Posted on 08/07/2003 5:25:07 AM PDT by Non-Sequitur
Hundreds of Sprint Corp. employees may lose their jobs as the Overland Park-based telecommunications giant moves forward with a plan to send certain technology jobs overseas.
Sprint chairman and chief executive Gary Forsee on Wednesday said competitive pressures had forced the company toward "offshoring" -- the growing trend of U.S. companies relying on lower-paid computer programmers as far away as India and China.
Sprint put out a request for proposals from outsourcing companies earlier this year and has since narrowed the list to two offshore vendors. Forsee said Sprint is conducting site surveys and is in "serious discussions" with the two companies.
"At the end of the day, it's several hundred jobs that could be impacted," Forsee said. "But we don't know what the ultimate result is."
A final decision on how to handle sending the jobs overseas is likely within 60 days.
Layoffs would not be immediate, Forsee said, because moving work to the outsourcing companies could take six to 12 months.
Forsee also said the company hopes to ease the impact of sending jobs overseas by moving some displaced workers to other information technology projects within Sprint and replacing existing contractors with Sprint employees.
Sprint already was considering moving jobs overseas when Forsee replaced William T. Esrey as the company's top executive earlier this year. But Forsee said he made the final decision to go ahead with the request for proposals.
Sprint already uses an offshore company for some customer service jobs. The company has outsourced information technology jobs to U.S. firms for years. But it has resisted sending information technology jobs overseas.
That has changed as Sprint, like other telecommunications companies, struggles with weak sales in what continues to be a difficult economy.
For almost two years, Sprint has been on a campaign to lower costs to compensate for soft sales. Since October 2001, more than 18,000 jobs have been eliminated. Hundreds of contractors also have lost work at Sprint.
Computer programmers and other skilled technology workers have been among the hardest hit, and there remains a severe shortage of available technology jobs in Kansas City and elsewhere.
Sprint's move toward sending jobs overseas will make a bad situation worse, said Rick Kumar, a former Sprint contractor who last year founded a support group for laid off information technology workers.
"The market is where it was a year and a half ago," Kumar said.
Many people still are out of work or have abandoned their information technology careers for other work, Kumar said. But unlike many of his information technology colleagues, Kumar said he does not blame Sprint and the many other companies that have turned to cheaper labor overseas.
"They have to follow the model or go out of business," Kumar said.
That is precisely how Sprint explains its move toward an offshore vendor. When competitors began cutting information technology costs by turning to offshore programmers, company officials said, Sprint was forced to look at following suit.
"We've got to stay on top of our competitive position," Forsee said. Offshoring "has become a significant trend that we hadn't participated in, so we looked at that as a strategy that was important...because of the competitive aspects."
IBM, Microsoft and HP are among the U.S. companies that are sending information technology jobs overseas or reportedly plan to start. Sprint must lower its cost to keep pace, Forsee said. But he knows careers are at stake.
"When you take actions like that, you're doing that hoping to keep the company as a whole strong," realizing that there are "people and careers and jobs at stake," Forsee said. "We try to do that part very carefully. It's not without significant consideration."
Shares of FON closed Wednesday at $14.05, up 1 cent. PCS closed at $5.41, down 36 cents.
Guess what has a higher bandwidth, the highest speed satellite link, or a 747 crammed with tapes...
There are some things that can not be rished and putting more peopel on the project will not get it done any quicker or better. The classic exampel is even if you put 10 women on the project it will still take nine months to produce a baby.
Soldiers defending their homes and families, you betcha. I doubt if a militia would go out and defend the House of Saud or blow up a Sudanese medical factory to divert attention from impeachment.
Judges should be hired by the accused and the wronged. They should be paid by the loser. Then perhaps they would be interested in defending our rights rather than promoting liberalism. Even the Somalis have private legal insurance to cover judge fees.
As I have observed before though, when a person purchases a widget in this country, they not only get a widget, but they also get a military, a healthcare and legal system, stable currency, high quality of life, a retirement, protection against criminals, maintenance of rights and liberty worldwide, religious freedom, etc.
Free healthcare, Government pensions, a stable currency ??LOL..
Maintainence of rights? Try to get a jury trial in an IRS case.
Liberty worldwide huh? Like those American women & children the Marines marched back to their Saudi owners?
Or the other possibility which is really scary; they both see it and have no plans to do anything about it.
Sorry. Too sensible... NEXT...
I’ve been thinking the same thing myself. Mandarin or Cantonese?
My department (a branch of engineering) has had Ph.D. graduates go begging for work, ending up working as security guards for car dealerships or driving trucks.
We (in America) are going through a "sea change", or "paradigm shift", or "structual adjustment". Some such nonsense to describe big freakin' changes. Basically, via the power of the inet & comm, any cubicle job can be outsourced to anywhere in the world, to the lowest bidder. This is HUGH! And scary. And will have profound effects on the economy for decades to come. It has caught many people blindsidded.
The free market has told you the choices you made were wrong.
Yep. No one's to blame, few saw it coming. Much pain is bound to ensue. Serious financial and emotional pain. Seriously big time pain. I have no faith politicians have the will to do anything about this (well, unless it involved spending money - they're good at that).
This country is in real long-term danger of becoming a technological also-ran.
I disagree with this. Even with the abymsal state of public education, lots of (technically literate) hackers and programmers were produced. Smart people find a way (misquote from Jurrassic Park). So, I'm optimistic that especially young people will be able to re-tool.
That having been said - hey, your dept. outputs Ph.D.'s - where the heck are the major advances? These folks are supposed to be doing the basic r&d that may result in whole new industries - think phone system, electricity, airplanes, etc. Where are the new ones? I think the dot-comm fiasco has had an impact on this, sucking out money better spent elsewhere.
Anyway, just my 2 cents.
Would you like soy sauce or hot mustard sauce with that?
Down to the dialect.
K, where's that www.ezlearnchinese.com/1stclass.html class....
Gore's running?
We heard it on FR first!
Relevance?
You forgot to credit Andy Tanenbaum. The original quote was, "Never underestimate the bandwidth of a station wagon full of 9 track tapes". Peachy. You can't implement call centers with a 747 full of tapes. Anything that has to occur immediately to be of value must go over a telecom link. I was paying $38 to transport a 9 track tape from San Diego to Hayward in 1986 for overnight service. The turnaround time to/from India would be more like 4 days and far more than $38. Time is money. The time delay for transport and the cost of physical transport is the principal reason that India did not jump into competition with us in the past. Their dirt cheap labor cost advantage is erased by the time delay and transport costs. Cheap, high speed networks erased this impediment and set the stage for the current situation.
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