Jobs to India -- A Broad Look 902
dumpster_dave writes "Wired has an excellent 7 page article on the current and future trend and nature of IT outsourcing from the United States. The conclusion: the smell of inevitability--the economy will survive, though your job, as it is currently, will likely not. Outsourcing is expected to expand from Service and code projects to the creative aspects as well, with obvious correlations experienced in the manufacturing industry during the 70s and 80s. An excellent read that provides good coverage of the perspectives of players on all sides."
IT Fads (Score:5, Interesting)
If you don't like this fad, wait five minutes...
Re:IT Fads (Score:2, Interesting)
The problem is that it did work then. It gave a short term boost in stock prices so the CEO could get a second house before quality dropped.
Here come the lawyers (Score:5, Interesting)
Crazy world...
Makes me growl. (Score:4, Interesting)
Seriously, then they need a brain refresher. This is one of the core issues, and it's really simple: Companies seek to maximize profit and minimize expenses. Expenses decrease with cheap labor. If cheap labor is outside the U.S., and can be logistically implemented for the company as such, there's a good chance they'll move some operations offshore. And this has in fact happened.
And they think it's somewhat laughable that, because things aren't going exactly our way, ordinarily change-infatuated Americans are suddenly decrying change.
How on earth is this a laughable thing? Change for the better, change for our better, is a totally pragmatic and understandable goal. When this goal is hurt, yes, we decry it. There's nothing laughable about that at all.
Translation: We're not just cheaper, we're better.
Tell that to Dell.
An indian perspective (Score:5, Interesting)
Yes you heard me , let them NOT move to india. The last thing I want as an Indian, my country to be columbia/mexico of the IT industry. I think indians should be ashamed to be the janitors of IT industry.
Also for those of who are going to point to M$ and IBM and HP research centers being moved to India. I would rather see our own Indian companies becoming more self relient and working for the benefit of Indian consumers than US.
The more India depends upon foreign lands to create local jobs, the less it becomes self relinet and lesser powerful.
India for one should take lessons from its colonial past. Rememer East india company came as traders looking for spices and ended up ruling the country for 200 years. This time its going to be different, its economical slavery that we should be afraid of. In this day an age no power is better than economical power and serving joe six-packs for their problems loggin on to AOL, though a short term profitable business , is ruining the resourses of the country.
I am not ranting against US. Infact exactly the opposite. The US and its companies should also strive towards self serving economical structure.
Stop government aide (Score:4, Interesting)
Have anyone considered the privacy and security issues when sending this information to foreign companies? The call center for American Express in India may not have the same security and legal protection for your records -- but then again with the patriot act, we don't have any privacy anyways.
Offshoring my own job (Score:5, Interesting)
Now I'm considering getting a second job and doing the same thing with it. That may be pushing my luck though. The extra money would be nice, but that could push my workday over five hours.
Re:IT Fads (Score:3, Interesting)
There may be no more jobs in making steel, or cars, or textiles, but back then, there weren't jobs in electronics, bio tech, etc.
Oh, and by your logic, if you stopped outsourcing stuff like hardware manufacturing, things would be so great! I mean, we'd be even better off if we made memory chips in the USA rather than in Taiwan. Oh wait. That'd put a lot of our electronics companies out of business! Doh...
Re:Please explain.... (Score:2, Interesting)
interesting quote from article (Score:4, Interesting)
"Oh, and I'm proud of it," she responds. "I wear that badge with honor. I am a protectionist. I want to protect America. I want to protect jobs for Americans."
"But isn't part of this country's vitality its ability to make these kinds of changes?" I counter. "We've done it before - going from farm to factory, from factory to knowledge work, and from knowledge work to whatever's next."
She looks at me. Then she says, "I'd like to know where you go from knowledge."
Re:IT Fads (Score:3, Interesting)
It's coming back around. Only when corporate leaders (followers?) understand that this isn't making them as much money nor as quickly as they thought they would will any jobs return. But then I think of steel, glass, textile, photographic equipment, TVs, and I wonder.
Maybe we're nothing but expendable resources in a protected capitalist system? Ya. That's it. Nice dream, eh?
Re:Duped article, so I'll dupe my comments (Score:5, Interesting)
I mean, if it's guaranteed that those entry-level/junior positions are going the way of the buffalo, I will have no experience for those mystical "pure knowledge" positions, should they ever appear. Have I mis-invested 7 years and tens of thousands of dollars on the wrong college degree? Should I just say F*** it all, give away all my hardware, and go get a paper MBA from Sallie Struthers and become a store manager at a Target or something? It's like having a degree in model ship building. Sure it's hard and it takes decades to be considered a master, but only a few really make money for doing it the old fashioned way, and most people just get their model ships from a store that buys them from overseas where they are made for cheap.
