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."
Timothy was outsourced to India (Score:5, Funny)
You know it's a dupe when... (Score:5, Funny)
Maybe I should karma-whore a little bit and repost some of the highly moderated comments from last time?
Duped article, so I'll dupe my comments (Score:5, Informative)
Nobody ever talks about how this will affect our industry 10-20 years down the road!
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:3, Insightful)
Ive completed a MS in CS, and it seems harder and harder to find jobs that let you "get your foot in the door". Everybody wants 10 years of blah-blah experience . . .
The job ads looking for a laundry list of experience in wildly different areas or 15 years of Java experience are bogus.
- Placing an ad that no local worker can fill: $50.
- Spending only $50 to comply with federal regulations that make you seek local workers first: Priceless.
You can't say it often enough, so say it again (Score:3, Insightful)
"Don't you think we're helping the US economy by doing the work here?" asks an exasperated Lalit Suryawanshi. It frees up Americans to do other things so the economy can grow, adds Jairam.
It frees up Americans to "do other things" -- such as what? Pick cotton? Flip burgers?? These minimum wage jobs help the economy grow how??
Another exchange that sums up the problem:
"But isn't part of this country's vitality its ability to make these kinds of changes?" I
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
IT Fads (Score:5, Interesting)
If you don't like this fad, wait five minutes...
Re:IT Fads (Score:5, Insightful)
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 comp
Re:IT Fads (Score:5, Insightful)
I don't want to strain you here, but if we have 1% of the population actually producing something, and the rest simply serving those elite few, A) we have no middle class, B) we have a HUGE trade imbalance and C)we are making other countries rich off of American ingenuity. This doesn't bother you? Maybe you want your children to compete for a few highly coveted jobs which pay extremely well but are taxed at 50%, or else give up and work at burger world as a slave to the rich. The rest of us want the US to actually produce and sell a variety of good all over the world so the US can grow and prosper even more. And yes, we would be better off if we made memory chips here and charged enought to make a profit. We can counter competition from other countries by adding tariffs to cover differences in price and use that money to pay off the deficit. Of course the deficit wouldn't be nearly as high because we would actually be producing and selling stuff rather than just consuming as fast as we can.
-Comedian
Re:IT Fads (Score:3, Interesting)
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
Re:IT Fads (Score:5, Insightful)
If people did what you actually suggested, the global economy would revert to the 1700s.
Clue: Free trade is good. Economists say it is good. Economic theory shows trade tarrifs always lead to a reduced GDP in the long term. History shows it is good. Consider France. Before Napoleon, the various provinces were independent, and each had trade barriers (tarrifs, laws, etc) with each other. Napoleon got rid of them, and the entire economy prospored. Consider Europe as a whole. By tearing down trade barriers between countries, the European economy as a whole is becoming more competitive in the world. Consider the US trade relationship with Canada. It directly supports millions of jobs in each country. Hell, despite early criticism, even NAFTA has been successful!
Re:IT Fads (Score:4, Insightful)
The US is manufacturing virtually nothing compared to what we used to. Take a look at our trade imbalances with EVERYONE and then tell me Free Trade is good. Also don't believe everything you read or hear, take a look around you and see for yourself. I see people with Masters Degrees working at Circuit City, and some people have been out of work for almost a year with no end in sight. Doesn't sound like moving into the future to me. Sounds like the a bunch of our states are nearly bankrupt and the US debt is huge.
Every job we send overseas is less money and less power for the US. But believe what you want.
-Comedian
Re:IT Fads (Score:3, Insightful)
"Every job we send overseas is less money and less power for the US. But you believe what you want."
I shall skip the lecture on the law of comparative advantage. I shall avoid talking about how spinning jennys put home textile workers out of business, or how coding software is not bending buts of metal. I shall avoid pointing out the America has lost jobs in manufacturing cars since the '60s, electronics since the '70s, memory chips since the '80s, computer programming since th
Re:IT Fads (Score:5, Insightful)
Times are different now. The bubble has burst and the companies (in a true capitalist way) are looking to strengthen the bottomline. If you cannot make money, well then atleast cut the costs (and yeah, I am aware of the cultural,social et al differences that are not factored but add up) and effectively, you've *made* money.
I do not want to rob you of your 'fad' but I have a feeling that this one is for real.
