 42:1. In 1990, it was 84:1. In 2000, it was 531:1. That's a jump of 44,700% in ten years. That's a compounded 192% raise every year. If a $60k computer programmer performed that well, they'd be making $40 million per year after ten years. In the meantime, we can all sit back and party like it's 1981. YAY.
As for this argument from possessions, the cost of possessions is relative to the location. Anyone who has travelled abroad at all realizes that the standard of living that $50k affords in the United States costs $100k in Sweden, costs $25k in Poland and about $15k in India. A $7.50/hour engineer in India is SIGNIFICANTLY better off than an unemployed computer programmer in the United States by virtue of the fact that it costs many times as much just to stay alive in the United States as it does to live in luxury in India.
That is the nature of arbitrage. You'd think by blathering Adam Smith you'd realize that.
Re:Stolen? No. US techs give jobs away. (Score:3, Insightful)
No (Score:5, Insightful)
People need to realize that the exodus of jobs is a one-way ticket. Indians can come over here and work as programmers, but Americans can't go to India. This is really a story of the American worker getting shafted by the illusion of "free trade." So let's stop the propaganda and say what it really is.
Re:No (Score:3, Informative)
Re:No (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:You do not understand (Score:5, Insightful)
Two wrongs do not make a right, but the USA, along with most Western nations have been taking advantage of other nations through trade with developing nations for years (sweatshops anyone?), unfortunately it is just the way the world works.
Re:Yes I do have a reference to Indian law (Score:5, Informative)
One major difference is that while in America, the LCA (Labor Condition Application) states that the H1-B applicant will receive a salary *equal to or in excess* of the prevailing wage for that job category in that region, in India, there is a reverse certification that the wages paid will be *less than or equal to* a certain constitutional ceiling, traditionally the same as the wage paid to the President of India, which is about $1100 per month. It's an archaic law that dates back to British times and when foreign exchange was a scarce commodity, and exceptions can be made, but that's how it is.
Americans (or any other alien) *can* work in India, if they're willing to work for about $12k/year. Above that, it requires more paperwork and approvals, but no reason that it can't be done.
Re:No (Score:3, Interesting)
It is not "free trade" (Score:4, Informative)
Free trade has three requirements:
Outsourcing of jobs to India does not satisfy the third criterion. Technically, it is incorrect to call it "free trade".
The only true free trade system I am aware of is the European Union.
Re:No (Score:4, Informative)
When my company decided to "offshore" much of its development to a newly created division in India, we laid off a lot of H1Bs and resident Indian workers. To be "nice", we offered them their same jobs in India. But not one was hired. Why? The interviewer felt that they had been "tainted" by working in the US. Most of the interviews lasted less than five minutes. But one caucasion WAS hired...to be a US/India Liaison.
It's not the Indian programmers... (Score:5, Insightful)
They get the nice fat promotions and bonuses, while our jobs go elsewhere. And we are the same people they praised just last year as invaluable assets to the company.
So what happened? They can't get rich pulling fancy accounting tricks, so this is what they've resorted to.
I seriously hope that I'm wrong when I predict that this whole thing will fail miserably (taking the off-shore jobs with it).
Re:It's not the Indian programmers... (Score:5, Insightful)
They get the nice fat promotions and bonuses, while our jobs go elsewhere. And we are the same people they praised just last year as invaluable assets to the company.
So what happened? They can't get rich pulling fancy accounting tricks, so this is what they've resorted to.
Recall that the primary objective of most corporations is only to make money. Everything else is secondary, including you and me. You can take that $120k job but remember that you're signing with a company--and management--whose primary driver is to make money.
Don't like the system? You can start your own company. I'm going to try that out, personally.
Re:It's not the Indian programmers... (Score:5, Insightful)
Value can be about much more than money especially when you are thinking farther than 1 or 2 quarters ahead, which is where the upper level execs should be looking. A good value increasing strategy can be a loser for short term profits but beneficial to the company overall in the longer term.
