[optik_b]

Interesting piece from new issue of Wired on the massive outsourcing of tech jobs to India.

[sarcasm]

ping

[sourcery]

[Happy2BMe]

QUOTE:

Gottfredson's team paraded out a variety of charts and graphs that all boiled down two simple options: a) become competitive again by sending jobs someplace they could be done better and cheaper, or b) face a slow death. The CEO ordered a complete efficiency audit, at the end of which Gottfredson recommended outsourcing all call centers, manufacturing, HR, IT, and back-office operations.

Exasperated, the CEO relented and has since trimmed $130 million from his expenses. What's left of the company? Whatever it is, it's leaner and more competitive, and, most important, it's still alive. Gottfredson is utterly unapologetic. "The beauty of our system is that we've always had the ingenuity to come up with new things to do," he says. "This country has an endless supply of initiative and drive." Easy for him to say.

UNQUOTE

Hey guys - are you buying a Dell? Gonna shop for a new credit card? Looking for some "tech support" on that new PC you bought at Burp Buy?

.

Jessica Wynne
From top: Aparna Jairam, project manager; Kavita Samudra, senior software engineer; Aditya Deshmukh, project manager; Srividya Kanan, technical architect; Lalit Suryawanshi, senior software engineer.

[Elliott Jackalope]

Back in the 80's I was letting everyone around me know that the move to "offshore" our manufacturing industries was going to come back to bite us in the butt. However, I worked in hi-tech and no-one around me wanted to hear it. They said "they'll learn new skills", "you're a protectionist", "we're just shipping off jobs that nobody wants to do any more" and other homilies like that. I told them "what will you do when it's YOUR job that gets outsourced?" What did they say to that? "It won't happen".

Well, here we are, twenty years later, and it HAS happened. I saw the writing on the wall years ago, and so I'm in a much better position than the people I knew. Most of them are now losing their jobs, losing their houses, their marriages are falling apart, their kids are in trouble, some are turning into alcoholics, others are near suicide, some have probably already killed themselves. But they didn't want to hear about it when it was manufacturing jobs being lost. Now nobody else wants to hear about it now that hi-tech jobs are being lost.

Face it, America is a "Devil take the hindmost" society. And now the Devil really is taking the hindmost, along with everything else. And nobody cares. It's all about "I've got mine, Jack" and "To heck with you".

I'm really starting to feel like I'm on board an out-of-control train that is racing towards a washed out bridge over a thousand foot precipice, and everyone else on the train is drunk and partying and fat and happy. I guess the only thing to do is to go up to the club car, order a brandy and enjoy the pretty scenery whizzing by. Goodness knows that if you even THINK about reaching for the emergency brake cord the Pinkertons on board will beat you to death.

[Soren]

The invisible hand is giving him the finger.

LOL. Good line.

[Leisler]

Europe does a good job of fighting this stuff. That's why they have had zero job growth in a decade and economic growth is measured in tenths of a percent for a year. No children, old population, way way heavier debts. We should follow their model.

Logotec makes all its mice in China. Most of the product value comes from American made chips, optics. Almost all flat screens made, of any size, use Corning Made in USA product. We should stop this. We should follow the Cuban, North Korean model of total independence. Matter of fact we should kick out Honda, BMW, Toyota, Sthil and all the evil manufactures that are making Americans unfairly slave in their greedy American plants. Even forbidding the importation of various drugs and medical equipment. Better the old folks die.

Well, there's a lot to do, we better get to it. Long live the new Hermit Kingdom.
This way we won't end going anywhere near the growth rates of Hong Kong, Singapore, etc.

[the invisib1e hand]

free markets are things that people yak about but few understand. you see, the sword cuts both ways in a free market. you know those safety nets the liberals are always using as an excuse to tax you? There are none in a free market. in a free market, you have to stay sharp and adapt.

most people will piss and moan, like the guy in Tampa who sits home all day reminiscing about charging $115.00 an hour (and that was back when a buck was a buck!) to write code.

it was a boom. it came and it went. it was a gold rush. can't blame the President for that, or for his refusal to prop it up.

face it. the better product is made overseas. if you want to capitalize on it, buy property in India. Go organize the programmers into a union. i'm sure I'm not the only set of ears that's tired of the whining.

[Brellium]

Hopefully I never find myself on the recieving end, and have to train a replacement. Although, I fully expect lawyers to be in trouble with Indians doing their work (Nevermind I know quite a few). My response based on that one fact would be to turn the offer given to me with any refrence of my having to train a replacement crossed with the explicit threat of having to find some part of "common law" to sue them under. While I would fully expect to lose, I would leave the lawyer with instructions to get on every talk show to discuss my case against my previous "employer". The sheer fact this one action would make any PR department in the company cry like little babbies would make it all that much more worthwile.

Either that or as a chemical engineer I'll leave 20 or so uniquely designed explossive devices scattered around the headquarters.

While a programer can cause quite a bit of problems for his "employer", a chemist (with a lab) can level a city block.

[A. Pole]

Jairam's annual salary is about $11,000 - more than 22 times the per capita annual income in India. Aparna Jairam isn't trying to steal your job. That's what she tells me, and I believe her. But if Jairam does end up taking it - and, let's face facts, she could do your $70,000-a-year job for the wages of a Taco Bell counter jockey - she won't lose any sleep over your plight.

Of course she "isn't trying to steal your job". This is not the point. The point is that it is very hard to survive in America for $11,000 a year (unless you get government assistance). And this $70,000 is red herring, most of engineers do or will work for much less.

[A. Pole]

Turner's bill passed the state senate by a 40-to-0 vote. But it got bottled up in the assembly, thanks to the efforts of Indian IT firms and their powerhouse Washington, DC, lobbying firm, Hill & Knowlton.

Hill & Knowlton?!

[dennisw]

bttttttttt

[A. Pole]

After a week in India, it seems clear that the white-collar jobs with any lasting potential in the US won't be classically high tech. Instead, they'll be high concept and high touch.

How do you develop "high concept and high touch" without experience and entry level jobs? How many Americans can get this "high concept and high touch"?

[dixie sass]

So what's new? Jobs, both blue and white collar, have been outsourced for years. I mean why pay high dollar, when you can have the same quality and quanity for less. Good business!

[Snuffington]

I suppose I should at least ping this, to read it later. But having worked with real life "Aparna Jairam"s for a few years now, this seems like an article written by an idiot who doesn't know his topic. But I'll read the whole thing later and decide.

[isthisnickcool]

The writer may think India is the "New Face of The Silicon Age". And may be right. But there are other faces I've not seen anyone write much about.

[chimera]

She looks at me. Then she says, "I'd like to know where you go from knowledge."

You go from building systems, hardware, aircraft, machinery, automobiles, military apparatus, power plants, appliances, petrochemical refineries, and computers, to building Big Macs. If you're lucky enough to have the manager at the local Mac's not turn you down for being "overqualified". Being a "knowledge worker" is no defense against offshoring. If you think for a living, chances are, Juanid Bobaganoosh can think for cheaper over in New Delhi.