Re:IT Fads (Score:5, Insightful)
And this is the real problem - there is no sustainable advantage in outsourcing. Eventually, everyone who can outsource something does outsource it and then you're back in the same boat of no revenue growth, but it's five years later and you actually have less control over the situation. Plus, you've given your new foreign competitors the capital they need to create most of the infrastructure required to invade your market. The idea that capitalism requires the destruction of your economy ten years from now because it makes money a year from now is the main reason why we Capitalists are going to see our system collapse the same way that the Soviet system did. The main issue is that rewards will flow to those who have the discipline to wait for rewards, not those who choose to have them today. It's simply a case of short-term vs. long-term and we're on the wrong side of the equation here. If you think you're getting bit in the ass now, just wait a few years when the chickens finally come home to roost.
Re:IT Fads (Score:5, Funny)
...and it will be reposted on
Re:IT Fads (Score:5, Insightful)
And probably one of the main reasons was they weren't ready for it. Now they are and as one indian service provider stated, they've worked to improve their product. Even getting the indian workers to adopt western names, 'Shawn', 'Jessica' etc. and working on pronounciation. While these may seem to be minor, consider the last time you had a grad student lecturing for the instructor of a college course and you couldn't understand a word he said (real teachers don't teach, they get grunts to do it and are actually working on grant projects or university fundraising, those who can't, do teach)
Power and communications were a problem, now these people who own and run the companies have their own generators and satellite communications systems.
Don't assume they didn't learn something and everything is as bad as it was. Dell's failure may well be attributed to only one service vendor who wasn't as polished as others.
re: Shawn & Jessica Nahasapeemapetilon (Score:3, Insightful)
You can replace "Patel" with "Josh" all day long (which BTW totally fucking cracks me up) but it is extremely difficult to get rid of the accent. Hell, you see the same problem in the US with children of immigrants who, while they've essentially grown up here, simply don't speak English outside of school due to their family situation or their circle of friends. I actual
Re: Shawn & Jessica Nahasapeemapetilon (Score:5, Insightful)
My Dell phone call from two weeks ago: (note: My company has a three year next-day service contract with Dell -- they are no longer supposed to be sending the Commercial Clients to India yet somehow I wound up there)
[Indian accent]: "Thank you so much for calling Dell support my name is Josh how may I assist you with your problem today?"
[Upstate NY accent]: "Yes, this is Timothy [xxx] from [xxx], I have a Dell here with a bad power supply, I need to get a replacement sent to me. The service tag is [xxx]."
[Indian accent]: "Yes sir, thank you so much. Let me pull up your information sir. Ah yes sir I have it here. Tell me Sir what is your name?"
[Upstate NY accent]: "I already told you, my name is Timothy [xxx]. I'm listed on the account as the contact."
[Indian accent]: "Ah yes sir, thank you so much for giving me that information. Sir I need to understand your address."
[Upstate NY accent]: "It's [xxx]."
[Indian accent]: "Ah yes sir, thank you so much for giving me that information. Sir I need to understand your telephone number."
[Upstate NY accent]: "*sigh* This is all listed on the account. It's [xxx]."
[Indian accent]: "Ah yes sir, thank you so much for giving me that information. This is a Dell Optiplex correct sir?"
[Upstate NY accent]: "That's correct."
[Indian accent]: "Ah yes sir, thank you so much for giving me that information. How may I assist you with your problem today?"
[Upstate NY accent]: "Like I said, this unit has a dead power supply and I need to have a replacement sent out. We have a service agreement."
[Indian accent]: "Ah yes sir, I am understanding that you have such agreement. It expires in March 2005."
[Upstate NY accent]: "That's right, now can we make this happen?"
[Indian accent]: "Yes sir, we will do that. I need you to insert your Dell resource CD so we can run system diagnostics to confirm the problem."
[Upstate NY accent]: "Umm... the power supply is dead. I know what the problem is."
[Indian accent]: "Yes sir I am understanding that you think the problem is that, but I need you to insert your Dell resources cd so we can run diagnostic to confirm the problem."
[Upstate NY accent]: "Your not listening to me. The power supply is dead. I can't turn the unit on."
[Indian accent]: "Yes yes, I am understanding your problem, but we need to follow procedure. Please insert your Dell resources CD so we can run diagnostic to confirm the problem."
[Upstate NY accent]: "I can't open the CD-ROM drawer because the computer has no power. What part of that can't you understand?"
[Indian accent]: "Yes sir, I am understanding that the computer has no power. Is the computer plugged in to the wall outlet sir?"
[Upstate NY accent -- getting louder by the minute]: "You are not listening to me. The power supply is dead. That means it's not working. I can't turn the damn thing on -- please set up the service call for me."
[Indian accent]: "Yes sir I am understanding that you think that is problem, but we need to confirm it."