Outsourcing your core business (which I admit many companies who are outsourcing to India arent doing) is very dangerous in the mid to long term outlook for the value of your company because you are eventually going to create your own strong competitors in your own markets, while reducing your own staff including some of the employees who produce the value in your company.
However its very attractive in the very short term because cutting costs results in an immediate increase in the bottom line - and profits cause shares to go up in the current market environment regardless if they are wise in the long term.
Re:It's not the Indian programmers... (Score:4, Insightful)
Oh, yeah? Then why aren't they offshoring the management jobs, too, huh?
Right. It's not just about making money for the corporation.
that easy for you too say... (Score:5, Interesting)
I have nothing again'st people making a living, but lets see how your tune changes when they start outsourcing journalist jobs...
With all the Indians working as IT programmers (Score:5, Funny)
As I was told by an Indian man at a liquor store once as I was reading a magazine... "this is not a library, you either buy or get out".
Interesting indeed (Score:5, Interesting)
In the end, I do think it'll be a while before the "highest level" of IT (such as research labs) find comparable counterparts at that deep a discount. People who are worried about their job moving offshore should think about how they can do things that can't move as easily, perhaps by increasing their education (MS/PhD)...
america are overpaid? (Score:3, Insightful)
Maybe all americans are simply overpaid and we're in for a BIG correction in the coming years?
Kinda scary.
Re:america are overpaid? (Score:3, Insightful)
I'm a software engineer. I don't care about getting rich, I enjoy my job. All I ask is that I can make enough to pay my bills, have a little extra money for spending, and be able to save up for my retirement.
I don't make $100,000 per year (I actually ma
Re:america are overpaid? (Score:4, Insightful)
We've already had the correction. When some schmuck finishing his sophomore year of college made $80,000 for making web pages with Frontpage, that was a bubble that needed correction. We're on the other side of that now - when reasonably skilled programmers out of top-tier universities can't get jobs that pay over $30,000 (and they're lucky to have that). It's obscene to say that someone who gets a four-year degree developing a fairly technical skill deserves to barely gets paid enough to get by and make payments on their university debt. There's something wrong with this picture. Quite honestly, we're crossing the threshhold where going to college may no longer be the financially "best" option out there - trade school and a good apprenticeship in auto repair gets you a more marketable skill that actually pays better, with far less education (and cost thereof.) Again - something is wrong with this picture, and it ain't that programmers are "overpaid".
Re:america are overpaid? (Score:4, Informative)
Maybe all americans are simply overpaid and we're in for a BIG correction in the coming years?
It's called "deflation", and it's probably the worst thing that can happen to an economy short of nuclear war. Once an economy goes into deflation, there's almost no way to get it out again.
When an economy is going through deflation, it always makes more sense to spend as little money as possible, since prices will be lower in the future. But everyone holding on to their money just decreases the amount in circulation further, so prices continue to drop, so people hold on to more money, so prices drop further, and so on. In the mean time, since no-one's buying anything but the essentials, jobs are being lost left and right.
Re:america are overpaid? (Score:5, Interesting)
Apart from the controversy of devaluing (Americans would lose the value of their assets), it might bring down capitalism with it. The US dollar is tied into so many things that devluation will impact nearly everything. Starting with a mess in the oil markets (look into something call petroldollar), it will impact US debt, world trade, and so forth. If US dollar devalues, USA will probably default on its debt. I claim that if USA defaults on its debt, capitalism will collapse.
Sivaram Velauthapillai
interesting passages (Score:3, Interesting)
-----
Maniar uncorks an aphorism that he doesn't realize I've heard 8,000 times before (in part because American white-collar workers have long said it to their blue-collar compadres) - and that I don't realize I'll hear several times again during my stay: "There's nothing permanent except change."
-----
The experience did more than capsize his work life. It battered his belief system. He's long espoused the virtues of free trade. He says that he supported Nafta and that for 12 years he's subscribed to The Economist, a hymnal in the free trade church. But now he's questioning core beliefs. "These are theories that have really not been tested and proven," he says. "We're using people's lives to do this experiment - to find out what happens."
