Unisys to hire 2,000 workers, invest US$180 million in India

BANGALORE, India -- plans to hire 2,000 local staff and invest US$180 million in a new software development and back-office center in southern India, a company executive said Wednesday.

Most of the jobs in India will be new positions, but the Pennsylvania-based computer services and equipment company will suffer some job losses in the United States, said Cal Killen, Unisys vice president for solution development.

Structural problems with the "cheap" labor associated with foreign offshore outsourcing.

1. Quality
2. Timelyness
3. Language Barriers
4. Cultural Gaps
5. Time Zones
6. Business Liability (foreigners are doing work for your company, and you are *liable* for their actions)
7. Data security
8. Intellectual Property Theft
9. Foreign graft
10.Decline in the foreign purchasing power of the U.S. Dollar
11.Technology Training Curve (new business technology is always deployed first in the U.S.) 12.Business Training Curve (most apps are domestic, and they require company or industry-specific knowlege to fully understand *why* they need to operate a certain way)

Now, these issues with "cheap" labor don't mean that all outsourcing is going to cease. Those issues simply increase the effective business cost of outsourcing, making more U.S. projects look like better deals (but that's "more," not "all").

Cheap Labor is seldom cheap. Somehow, most workers in capitalistic socieities manage to eventually figure out how far they can arbitrage their own value, even if they don't know what "Arbitrage" means...

For the most part, it is new jobs, new work, new business, not offsetting any jobs we have in the United States," Killen told reporters at the inauguration of the center in Bangalore.
"However, there will be some job redundancy in the future, both because of our offshoring strategy and other business reasons," he said.

Total doublespeak. BTW, Unisys get massive amounts of US tax dollars via huge government contracts.

Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.