[Upstate NY accent]: "Alright this is going no where. Let me talk to your supervisor."
[Indian accent]: "No no sir, I can help you with this problem. Please insert your Dell Resource CD into the CD-ROM drive so we can run diagnostic to confirm the problem."
[Upstate NY accent - loud enough that the entire office can hear me]: "Ya know what? Fuck off. That's an American insult if they didn't teach you that in training."
[Indian accent]: "Yes sir, I am understanding your problem. Please insert the Dell resourc...."
[sound of phone slamming onto receiver]
[sound of me walking around the office threate
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 thr
Re: Shawn & Jessica Nahasapeemapetilon (Score:3, Insightful)
[Upstate NY accent]: "Your not listening to me. The power supply is dead. I can't turn the unit on."
I hate to burst your bubble, but that's not an Indian problem, that's a competence problem. Way before outsourcing to India started, I was having the same problems with Good-ol-American tech reps from time to time. People who li
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.
Rubish. (Score:3, Insightful)
Do not invent the wheel.
If you are trying to re-invent it the one that is completely out of toucvh is you, not your Indian counterparts.
Re:Rubish. (Score:4, Insightful)
Agreed. Reuse is great. Where it makes sense.
>>If you are trying to re-invent it the one that is completely out of toucvh is you, not your Indian counterparts.
I'm not advocating reinventing the wheel. What I'm saying is that you need to lay out and understand the problem that you have to solve.
Then pick the proper tools and components with which to solve the problem. It doesn't make sense to 'turn the problem around' and shovel it into a solution.
Show me how Java and J2EE can solve the business problem. Show me how this code block or an Entity Bean will solve the problem. Not how the problem can be looked at in such a way that it fits the code/framework.
There's a subtle difference there. Knowing that difference is part of knowing the difference between good and bad design. A 'closed in' design methodology does not work, it is not flexible, is not extendable and will not handle future requirements gracefully.
Reuse rocks. But good design rules.
wbs.
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 equip
Also see (Score:5, Informative)
Also, from another perspective is this article [indiatimes.com] from the India Times [indiatimes.com]
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.
Please explain.... (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Please explain.... (Score:5, Insightful)
Good question, and one no-one seems to want to answer. Most will handwave and make vague comments about "expanding economy" or "dealing with people" or "management", but that's bull. This is the start of an offensive to eliminate the American middle class, and replace it with a permanent base of slave labour in "developing countries".
Here is your answer ! (Score:3, Funny)
Re:Please explain.... (Score:3, Interesting)
Every Governement / ruling elite that did this before ended up heads on a block or in front of an execution commando.
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 r
Re:Please explain.... (Score:5, Insightful)
And I hate to put it in these terms, but I don't see a whole lot of difference between a certain class of programmer jobs and manufacturing jobs. I mean, isn't that the whole point of languages like Java? To structure things so tightly that programmers are basically just there to put pre-built parts together in a certain order? Does it really less skill to assemble a car engine than to make a Java servlet that processes customer transactions?
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.
Re:Please explain.... (Score:3, Insightful)
*end spoof*
There's no similarity between programming and manufacturing, since the goal of manufacturing is to reprodu
Please explain where this all ends (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Please explain.... (Score:4, Insightful)
When an American company -- a company which sells the majority of its services or goods in America, for American dollars -- hires an Indian, the American company must either:
a) Pay the Indian employee in American dollars, or
b) Convert the American dollars to rupies, and pay the Indian employee in rupies
Either way, the result is the same: At some point in the chain, someone is taking dollars for rupies, whether it's the employee or a third party. That party is not taking dollars because they like the smell of them. They're taking the dollars because they intend to buy American goods with the dollars. (Or they intend to convert the currency to another foreign currency -- and so the chain goes).
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.
There is simply no way, over the long term, that we could outsource all of our jobs, to India or anywhere else anymore than they outsource their jobs to us. (More on that below). It's just not possible.
The special interests will come up with all sorts of nonsense, all manner of jargon to support their fear mongering. They'll talk of
races to the bottom, living wages, social justice and other such things. 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. When protectionists speak of races to the bottom, they ignore the flip side of the coin: a race to the top).
We can rack up debt in the way of trade deficits. Debt which will doubtlessly have to be paid off eventually. 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.
As American exports increase, so too will employment, barring commensurate increases in productivity.
One other important point to make is the falsity of the assumption that only American companies are offshoring. This is the most ridiculous assumption of all, and I suspect it's the root cause of Americans' uneasyness towards offshoring.