-----
"Someday," Janish says, "another nation will take business from India." Perhaps China or the Philippines, which are already competing for IT work.
"When that happens, how will you respond?" I ask.
"I think you must have read Who Moved My Cheese?" Aparna says to my surprise.
amazing, they read American motivational books. btw, I recommend the book to you. very short book, you can read it in barnes and noble..
-----
For US workers, the path beyond services seems uncertain. But again, history provides a guide. Thirty years ago, another form of outsourcing hit the US service sector: the computer. That led to a swarm of soulless processing machines, promoted by management consultants and embraced by profit-obsessed executives gobbling jobs in a push for efficiency. If today's cry of the displaced is "They sent my job to India!" yesterday's was "I was replaced by a computer!"
Then, as now, the potential for disruption seemed infinite. Data crunching was just the start. Soon electronic brains would replace most of the accounting department, the typing pool, and the switchboard. After that, the thinking went, the modern corporation would apply the same technology to middle management, business analysis, and, ultimately, decisionmaking. If your job was emptying an inbox and filling an outbox, you were begging for someone to draw the I/O analogy - and act on it. Indeed, computer terminology is littered with traces of what were formerly jobs: printers, monitors, file managers; even computers themselves used to be people, not machines.
Computers have, of course, reshaped the workplace. But they have also proved remarkably effective at creating jobs. Bookkeepers of old, adding columns in ledgers, are today's financial analysts, wielding Excel and PowerPoint in boardroom strategy sessions. Secretaries have morphed into executive assistants, more aides-de-camp than stenographers. Typesetters have become designers. True, in many cases different people filled the new jobs, leaving millions painfully displaced, but over time the net effect was positive - for workers and employers alike.
If you've read this much, check out the article. I liked it...just remember to question everything you hear
Rather pointless article (Score:5, Interesting)
Outsourcing isn't the magic arrow CEOs want it to be. This article doesn't really address anything important at all. Ratings are pretty meaningless. I know parts of companies that are rated at SEI Level 5, but produce some of the worst crap I've seen. They're rated well though, so they much be good.
Why doesn't someone write an article about all the times outsourcing has been tried before? How about what happened with Malaysia? How about the fact that the overhead involved in trying to manage people half-way around the world is higher than the amount they save by outsourcing? This isn't a new fad people. Sure, the people and the places change but the problems don't.
Things are different now than they were in the 80's I'll grant you, but no one seems to be drawing the comparisons. Health Care costs are rising in the US, thus possibly providing better savings when outsourcing now. However, it's not like this is a new concept and that the problems aren't well known. Let's see some hard questions asked and analysis done based on past experience!
KhyronThe problems with outsourcing (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:The problems with outsourcing (Score:5, Insightful)
Or, the problem will correct itself.
I hope that Americans are wise enough not to do something so foolish as to enact legislation to stop outsourcing. Unfortunately, people are that stupid.
India (Score:4, Interesting)
Do political situations, like the border skirmishes near Kashmir, ever get discussed when it comes to making these outsourcing decisions? If India was thrown into a state of turmoil due to an attack from Pakistan what would happen to outsourced projects? Or if India attacked Pakistan in a way that the US felt was too severe and sanctions were put into place against India, what would happen to these contracts?
Just more hype (Score:5, Interesting)
Are there really really good, really smart Indian programmers? Of course there are! But overall, on the average, outsourcing will end up biting most companies in the ass, in the long run. There are hidden costs to it, like the 11 hour time difference, language barriers, cultural differences (anecdotally, from many accounts, Indians tend not to raise questions, or think independently when a design sucks, etc.)
Worse yet, this will bite the US Software industry in the ass when we suffer from brain drain - when software engineering is no longer a sought after degree. Then the Indians will start their own companies, and eat our lunches.
