[Willie Green]

Where have all the good jobs gone?

[harpseal]

More on offshoring

[need_a_screen_name]

Didn't Microsoft or somebody recently say that in the next decade they will shift 3 MILLION jobs overseas? Maybe we should arm Pakistan a little more so India will be in no shape to receive them?? *wink*

[RightWhale]

If so many of the good jobs are disappearing, one might expect the hyperinflated housing market to find a new, lower level at some time. Alaska, Fairbanks in particular, is known for a boom-bust business cycle. It's been booming since Prudhoe, and one has to wonder if the economy will go bust again and if it will happen overnight. There are a lot of huge, upscale homes built recently. Maybe we who remain after the bust could move into 7000 square foot mansions a penny on the dollar.

[Huck]

Since then, Maglione has been able to find only temporary work in his field, taking a pay cut of nearly 30% from his former salary of $77,000. For a family and mortgage, he says, “that doesn´t pay the bills.” Worried about utility costs, he runs after his two children, 11 and 7, to turn off the lights. And he has considered a new career as a house painter. “It doesn´t require that much skill, and I don´t have to go to school for it,” Maglione says. And houses, at least, can´t be painted from overseas.

54K is still is good salary. His mortgage and bills should have been based on conservative assumptions, if he'd been more frugal with utilities etc in the first place, he'd have more savings now, and if he thinks he can make 54-77K house painting he's nuts. I know, I've done it.

Maybe the guy was misquoted, but he sounds like a real loser.

[VOA]

bump

[Zathras]

Follow the money on all India outsourcing.
They cover their tracks very poorly and kickbacks are easy to find.

[dfrussell]

If you're asked to train an H1B to "assist" you etc., you might as well start looking for other employment.

[jrp]

We outsourced the user-interface software for a project to Wipro. They had folks on-site and in India. It was a disaster. The programmers were border line incompetent, turn-around time on bug fixes was slow due to the time difference and frequent religious holidays and the resultant code so poorly written as to be unmaintainable.
Latent bugs discovered by a customer almost cost us a mjor contract. Now all our code is written and tested in house by folks who care about the quality of their work and have a stake in the success of our company.

[Roscoe]

Most desk jobs can potentially be outsourced

[sauropod]

" Businesses are embracing offshore outsourcing in their drive to stay competitive..."

As others have written, outsourcing like this is a short-term fix for a long-term problem at the company and usually masks systemic problems that eventually do in the company anyway...

[Marianne]

BTTT

[Wolfie]

Do Not Panic! All Is Well!

[null and void]

Proving that if you've got Tata's you don't need brains???

[waterstraat]

So what degrees should we get out of college?

Besides outsourcing, we need to worry about H1=B visas, and I see increasingly more and more Phillipino nurses(even ads specifically asking for Phillipino RN's), and asian phamacists over here.

[aSkeptic]

Outsource the executives!

[stylin19a]

Not that it still doesn't hurt, but what goes round comes round.

Under NAFTA, US jobs went to Mexicao, and US workers bitched. Then those same jobs went from Mexico to China. Mexican workers bitched.

The same will happen to India. These jobs will eventually go to China (or come back here).

A Mid-East staple market - rug making - is already long gone to China.

Furniture making is long gone to Malaysia.
All those roads will lead to China.

[drachenfels]

As usual, it's a story written by the media with only a shallow understanding of reality.

My last employer (now gone) attempted this by using H1B code cutters to replace full-time staff. There was NO savings, as the temp folks cost more initially, had no foundation skill set, took forever to learn what they needed to do, tried to spend their days chatting on IM with friends from back home... and so on.

MOST companies that attempt this are in for a bath, and I'm not talking about something that will clean them up.
;-)

Me... I'm a network geek; they're going to catch hell farming out what I do to somebody 6,000 miles away!

[Redcloak]

To protect domestic jobs, U.S. labor activists are pushing to limit the number of H-1B and L-1 visas granted to foreign workers.

This is the wrong approach. They should be going India and organizing labor unions. Once they do that, the Indian workers will be as expensive to use as Americans!

[american spirit]

Why aren't all these folks with such amazing backgrounds not out starting new companies with the purpose of attracting new customers totally disgusted with the actions of these corporate blobs like I am. Millions of us are out here looking for such companies and whenever I sense I'm dealing with overseas workers I do my best to find another avenue.

[thinking]

Discouraged by a depressed job market in Dallas, Lantz realized he would have to do something else. In the fall he will begin teaching computer science at Utah State University in Logan,

Yes, he will be teaching Asians and the Indians to take even more of the IT jobs...

The tribe with most children wins!