Foreign companies offshore jops to America, too. In fact, more jobs are presently "offshored" -to- America from foreign companies than the opposite.
We all know how Flint, MI was hurt by General Motors' offshoring of factories to Mexico. Michael Moore even made a movie about it. But most people don't know about the tens of thousands who are employed in America by Toyota, by Mazda, or other Japanese car manufacturers. An American factory closing and moving to Mexico makes a great fear-mongering evening news story, but a similar-sized new factory operated by a foreign company in America does not.
Capitalism is inherently cyclical. It's the job of policy makers to make these cycles as painless as possible. But the cycles will always remain.
There is no need to blow a fuse over it.
thank our tariffs on auto imports for those jobs (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:thank our tariffs on auto imports for those job (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Please explain.... (Score:3, Insightful)
Sort of. I claim that every dollar we send to India is eventually either spent on American goods, or converted to another currency. Not necessarily immediately. The propogation is not instant. It could even take years. But eventually someone is going to come looking for their due, an American export.
Otherwise you're suggesting we're getting something for nothing. And if we're getting something for nothing, w
What's Left? (Score:5, Insightful)
So if service jobs, creative jobs, research jobs, and development jobs all get outsourced... What's left and why, exactly, will the economy survive? Oh, right, we'll all get jobs dealing with people face-to-face, selling things to people with no money. Or we'll all wind up being managers.
Excuse me while I look skeptical and write this off as one more piece to make executives feel more comfortable about destroying their country and killing the population.
Re:What's Left? (Score:4, Insightful)
It's all about perspective, man. Look at the big picture.
Re:What's Left? (Score:3, Funny)
Someone did. They modded you insightful :-)
No (Score:5, Insightful)
The only way the US will compete, ever, is if our standard of living drops...a lot.
Now, If everything I need to survive decently had its cost cut by 90%, then I'd be able to compete.
Personally, I'd like all corporat tax breaks be removed from any company that outsouces. If it makes them so much money, it shouldn't be a problem, right?
Re:No (Score:3, Insightful)
Or if the standard of living in India rises...a lot.
Big Picture (Score:4, Insightful)
"In the long run, we're all dead" - Keynes
No matter how true the rosy big picture may be, the devil is still in the details for those suffering from the change. If there are things we can do to make the transitionless volatile, why not do them?
Moral? Never Happened (Score:3, Informative)
It never existed, that's what happened to it.
Today, shipping your job to India is immoral. A hundred years ago, paying women and children nothing for 16 hour days in the textile mills was immoral. 150 years ago it was the coal mines. 200 years ago it was cotton fields filled with slaves.
Capitalism is inherently about competition, and in competition, sombody ultimately looses. The only way to fix that is to devise a system where everyone wins
Re:What's Left? (Score:3, Insightful)
You could learn a trade, but don't expect to work your way up to running your own business. Trades will be corporatized, so if you want to be a plumber you'll have to work for National Plumbers, inc.
So, basically there will be a two class system, since they've effectively figured out how to elimi
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
I for one... (Score:3, Funny)
Well, at leat the Malls will go under... (Score:3, Funny)
And how is this supposed to happen? Those who do not end up on the streets will be training as Fryolator operators working for enough money to pay the rent.
The only good thing I can see out of this is that all the malls will close.
Here come the lawyers (Score:5, Interesting)
Crazy world...
Worrisome (Score:4, Insightful)
Is if you are goof (Score:3, Insightful)
The other important thing is good problem solving skills. When you have to write something new and different in code or when you encounter a new problem, can you sit down and solve it ef
If my job is going away soon... (Score:4, Funny)
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.
Re:An indian perspective (Score:3, Insightful)
It seems as though Americans are being punished today for having forefathers who loved them and worked hard to give them a better life, because now the fact that our comm
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 tha
Re:An indian perspective (Score:5, Insightful)
Here's a newsflash: India is neither self-reliant nor powerful. Open trade improves the economy and the living standards. There are no self-reliant countries anymore. Every country depends upon other countries for essential resources.
And it's not as if the call-center jobs are taking resources away from other, more productive endeavors. Until recently the unemployment rate in India has been through the roof. You would have a very good point if these outsourced jobs meant that people were not doing other stuff that would be more useful to the national economy, however that is not the case.
The East India company took natural resources away from the country. No money was input into the country in exchange for these resources - rather money was taken away from the country when the products of these resources were sold back to India. This is not the case here. Outsourced jobs infuse valuable foreign exchange into the country and provide employment to a large number of people, improving the overall lifestyle.
