Jobs are being outsourced again — back to the U.S.

The Seattle Times ^ | July 30, 2017 | Steve Lohr, The New York Times

[2ndDivisionVet]

Salaries have risen in places like South Asia, making outsourcing there less of a bargain. In addition, as brands pour energy and money into their websites and mobile apps, more of them are deciding that there is value in having developers in the same time zone.

For years, U.S. companies have been saving money by “offshoring” jobs — hiring people in India and other distant cubicle farms.

Today, some of those jobs are being outsourced again — in the United States.

Nexient, a software outsourcing company, reflects the evolving geography of technology work. It holds daily video meetings with one of its clients, Bill.com, where team members stand up and say into the camera what they accomplished yesterday for Bill.com, and what they plan to do tomorrow. The difference is, they are phoning in from Michigan, not Mumbai.

“It’s the first time we’ve been happy outsourcing,” said Ren Lacerte, chief executive of Bill.com, a bill payment-and-collection service based in Palo Alto, California.

Nexient is a domestic outsourcer, a flourishing niche in the tech world as some U.S. companies pull back from the idea of hiring programmers a world away.

Salaries have risen in places like South Asia, making outsourcing there less of a bargain. In addition, as brands pour energy and money into their websites and mobile apps, more of them are deciding that there is value in having developers in the same time zone, or at least on the same continent.

Many of these domestic outsourcers are private, little-known companies like Rural Sourcing, Catalyte, Eagle Creek Software Services and Onshore Outsourcing. But IBM, one of the country’s foremost champions of the offshore outsourcing model, has announced plans to hire 25,000 more workers in the United States during the next four years.....

[A Formerly Proud Canadian]

IIRC, Lethbridge, AB has several US call centres. It is a city of 100,000, within an hour’s drive of MT, a university of 10,000 students and college of 5,000, it is a good place to have a call centre. There is little problem with accent, versus the Philippines or India. Of course with the exchange rate, it is less expensive than a US location.

[njslim]

Trump needs to do something about US jobs being outsources
by cheap Canadian labor.......

[A Formerly Proud Canadian]

Start buying Canadian, eh! That will increase demand for the ‘loonie’, thereby tightening the exchange rate, reducing demand for the now more expensive
Canadian call centres. In addition, it will increase demand for citrus, boosting S. US state economies.