From the duped article, p5: "Your very nature will drive you to fight," Lord Krishna tells Arjuna. "The only choice is what to fight against."
sorry for the rant, but its tough these days
--B
Re:Duped article, so I'll dupe my comments (Score:4, Interesting)
Used elance.com to find Sidharth over in Bangalore. Sid was cool, spents lots of time with us, hours of Q and A on our online spring break site [travelingparty.com]. He did a good job on the coding, but when it came to getting the ever important cultural aspects of the project, it was a disaster.
Our launch day promoted our Discount Trips to Cancum.
Ummm. Sid, no, Cancun...
Oh. Very Sorry Sirs... next Day. Diskount trips to Cancum
Re:Obviously this article is biased. (Score:2, Interesting)
They're called lawyers, professors, researchers, and executives... If your software job gets outsourced, either go and work at a research firm/university where there is a need for custom software or a company that offers in-person support for law firms or other businesses... As for your complaint about outsourcing the production of consumer merchandise, even if all such production were outsourced it wouldn't mean negative growth. Through the power of lending we can increase our GNP completely through services. It seems counterintuitive, but you don't have to manufacture anything to have a high-growth economy. Anyway, once we reduce a practice from an art to a science, it makes sense to export those tasks to a workforce that has been more narrowly educated in order to develop new products or industries in this country. Jonas Salk wouldn't have cured polio working in the neighborhood textile mill...
Re:Please explain.... (Score:5, Interesting)
Artists and craftsmen make unique items, and so do programmers (yes, even in Java). It is an inescapeable fact.
Outsourcing has a chance at working, not because it is the same as manufacturing, but simply because it appears to be cheaper than doing it locally.
Obligatory Snowcrash Quote (Score:2, Interesting)
"When it gets down to it-talking trade balances here-once we've brain-drained all our technology into other countries, once things have evened out, they're making cars in Bolivia and microwave ovens in Tadzhikistan and selling them here-once our edge in natural resources has been made irrelevant by giant Hong Kong ships and dirigibles that can ship North Dakota all the way to New Zealand for a nickel-once the Invisible Hand has taken all those historical inequities and smeared them out into a broad global layer of what a Pakistani brickmaker would consider to be prosperity-y'know what? There's only four things we do better than anyone else:
The Deliverator used to make software. Still does, sometimes."
I suppose we'd better scratch "software" off the list, eh?
Re:Also see (Score:4, Interesting)
- If a resource doesn't give you a competitive advantage, you can outsource it without any damage. But if it is a key differentiator, NEVER outsource it.
Too many companies seem to be forgetting this these days. If it's your core competitive advantage, you can't outsource it.If you need to develop better technology, if your products need to be higher quality, if your customer service needs to be better than your competitors, you can't outsource that part of your business. Any competitor can duplicate anything you've outsourced, often as easily as hiring the same subcontractor, so anything that is oursourced can't be a source of competitive advantage in your market.
Re:Note to fat USians (Score:1, Interesting)
There's very little difference between the college tuition "racket" and the socialized welfare/tax/insurance/healthcare racket that goes on in the rest of society.
If you don't like the way it is, fine, but be consistent. Tuition is like any other social program. It benefits the poor at the expense of the rich (wait?! this is what happens when I'm on the upper end of the scale? I don't like that so much...) Don't just protest it because it's inconvenient for you.
The truly dissappointing thing is how much of the money is wasted. Many college students treat education as an entitlement, and fail to take advantage of the opportunities it creates. I say keep raising tuitions until students take it seriously.
Re:Note to fat USians (Score:1, Interesting)
The high tuition is exactly the reason many don't take it seriously and try to get out of it as soon as possible; it's not fucking worth it.
Fuck this shit.
Re:An indian perspective (Score:3, Interesting)
No offense, but so would most of us American workers.
India for one should take lessons from its colonial past.
So should the workers in the west, during the hight of British colonialism, there was massive unemployment and poverty throughout England. As the American companies move to eliminate their workers jobs and outsource them overseas, I expect that we will see more of that here (like we did during the seventies with the offshoring of manufacturing jobs), but hopefully to a leesser extent.
As much as American (and other westen) IT workers refuse to admit it, they are the serfs of the new economy, and as much as they dislike to hear it, that vendor you have been so loyal to is going to screw you the first chance he gets. Giving so much power to any single organisation is stupid. Bill and company can't wait to fuck you (loyal IT) guys, and are laughing at all of the demonstrations of loyalty that get thrown their way by IT folk who think they'll get to save their jobs by blocking every attempt to introduce some other option to the workplace.