Re:An indian perspective (Score:3, Insightful)
I have 1 billion people, 200,000 jobs, and tax revenue of 1 billion dollars. I now have a huge net export of goods and services.
Political climate in US changes ...
Pipeline of jobs to India shuts down. Now you're back to 1 billion people, 10,000 jobs, and tax revenue of 100 million with which to feed them.
things always seem alot worse when youre homeless and used to have a house than if youve been homeless your whole life
Combine this with a shutdown of the job pipe, and you have a re
Don't trip over the FUD (Score:5, Insightful)
This is programming (Score:3, Insightful)
That about says it all. No wonder it's so easy to fire people. "All you do all day is hit return!"
This is what happens when people are asked to manage something they refuse to understand. Knowledge is destroyed and the economy is damaged. Think of the thousands of years and tens of millions of dollars worth of education that are being wasted right now.
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.
Re:Stop government aide (Score:3, Insightful)
lots of details to work out but it would slow job leakage and what does still happen would feed domestic job growth.
I just outsourced posting an insightful comment.. (Score:3, Funny)
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:Offshoring my own job (Score:3, Funny)
And if he did get caught, you know what they would probably do? Fire all of his co-workers, make him a manager, and get him to hire 5 other Indians.
parallel example (Score:5, Insightful)
Then, Coke hired an Indian ad agency. These guys made commercials with sexy women and fast cars, and Coke sold like hotcakes.
The moral of the story: creative work is more likely to be relevant in the culture it was created in.
And so it goes... unless we the people stop it! (Score:4, Insightful)
Back in the early part of the previous century, few middle class, and certainly no upper class people complained when textile, glass production, steel, and later manufacturing were shipped off shore. Many people just smiled and wagged their heads whenever Unions complained about jobs going overseas. Some people warned that off-shore job movement would sink the US economy.
Fast forward to the present. Who's complaining now? It appears to be whoever is left in the middle class. The upper class still doesn't care. One difference this time is that the middle class is largely un-unionized and therefore un-represented during job/salary reviews and other decision making activities.
If people want to change things, here are several things to consider:
Corporate law specifically states that actions taken or products produced by corporations must be in the public interest. Yes, it says that. So a good question to ask is Is it in the public interest to put them out of work by moving their jobs overseas?
Corporate leaders currently earn over 600 times the average salary of their employees. Moving jobs off-shore is likely to make a small percentage of the US population even more wealthy.
Yes, it's still about the economy. For all his other failings, Henry Ford had an interesting idea that his employees should be paid well enough to be able to afford one of his products.
Until corporate officers are encouraged to employ people from the country that issues their charters, the gap between the have's and the have nots in the US will continue to grow.
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."
The automotive industry (Score:4, Insightful)
Isn't the automotive industry heavily regulated regarding foreign content? Isn't that the case for precisely the reason that Wired is blithering on about?
Also in the past fourty years haven't we seen the demise of the single-income family? Hasn't the price of goods, services, taxes etc all outpaced the increase in income? Don't Americans have the least time off and the worst hours in the industrialized world?
I don't see how the automotive industry is an example of how outsourcing overseas is a win/win scenario.
Am I missing something?
Countries and economies need to advance... (Score:3, Insightful)
Nobody in the developed world needs to be developing code anymore, we need to use the minds we have for aids and cancer research, building hover bots and interactive hologramatic entertainment stations.
As an individual it's a harsh world, industries are going to turn over faster and faster in the future, we have to be ready to retrain and move on.
There is a reason why most European countries have worked hard over the last two decades to reduce the number of blue collar workers building cars or mining coal. This is just a natural extension of the same macro economics...a weak government will bend their policies and stop the flow of offshore low end jobs, a forward looking one will encourage it.
Sorry, I'm in a funny mood.
recent studies (Score:3, Insightful)
There is a difference between manufacturing and software development, and to compare the two will lead to some pretty specious arguments.
I have had the 'opportunity' to be interviewing for a job. In many of those interview, the subject of oursourcing has come up. In every one, there projects had failed, and internally, the project managment has started to prevent outsourceing do to its cost.
A more appropriate title for this story (Score:3, Funny)
Re:Note to fat USians (Score:5, Insightful)
average college cost - $70,000
average apartment cost - $800
daily lunch - around $7
just a few items. hey, to be honest i'd be happy making $20,000 per year if my lunch would cost 50 cents daily, apartment $30 per month (or free, as it is in many countries) and the best college runs around $3,000 for all 4 years.
all the amounts people make are relative to what they have to spend. would you like to make $300,000 per year? if your rent becomes $20,000 per month (hypothetically, for the sake of comparison), all of a sudden that doesn't seem like that much money.