Worse still - with the decimation of these high-paying jobs, comes an overall lowering of the standard of living here in the US. These companies got rich by selling to the richest market in the world - American consumers. By gutting their own customers, these companies are shooting themselves in the foot.
- - -
That said - the writing, in big letters, in crayon, is:
Investors should believe that a wise company outsources, because it's a move towards efficiency. It will eliminate those overpaid "web designers" that are sapping corporate profits. Companies are "cutting fat". It's perceived as a gutsy move.
Actually, it's the herd mentality. "Oh my god! IBM's outsourcing, they're going to KILL us unless we outsource too."
But mainly - it's a movement designed to lure investment dollars back to the Tech Industry. It's basically hype. Companies who outsource are selling stock. Not products and services. This is their motivation, their drive. And it's very much a herd mentality. Among investors, AND corporations. They may be heading off a cliff. They may be heading to the slaughterhouse. Or perhaps greener pastures. But make no mistake. The Outsourcing Movement is NOT a drive to offer better service, or find better talent, or even save real money. It's a drive to LOOK like they are.
Re:Just more hype (Score:3, Funny)
I'm taking an Indian's job away (Score:4, Interesting)
Granted, it's not 6 figures like 5 years ago, but it's still nice.
SEI CMM (Score:3, Insightful)
Having worked with two Level 5 organizations, one level 4, and several level 3, I can assure you it's just expensive window dressing. Motorola foisted this fraud on the world in order to keep their Malcolm Baldridge award (they were told they had find something similiar to their six sigma program, but for software). The way you get to levels 2 through 5 is to fire the internal assessors (yes, they self assess folks), until their replacements tell you what you want to hear (Ye Gads, you're a level 3 organization!).
Unfortunately, the cost of generating the useless paper for the audit trail costs as much as generating the actual software, so they farmed out the work to their internal offshore software factories (at first in India, but now, wherever hords of programmers are cheap).
The vast majority of Indian job shops are also self assessed, and comically so (I've been told by some directors of SE that they are SEI CMM 3.5). The real problem is that the CMM has never been objectively validated. You hear wonderful claims by the SEPGs, and CMM - but their jobs depend on it, so fudging is expected. The proof is in the pudding, and when times got tough at Motorola, the CMM and Six Sigma specialists were the first to go. There's now grumbling about what to do with Global Software Group (their internal offshore outsourceing groups). Cheap is still no deal if it don't work.
This problem is not as big as some think (Score:5, Insightful)
most of the jobs that are moving out of the country are the type of jobs that are high profile. And therefor we hear a lot about it.
Typically, it is programming projects that require teams of 20 or 30 people (maybe) and that lasts for a year or longer.
But many programmers are employed where proximity is important and where the primary product isn't the software itself. Maybe it is a small financial institution or maybe a factory which needs a few programmers to build in house systems.
Sure, it sucks when HP, Sun and others move their big and fun projects to India, but many jobs will remain here, because it isn't cost effective to move them to India.
It's NOT about Free Trade (Score:3, Insightful)
But, really, there is a much more important issue that doesn't seem to be getting airtime. As a software developer, I have no problem with India or any other country doing my job. However, claiming that this is all just "capitalism at work" and developers should just "suck it up" is a specious argument, at best. I pay taxes to support the government, which in turn supports the citizens and corporations here in the US (I'm not interested in addressing whether this is the proper function of govt., that's just how it is right now). These corporations are taking those government granted favors (in the form of subsidies, tax breaks, trade favors, patent and copyright protections, use of infrasturcture resources such as highways, etc etc etc ) and hiring people overseas. Now, if MS or IBM wants to move their headquarters over to India, fine, so be it. But I truly believe it's a crock to take advantage of the pro-business US laws, excellent infrastructure, a competent policing force, and all the other services that developed under our system of capitalism, and then not supporting the community that supports you. I'm not talking handouts or redistribution of wealth, I'm talking about the long-term consequences of this sort of policy. Yes, US software developers cost more, but the cost of that worker is factoring in a lot of "unseen" advantages that are granted to companies founded here.