Re:IT Fads (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Obviously this article is biased. (Score:5, Interesting)
And what happens when the Indians and the Chinese have absorbed so much of our know how through on-hands tech-transfer, that they don't need us anymore? Indian firms are already partnering with US drug companies, not as low-cost manufacturers, but as co-developers. Chinese firms are already buying whole US plants, lock, stock, and barrel, AND the company name/brands (ie, DustDevil). It wouldn't be too much of a stretch to imagine a future where the US is nothing more than a stock market, and a few banks - and what happens when foreign banks/stock markets adopt US style accounting/regulation, and start undercutting us?
I think the key problem is that to meet the future you envision (ie, pure knowledge/research/services), we need to train people who are technically and creatively competent to work and innovate in those fields. I don't see that product coming out of our school system, which keeps churning out workers fit for that was hot 5-10 years ago, and not for what will be hot 5-10 years from now.
We might benefit from deflationary pressures on foreign-made products and services for a long time. But we'll have become a nation of extreme debtors, with a bedrock in agriculture and finance, and everything else outsourced.
While best will survive (ie, small machine shops, small coding shops, etc.), where will everyone else go? Unless we develop completely new industries that will require jobs in the US, we're going to have a large surplus of labor, just as we did in the 80's during the last big transition. Space exploitation maybe, or maybe US migratory workers going to Mexico and Canada, instead of the other way around?
Ironically, I'd suggest that manufacturing might be the salvation of the US economy - provided that we can lower the cost of raw materials and energy. With mechanization reducing labor costs, cheap energy and raw materials would allow the US to compete with foreign manufacturers, and allow the employment of more US sale agents, distributors, transporters (ie, truck drivers and train engineers), and lower the cost of shipping those goods.
In other words, you want more jobs in the US? Then we either need more nuclear power plants, or we need to invent working sustainable, net energy out fusion, quick.
Re:Please explain.... (Score:3, Interesting)
The middle class is essentially what stabilizes a civil society. Without that you end up either with a fascist dictoatorship (the likes of middle america) or a revolution.
Now, is the FBI actually good enough to control a nation in open rebellion ?
So wrong, you are (Score:1, Interesting)
They're taking the dollars because they intend to buy American goods with the dollars.
wrong. they intend to buy chinese goods, because these are cheaper, fool. Americans do the same thing at Wall Mart every day.
That we cannot import more than we export -- over the long term -- is true. To believe otherwise would mean we somehow live in a bubble where foreign countries work for us for free.they do not do it for free. they get your jobs and know-how. they get the dollars, you get the debt.
The special interests will come up with all sorts of nonsense, all manner of jargon to support their fear mongering. They'll talk ofraces to the bottom, living wages, social justice and other such things. but that is what is happening.
But what they really mean is "gimme." (Read: I deserve to be making higher real wages for the same equivalent work because I am an American. no, they mean: it costs a lot more to have the same living standard in the US as in India, so please don't take from me what i need for a living.
When protectionists speak of races to the bottom, they ignore the flip side of the coin: a race to the top). wrong again , fool. a Hindu will accept a 5% wage increase in exchange for your 100% wage decrease. otherwise the offshoring would not be generating any cost cutting. american wages will stagnate while corporate profits will go up. this means the social division of the GDP will become more unequal.
We can rack up debt in the way of trade deficits. Debt which will doubtlessly have to be paid off eventually. i'm sure there are some countries of the 3rd world which will tell you about the benefits of debt exceeding their GDP, because they had a fiscal crisis and their currency got grilled.But sooner or later the dollar will fall against foreign currencies -- as it is currently, btw -- and foreigners will begin to receive repayment of their loans to us, by way of American exports. so if the REAL value of the paper dollars they have received for their products is falling, didn't they, like, work for you for free?
As American exports increase, they wont. Chinese exports will increase. so too will employment, barring commensurate increases in productivity. maybe those service jobs, knowledge workers? like, the porn industry will be a growth sector. and also security. CEOs need protection from the begging mobs.
Re:Duped article, so I'll dupe my comments (Score:2, Interesting)
Can you read HTML?
This is grandma quality code.
Re:Countries and economies need to advance... (Score:1, Interesting)
Should the US make cars? We should if it makes economic sense. Does it make money? If yes, then make cars. Does it lose money? Then stop making cars.
Japanese arrogance about economic planning in the 70's and 80's has led to a 14 year recession in Japan because everybody thought smart planners were better than a dumb economy. History is replete with the bones of those who thought they could outthink the market.
If anything government planning makes a bad situation worse, because the government has workers that its trying to protect and in doing so it routinely props up inefficient ways of doing business.
Re:Please explain.... (Score:2, Interesting)
But you are missing two important points:
1. India's population is 3 times bigger than the US. They can suck our jobs and resources bone dry before it makes much of a dent there.