I just love how people assume that in america everybody is fat and have free money growing on trees. we work 50 hours per week and our bills are very expensive!!!
Re:Note to fat USians (Score:3, Insightful)
Eat rice. (Score:3, Funny)
Need protein? Leave some rice out and kill the rats.
I'm only half joking. Ha!
Re:Note to fat USians (Score:3, Insightful)
That pretty much sums it up, doesn't it? Honestly, where the hell is that more than $50,000 they save on each and every outsourced job? It's disappeared! People complain about the $8,000 per worked put into the Indian economy, but the disappearance of that much larger sum is a much greater issue.
Hey, it could be put to use giving an American another, slightly-lower paying jo
Obviously this article is biased. (Score:5, Insightful)
I thought sending manufacturing jobs overseas was a bad idea 20 years ago and sending Software jobs overseas is a bad idea. Eventully you have to do or make something cars, planes, software, genetic s, spaceships SOMETHING. We can't all sit around selling each other stuff at wal-mart.
People poo-poo this point of view, but I have yet to see any of these supposed "pure knowlege worker" positions advertised in the local paper. My guess is they don't exist and never will. They are the very wealthy elite's attempts to smoke screen the middle class.
In the 90's the laid off manufacturing were promised great jobs in IT or related fields. Now those jobs are being sent overseas. Next we are promised jobs as 'knowlege works' WTF is that. I 'm waiting for someone, anyone to show me ONE of these supposed position anywhere. You can't because they don't exist.
Re:Obviously this article is biased. (Score:5, Insightful)
'They're called lawyers, professors, researchers, and executives.'
Most laywers don't care one way or the other. Academics (professors) are fairly split over whether all this is a good idea. Executives love it because they give themselves fat bonuses with the money they make sending jobs overseas. Most researches are either blissfully unaware or are wondering when they will be outsourced as well.
After all research can be done much more cheaply in India than here. PHD's grow on trees, no EPA to deal with, no FDA. Want to run clinical trials, go get some low caste individuals sleeping on the sidewalk and wala test subjects. If a few die no one will care. Point is, almost everyjob can be done overseas more cheaply, including yours, however we americans have to SOMETHING.
In your world Jonas Salk would'nt have cured polio either, because his work could've been done more cheaply in India. Then the Drup company that paid for it could supply the vacine to the suffering masses at outrageous prices, and if some could'nt aford well, who cares, certainly not George Bush or his friends.
Jonas Salk did what he did to help suffering people, not to help the corporate profit sheet.
Re:Obviously this article is biased. (Score:3, Insightful)
And what is a decent living? Americans have an incredibly high standard of living and, barring an invasion, they will from this point forward. The geographical advantages of the United States, combined with the incredibly high education rate, will ensure that the average American can feed and clothe himself with more disposable income left over than workers in most other countries, regard
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:Holy crap! (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Holy crap! (Score:3, Funny)
Oh, we'll be telephone sanitizers, middle management, hairdressers....
Forget middle management. With no workers left to manage, who needs a middle manager? From now on, kids coming out of school will have to start at the top. Let's see - how many new CEOs do we need this year?
Simple solution (Score:4, Insightful)
Give in and realize that
a. Software for life critical things (airplanes, military, nuculear reactors, etc) will remain the the US.
b. Software jobs for just about everything else will move outside of the US.
c. Linux and open source software will lower the costs of software so that there are significantly less paying software development jobs worldwide.
d. US based IT jobs will center around:
1. Data managament and security (DBA for a bank)
2. Data analysis - high level decision support for financial data
3. Physical presence jobs - on site IT/network work (pulling network cables, rebuilding pc's, etc)
e. The total number of IT related gradutes from US universities will drastically decline since the perceived job prospects are declining.
f. Commodity hardware ($300 dell machine), bootable OS CD's/firmware, and web based services will greatly reduce the number, type and size of programs installed on an end user's local machine. This compounds the reduction in support and development jobs since all of those installation program developers will be obsolete.
g. Mainframe type data centers will be the big dollar items in corporate IT budgets.