The environment that allowed MS and IBM and all the rest to grow and prosper is unique to the United States. These companies would have never happened if they had started in India.
George Monbiot - The Flight to India (Score:4, Interesting)
The Flight to India
The jobs Britain stole from the Asian subcontinent 300 years ago are now returning. Is this a good thing or a bad one?
If you live in a rich nation in the English-speaking world, and most of your work involves a computer or a telephone, don't expect to have a job in five years' time. Almost every large company which relies upon remote transactions is starting to dump its workers and hire a cheaper labour force overseas. All those concerned about economic justice and the distribution of wealth at home should despair. All those concerned about global justice and the distribution of wealth around the world should rejoice. As we are, by and large, the same people, we have a problem.
Britain's industrialisation was secured by destroying the manufacturing capacity of India. In 1699, the British government banned the import of woollen cloth from Ireland, and in 1700 the import of cotton cloth (or calico) from India.1 Both products were forbidden because they were superior to our own. As the industrial revolution was built on the textiles industry, we could not have achieved our global economic dominance if we had let them in. Throughout the 18th and 19th centuries, India was forced to supply raw materials to Britain's manufacturers, but forbidden to produce competing finished products.2 We are rich because the Indians are poor.
Now the jobs we stole 300 years ago are returning to India. Last week the Guardian revealed that the National Rail Enquiries service is likely to move to Bangalore, in south-west India. Two days later, the HSBC bank announced that it is cutting 4000 customer service jobs in Britain, and shifting them to Asia. BT, British Airways, Lloyds TSB, Prudential, Standard Chartered, Norwich Union, BUPA, Reuters, Abbey National and Powergen have already begun to move their call centres to India. The British workers at the end of the line are approaching the end of the line.
There is a profound historical irony here. Indian workers can outcompete British workers today because Britain smashed their ability to compete in the past. Having destroyed India's own industries, the East India Company and the colonial authorities obliged its people to speak our language, adopt our working practices and surrender their labour to multinational corporations. Workers in call centres in Germany and Holland are less vulnerable than ours, as Germany and Holland were less successful colonists, with the result that fewer people in the poor world now speak their languages.
The impact on British workers will be devastating. Service jobs of the kind now being exported were supposed to make up for the loss of employment in the manufacturing industries which disappeared overseas in the 1980s and 1990s. The government handed out grants for cybersweatshops in places whose industrial workforce had been crushed by the closure of mines, shipyards and steelworks. But the companies running the call centres appear to have been testing their systems at government expense before exporting them somewhere cheaper.
It is not hard to see why almost all of them have chosen India. The wages of workers in the service and technology industries there are roughly one tenth of those of workers in the same sectors over here. Standards of education are high, and almost all educated Indians speak English. While British workers will take call centre jobs only when they have no choice, Indian workers see them as glamorous.3 One technical support company in Bangalore recently advertised 800 jobs. It received 87,000 applications.4 British call centres moving to India can choose the most charming, patient, biddable, intelligent workers the labour market has to offer.
There is nothing new about multinational corporations forcing workers in distant parts of the world to undercut each o
It's about the jobs and economy STUPID! (Score:3, Interesting)
On the high end of the pay scale, Manufacturing and Skilled Labor, we should let all those jobs go to India, China, Singapore and anywhere else labor is cheap.
So that leaves the middle, where companies are currently not hiring and slashing middle management by the thousands.
Now, toss in skyrocketing energy prices. Natural Gas (up 25% from 2003), Gasoline ($1.60/gal). Follow that up with increased health insurance costs which have gone up another 50% or more in 2004 because employers have no incentive to absorb costs in a tight labor market.
What's the result? DEFLATION! Yes, that's right, that means prices will stagnate as the number of people with disposable income become fewer and fewer. If you kill off the USA economy (#1 economy on the planet) who will buy all products and services from out of the country. No Jobs = No Spending Power.