2. After India is probably another country. India was first simply because they know more English.
The bottom line is that brains are now a cheap commodity. Balance of trade won't change this new fact. The Age of Nerds is sunsetting. I thought AI would do it first, but globalism plugging into 5 billion brains for cents per hour is what did it. The inventors of the Internet created a monster which is now eating its creator.
Re:IT Fads (Score:5, Interesting)
We've painstakingly gathered over 1200 pages of business and functional requirements, laid out the high level framewwork for the system, and now we're in the detailed technical design phase of the project.
We have a team of 15 people in Mumbai. All Java centric programmers. A couple of senior guys with 10 years experience, (C++ before Java), and the rest are intermediate level (6 years and less). These guys are all taking part in the detailed design work.
What a freakin mistake this is.
Damned Indians are so used to reusing prepackaged code and components that they can't think about good design. What I mean is that they don't think about a problem and then how to solve it properly, they try to change the problem to suit the code they have lying around or have found on the net.
I keep asking for language independant design documents. Give me a UML or even a freakin VISIO flow from which I could write a component in any language. But I just keep seeing the same old J2EE centric crap. Using Entity beans and Service locators instead of more generic descriptors. I should be able to look at a design doc and figure out how to write a system in Perl, or C++, or Java or COBOL.
Java is all they know. Thank god. It sucks for my project, but I think this is good for American tech jobs. These Indians can't think outside the box. So the best I think they'll ever be able to accomplish is grunt coding work, after being spoon fed requirements and design work.
Oh yeah, they don't like to read any more of the requirements docs than they have to. Nobody in Mumbai has the big picture about my project. The knowledge is here in NY.
If I had to, I could find 10 guys in my division to learn about this system and crank it out (and I already know 5 top knotch guys that I can call if need be, and the other architect has a couple more), but it'll never happen. Better that the company pays 1/10 wages than have the system written properly.
So anyway, bone up on your design skills boys, and get used to spending time talking to clients about the business. This is how to keep a tech job in the US. Package the grunt work and send it to Mumbai. Don't let them make decisions because they can't.
wbs.
Re:IT Fads (Score:3, Interesting)
Compared to framing, sheetrock, or masonary, plumbing and electrical is not hard on the body. I've done all of the above on my own home, and some of it as a laborer.
Few people can do framing after 40. I see crews that do it, but the kids next door will complete a house in 1/3rd the time, and it will be better. Expirence is overrated after you have 2 years in, at least for framers. All you can learn after that is how to run people. (And if you are motivated and have the right mind I can get you = to any foreman in those two years!)
There are a few exceptions, that old guy running the masonary crew with all the kids can do more physical labor than any one of them, which he proves every month or so in a race. However that is a combination of being lucky enough to have the right genetics, and knowing all the tricks. Most people's body will not take that abuse. I did construction all last summer, and the kids starting after me were able to do more. My body just can't take the abuse their can. (It isn't brute strength, when it comes to a brute strength contest I could beat some of them, but in getting work done all day they beat me, whereas 10 years ago they would not have)
Plumbing and electrical work is one of the few places where old guys can keep going. There isn't as much heavy lifting involved, and they have the kids do what little there is. In framing there is often so much heavy lifting that everyone togather wasn't enough and a second crew had to be called to help.
Don't bring out machines. They help, but if you look closely you will notice on most crews it is the kid running the bobcat, because the machine are hard on the back. Some men[1] are exceptions again, but most while able to run the machine better than the kid, cannot take the pains they get from running it.
I'm not saying plumbing and electrical work is easy on the body, I'm saying that it is easier than most construction jobs. Even then I see a lot of kids helping the older guys, meaning that most of the kids go on to some other job.
[1]Yes men, there are almost no women in construction, genetics work against them even more because they don't get the brute strength needed for some tasks.
Same jobs, dumber, you'll become cheaper.... (Score:3, Interesting)
That means less purchasing power, economic slowdown, trade deficit.
Salaries by necessity go lower. Your currency devalues.
Then there is a point in which you become cheap enough to be worth to invest again in the US.
Painful? Yes, but frankly some evening out is necessary when you realize how much overpaid people in western countries are.
The wasteful SUVs, gadgetery, cheap air travel, cheap credit can't be artificially provided, you will not starve but will need to become more sensible about your spending habits, which is a good think in my book, since that will allow you to take a lower salary and thus become more competitive in the global market.
It is not going to be fun, but frankly better understand the situation and prepare for it that moan and advocate for supporting inneficient industries and companies only because they are base in your own country.
Re: Shawn & Jessica Nahasapeemapetilon (Score:3, Interesting)
I work in a 2-man IT shop with around 75 users, and I have my own Dell sales rep, who has her own team of specialists. When I want something, I talk directly with one of them.
You're a corporate customer with an IT department big enough to have its very own PHB, and you're ordering through the normal sales channels? What gives?