I think, with 10+ years paid programming under my belt + 2 CS degrees, that
a. there will be IT jobs in the US
b. the jobs will pay better than other skilled jobs
c. the pay will be lower in real terms than the current level when adjusted for inflation
d. that it workers in the US will have a lower standard of living than now, unless there is a drastic lowering of taxes at federal, state and local level from their 50% plus percent today.
e. that significant simplifications in government regulation at all levels are needed to make the US more compelling to operation businesses and employ US workers
f. that the ratio of people producing product to the people not producing product will have to be corrected from the projected major decline from todays level. The not producing product includes government workers at all levels plus those receiving handouts from the government (e.g., social security, medicare, ssi, unemployment, etc)
Re:Simple solution (Score:5, Insightful)
Give in and realize that
a. Software for life critical things (airplanes, military, nuculear reactors, etc) will remain the the US.
b. Software jobs for just about everything else will move outside of the US.
Your response is interesting, but moot... it ignores;
1. Business will do what it bloody well feels like doing, and unless you write laws or change laws forbidding the export of jobs from the U.S., you can pucker up now, because those jobs will be gone sometime early tomorrow morning, and you might want to kiss them bye before they get on board that jet to India. Welcome to economics 101...
2. The nature of software must dramatically change. Our hardware is thousands of times more powerful today than 25 years ago, but our software keeps finding new and horrible ways to piss away useful work, meaningful process, and sane cooperation between it's desparate parts. We as a technological community need to stop this incessant process of polishing turds for business people who have spent the last quarter century trying to carve up the IP universe so that they might better charge us for the bits of data flowing through the wires. Instead we need to actually begin to look ahead and design software that utilizes the tremendous horsepower now available in new and exciting ways, and truly lay down a pathway to creating externalizations of our own intellect, that we might begin to finally draw from our inventions that which we dreamed of when we first began this journey of conception...
3. The use of software is soon going to be a diverse universe unlike anything any of us have ever imagined, from smart household appliances, to intelligence in your car's tires, to bioinformatics, and advanced modeling in proteomics, to 3-D interfaces designed to allow molecular engineers the needed tools to model nanotechnological systems manufacture. The stuff IT engineers do today is going to change tremendously over the next few years. How much of that should be outsourced? None? Some? All? The impacts of any of this stuff could be tremendous. How do you choose? What of software that writes software? What of software that converts human intent into meaningful instruction?...
There needs to be a completely different model for the production of software. Maybe we need a guild. Maybe we need some sort of Protected Status, as a critical and endangered national resource. If American allows it's intelligence to emmigrate, it will ultimately collapse. We need to create an environment conducive to the growth and development of human intelligence through the medium of external process... it must ultimatele be unhitched from the profit motive because profit takes IT in stupid directions. That is, direction inherently contrary to the expanding expression of human intelligence. Business must benefit from the fruit of that work, and should therefore contribute to it's perpetuation, but IT must be free to grow where it needs to grow to address and resolve larger social and human problems. Problems supplied by business should be resolved, or problems should be refactored to prevent unseen conflicts between the business intent and larger social considerations (eg. don't give a businessman a working program to run a fusion reactor that is itself poorly designed and will make a 6 kilometer crater when first tested.) Let collaborations between software engineers, social engineers, mathematicians, cosmologists, anthropologists, philosophers, artists and asthetics, architects, business visionaries, and financial planners occur, in fact make them occur. Generate societal infrastructure to make the creation, management, flow, storage, and utilization of information, in all it's forms consistent, seamless, and transparent to the average citizen. Begin laying down a future by design, as opposed to one that is mindlessly sputter blasted across the scenery.
Use labor resources around the world, but make sure tha
Re:Holy crap! (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Holy crap! (Score:4, Insightful)
Your .sig is so ironic.
Brontitol (Score:4, Funny)
Your reference to shoes brings to mind the Shoe Event Horizon from the Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy's planet Brontitol.
"The Shoe Event Horizon is now a firmly established, and rather sad economic phenomenon which, in future times will be taught as part of the basic Middle School Life, the Universe, and Everything syllabus.
TEACHER: Stand up! Harsh Economic Truths, Class 17. You are standing up?
STUDENT: Yes.
T: Good. You are living in an exciting, go-ahead civilization. Where are you looking?
S: Up.
T: What do you see?
S: The open sky, the stars, an infinite horizon.
T: Correct... You are living in a stagnant, declining civilization. Where are you looking?
S: Down.
T: What do you see?
S: My shoes.
T: Correct. What do you do to cheer yourself up?
S: I buy a new pair.
T: Correct! Now, imagine everone does the same thing... everyone buys new shoes, what happens?
S: More shoes.
T: And?
S: More shoe shops.
T: Correct... and in order to support all these extra shoe shops, what happens?
S: Everyone must keep buying shoes.
T: And how is that arranged?