Until workers in other countries can afford to buy SUV's, computers, cars, homes, digital cameras, health care, Disney vacations, and daily food the lifestlye and quality of life of the American worker will continue to erode. We need to ditch Free-Trade before the world economy ends up in a ditch.
My 2 cents or Rs 2... (Score:5, Interesting)
I work as a systems admin at night(USA time), studying for my GMAT in the day along with catching a little sleep.The job gets me about $7000 annually.Yes I am going to study in the USA probably steal another job there, temp or not if I can get it.Does that make me bad?Does that make the whole outsourcing industry bad?Its not the minimum wage factor that I'd like to argue.
Everyday we get about 5 tasks that were done wrong by some desk jockey in the USA and have to be streamlined and corrected here.(not talking about the actually processing, just simple reports n stuff)
Ok maybe not everything is that bad but what is a guy like me supposed to do? I earn more than most of my friends..live an ok lifestyle and struggle to save up for future education.This is the typical scenario you find in a IT outsourcing company in India.
Should I just quit and work as something else? Why would Citi stop Outsourcing when they earn more by outsourcing and get better value for money? Isnt it right that we lobby for Outsourcing in USA?
The article is biased and pollitically motivated (Score:5, Insightful)
I know of many US companies who make a living teaching companies in other countries like India about quality control and the way that US Businesses do business. If Indian companies had good quality, these companies would be out of business and not have business booming. I shall cite some examples of the quality of offshoring below.
Thing is, most IT workers, such as me, do not blame the people taking our jobs, but the companies making the move to other countries and cutting us loose. This is a global trend that is not going to stop unless there is some law passed against it, which I doubt will happen.
First it was a Labor Shortage [ucdavis.edu] which was a big lie by the Corporations to get rid of US workers and replace them with H1B Visa workers or outsource to India. Now that there is a surplus of IT Workers, they still claim there is an IT shortage and need to move more jobs overseas.
Where is the beef? Where is the quality that Indian companies are supposed to have? Apparently they did not have Quality at Dell [com.com] when they moved a Help Desk over to India. Where is the quality in programs written? Security issues are a big risk [computerworld.com] and we are supposed to trust someone we cannot even watch from half a world away that they will not harm source code or be a risk to security?
Of course there is always hidden Malware [computerworld.com] to consider. Really nice of them to put in a back door or virus or trojan to access the corp system after the Indian programmers are let go when the project is over.
Oh yeah, the myth that it is cheaper. Consider the Hidden costs of Ofshoring [sfgate.com] nothing like a project going over budget and full of bugs and needing US developers to fit it. Once again, where is the beef? That quality is just not there once again.
It seems that India is America's silent partner. [businessweek.com] We may not even hear about it during the election year. When a government is more interested in rewriting copyright laws so that the RIAA can sue 13 year-old girls and fair use is out of the picture, I wonder who our politicians really work for? Certainly not the US Citizens, only Corporations. So of course they support the wholesale slaughter of US IT Workers and the export of IT jobs overseas.
Ah but there is a big risk involved in Offshoring. Sort of like taking all the company stock to Las Vegas and betting it all on number 35 on the Roulette Wheel. :) Just ask those who craft the contracts about the risks involved. [computerworld.com]
Nice to meet the people that are taking the jobs moved to India. Also nice to know they are not concerned that US Workers are losing their jobs to keep the Indian workers employed. I'd think if I was given a job at someone else's expense that I would quote my religious or culutral references instead as well when asked to respond to that. :)
Maybe we should personalize the US IT Workers too. Here is Bob, he worked for a Fortune 500 company for the past 15 years developing award winning programs and his work gained the company many patents. Bob holds a Masters in Information Systems. Management decided that he earns too much, so he was terminated and his job was sent with many others over to an IT sweatshop i
Boo hoo (Score:5, Flamebait)
Your country profits from the exploitation of child labor and people caught in poverty traps... You there, unemployed developer, reading this... reap what you sow.
Why listen to Hill & Knowlton? (Score:5, Interesting)
Why the hell do we allow Hill & Knowlton [hillandknowlton.com] to greatly influcence our governmental decisions regarding outsourcing U.S. jobs? They have offices in 37 countries around the globe and firmly believe in outsourcing jobs outside the U.S. Our government really needs to stand up to companies like Hill & Knowlton and fight for U.S. jobs.
Cheap workers in America (Score:4, Insightful)
What? The people living there have little education? They don't even know how to use a computer? Well, I'd be glad to live in the sticks and telecommute - just like those Indian workers. While some may prefer the city, I'm sure that quite a few geeks would prefer the sticks, like I do.
The problem is, the corporation won't let you live in the sticks. They insist that you relocate to the most expensive regions. Then they complain that you are too expensive - because the cost of living in NYC, NoVa, SFO, LAX, etc is so high - and outsource your job to India.
My distaste for the city prevented my from taking a number of high salary offers. Also partly because the salary wasn't really all that high after talking to people who lived where I would have to move to. My friends were in incredulous that I wouild turn down $90K. But $90K is peanuts in SFO (even 10 years ago when I had the offer). Now I am glad that I stayed away.
There is really only one fundamental problem preventing cheaper Tech labor in America. Lack of infrastructure. Lack of education can be worked around by moving people like me to low cost areas. This creates more demand for technical education, and more qualified native workers will turn up as local kids get turned on to tech. However, telecommuting requires a decent broadband internet connection. In the sticks, you can't get DSL or Cable, so you have to get T1. That runs $600/mo, which adds $7500 to your salary right off the bat.
ADVICE TO YOUNG AMERICAN PROGRAMMERS (Score:5, Interesting)
First, look at the problem at hand: corporate jobs are going away because of corporate greed and disloyalty. First it'll be IT jobs, then virtually everyone as corporations move everything overseas that CAN be moved. This is nothing new, they did it to the manufacturing sector decades ago. But it IS unique in that once it's gone, that's it. There's nothing left for an ex-corporate type to retrain to except dead-end retail jobs at six bucks an hour.
So, this is pretty scary. But you CAN keep yourself out of harm's way. You don't have to just let yourself get sidelined.
First of all, ask yourself: do you really want to work for a corporation? You'll have to sign an IP agreement, a nondisclosure, and a noncompete, so you won't be able to work for anyone else for several years even if you're fired -- this is sort of like indentured servitude. And you'll have to work 60+ hours a week with no overtime pay because they'll write you up as an "exempt" worker. And you'll have some idiot suit breathing down your neck all day, reminding you on a constant basis that "you're lucky to have a job in this economy" (believe it or not, I've heard of this kind of thing from a lot of different people). You'll have to physically restrain yourself from dropping him out the nearest window, which will cause you stress. And you'll have to eventually watch your job go away, maybe even training your replacements.
So all those corporate jobs sucked anyway. Fuck 'em. Don't even consider them. The only reason corporations are still hiring is that they haven't fully ramped up their outsourcing yet. Why help them while they're still in the process of screwing you and all your friends over? Blow 'em off and get a non-corporate job. Stay in school. Get that Master's degree. Go on to the Ph.D and become a professor. If that's too annoying and your suck-up skills aren't strong enough, get into the IT department of a university near you -- you get all the benefits and none of the headaches of a professor's post. Get into civil service if you can. DISDAIN the corporations. They've earned it.
If you can't score one of those jobs, try and find something with a small business. Parlay your knowledge of computer science into a position where you'll learn some other trade at the same time. Wear a lot of hats. Be the indispensible local geek who keeps everything running. Small businesses are better than you might think; if nothing else, they would NEVER have the resources to outsource your job. Think about it.
So, ok, now you have a job. You're eating, you're making your car payments, you're not rich but you're not dead meat either. So, now what, you ask?
REVENGE.
Say it with me. "Revenge". Feel how it rolls off your tongue. "Revenge". It's such a happy word, such a WARM word. It LIKES YOU. It's your FRIEND.
REVENGE.