S: Manufacturers dictate more and more different fashions of and make shoes so badly that they either hurt the feet or fall apart.
T: So that?
S: Everyone has to buy more shoes.
T: Until?
S: Until... everyone gets fed-up with lousy, rotten shoes.
T: And then what?
S: Massive capital investment by the manufacturers to try and make people buy the shoes.
T: Which means?
S: More shoe shops.
T: And then we reach what point?
S: The Shoe Event Horizon! The whole economy overbalances. Shoe shops outnumber every other kind of shop. It becomes economically impossible to build anything other than shoe shops.
T: Now, what's the final stage?
S: Um... every shop in the world becomes a shoe shop.
T: Full of?
S: Shoes no one can wear.
T: Result?
S: Famine, collapse, and ruin. Any survivors eventually evolve into birds and never put their feet on the ground again.
T: Excellent! End of lesson."
Re:Holy crap! (Score:5, Insightful)
What did we produce after we stopped producing shoes, then cars, etc? Other stuff!
When the jobs in agriculture started disappearing, people were told to retrain and get jobs in manufacturing. When the textile and manufacturing jobs were being sent overseas, we were told to reeducate ourselves and move up the food chain to knowledge work. If you'd read the article (either time it was posted), the looming question that nobody can answer is, *what comes after knowledge?* The author waved his hands, and like you, said *oh, something else*.
The point is, this is the first time in history when people have been educated for and lost two careers to outsourcing in a lifetime. The agricultural period lasted about 100 years, the manufacturing period lasted about 40 years, and the IT period about 20 years. It takes many people 25 years to pay off an education in the U.S. It is now a losing proposition. Whatever this next, great unknown thing is, the trend indicates it will last for 10 years (if it happens). Tell us now what the people who are losing their jobs need to be learning.
Capitalism works because human progress is unlimited.
Can you supply some proof that capitalism works? Where has it been tried? Certainly not in the U.S., where we have the worst mismash of capitalism and a centralized, regulated economy. Ever heard of the FRB, the FTC or a dozen other federal regulatory agencies? Ever heard of wage/price limits, minimum wages, tariffs, duties, NAFTA, favored trade status, or fast-track trade agreements? How about H-1B/L1 visas where certain industries are allowed to freely import cheaper labor denied to other sectors?
Unless you believe that progress will come to an end, you can rest assured that things will work out in the long term.
Nursing a burger patty from frozen pink disk to hot brown lunch is "progress". Got anything a little more substantial? As a previous poster pointed out, having your sig on that comment is classic.
Sorry to piss in your cornflakes, but... (Score:5, Informative)
Everything you mention above is still alive and well in the US. Perhaps not in the form you're thinking, but definitely alive and well. And guess what? Agriculture, manufacturing and IT have all overlapped in certain parts of the business process. Being an admin for a biotech company, I can tell you first hand that all three are pervasive in this industry.
Re:Holy crap! (Score:5, Insightful)
Try the US at the end of the 19th century, and to a lesser degree, the early 20th. The results (depressions, dislocations, mass poverty, child labor, corporate thugs beating and killing workers who object to being exploited, wealth concentrating in the rich investor class, etc.) show that capitalism doesn't work. Of course, communism doesn't work either. The lesson we as a nation should take from the last 150 years is that what does work is a system in which capitalism provides the engine of the economy, but its excesses are restrained by strong government regulation. Too bad the right didn't learn this lesson.
Outsourcing is progress (Score:3, Insightful)
What is this "progress" of which you speak, my friend?
Outsourcing, for instance, is progress. Outsourcing represents progress for capital. Capital, having found a new lever to maximize returns, now sends American jobs to India. By any rational measure, that is progress -- for capitalists.
But social progress for Americans it definitely is not. What is in America's larger interest
Re:Holy crap! (Score:3)
According to Mr. Stephenson: music
movies
microcode (software)
high-speed pizza delivery
Re:Here we go again!!! (Score:3, Insightful)
I predict this will NOT work out in the long term:
Indian companies will lie about their competency to
Good GOD!!! (Score:3, Informative)
1) Sure the low-caste people have rights. For the last 50 yrs, they have had 'affirmative action'. In Tamil Nadu, 70% of all college seats, government jobs are reserved for the lower castes. Any money flowing into India is going to be spent on essentials, and may be for a few imports. The money pretty much goes straight to the people, and not to some mythical upper-caste people.
2) India has a pretty decent legal system. Not as bad as most other countries, or your the
Re:It's a risk that they think we can afford? (Score:4, Insightful)