Here's how to get one for the little guy, without breaking the law or doing anything that'll get you into trouble.
1. Don't buy anything from a major corporate outsourcer unless you absolutely have no choice. Or, be obnoxious: buy a Hewlett Packard printer (usually sold at a loss) and buy NON-HP INK. If you need a new laptop, buy it on Ebay, where the money goes into the wallet of one of your neighbors instead of a corporate bank account. Buying music? Buy it used in your local CD shop. Buying a car? Get a used one. BE CHEAP, and be proud of it. Convince everyone you can to be cheap as well. Think grassroots.
If you're buying an item like a TV, and you don't w
Outsourcing similar to Open Source? (Score:4, Insightful)
Similarly, Western IT professionals (it is not just the US having to deal with this issue by the way) concerned at this trend should try to acquire a broader-based skillset which includes business and creative as well as "pure" technical skills - and local knowledge that cannot be easily duplicated by an overseas company (in most organisations, it still is a case of not what you know but who you know).
Also the companies outsourcing are mostly major corporations - which by their nature tend to stifle innovation with bureaucracy. Freeing up their workforce will make it easier for smaller companies to start, recruit, expand and innovate (provided the DOJ manages to rein in Microsoft). And it is only a matter of time before senior management and CEOs find themselves being outsourced (who needs a US-based board of directors when all the real decisions are being taken overseas?).
Finally, this also provides the English language with a massive boost - India is gaining a real advantage due to their widespread use of English and other nations like China and Vietnam will have to do the same in order to grab a significant slice of the outsourcing pie (French/German/Spanish supremacists beware!).
Re:That's all well and good.... (Score:5, Insightful)
Funny, it also looks like it's in part about the poor getting richer.
Re:Opposition is racist (Score:5, Insightful)
In some sense it is economic suicide, sure you produce cheaper goods, but those who are in this country to buy them are out of jobs. I.e. they have no money to buy those cheap goods, and the people who produced the goods are too underpayed to afford those goods. This is why MBA schools should be shut down once and for all, they have been produced miserable failures for the past 2 decades, a ton of greedy idiot savants who are unable to see the whole picture.
I could care less if Indian companies can do the same job better, or cheaper. If that was the case Indian corporations would rule the market, if there was indeed a perfect free economic system as the article sort of tried to hint.
Re:Bad code? (Score:3, Informative)
Smaller companies with less upper management baggage, more personal relationships with their customers and higher quality
Re:Bad code? (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Bad code? (Score:4, Insightful)
I wouldn't have an outsourced Indian firm do the human interface design on a project either, and it has nothing to do with racism.
India has a different culture than the United States, so interface design assumptions that seem perfectly obvious to someone in India might be completely incomprehensible to someone from the US, and vice versa.
For example, consider that a user interface designed by programmers for programmers will have as many options as the programmers could shoehorn in. That UI will seem too complicated to use for the typical J. Random User, while a UI for J. Random will seem too constrained for the liking of a programmer. Now, multiply that sort of thing tenfold, and factor in things like the meanings of colors (red for danger/stop, etc.). That's what can happen if the human interface is designed in one culture, but used by another.
Re:Bad code? (Score:4, Insightful)
I wouldn't rely on ANY outsourced firm for that kind of work, much less one half way around the world that doesn't speak my language. It's not a matter of them being Indian, Jewish, Chinese, French, or Dutch, it's a matter of them not being able to communicate with me on the same level as someone in my own company, or at least someone I can meet with in person and have a easy conversation with. It's hard enough to explain ideas about design to someone you know in person who speaks your language. Trying to communicate that to someone far away who doesn't is harder. And that hardship is rarely worth the savings I might see in what I pay them.
That's the kind of thing that shows itself in the end. Outsourced software is of lesser quality because of the communication gaps, not because of the quality of the code that the people in other countries write. There are ways around it, but they are expensive, which is exactly what the outsourcing tried to avoid in the first place.
How many steel workers are left today? (Score:5, Insightful)