Lawmakers Can't Arrest U.S. Job Shift to India to Lower Costs

Bloomberg ^ | 12/31/03 | Bloomberg

[Pikamax]

Lawmakers Can't Arrest U.S. Job Shift to India to Lower Costs Dec. 31 (Bloomberg) -- Bob Thibodeau founded Financial Systems Architects in 1998 to help companies such as Citigroup Inc. handle electronic transactions. By 2001, he was driven out of business. Lower-cost Indian competitors undercut his bids on two straight contracts, he said.

[sinkspur]

They do not have to. All they have to do is assign blame and say if elected I will do something about it. The sheeple will follow.

Won't work. With the economy coming back, the number of those affected is, so far, miniscule.

Nothing the Democrats SAY is going to matter, if Howard Dean is the nominee, when the Republicans remind the voters that Dean wants to raise taxes by a trillion dollars.

[JudgemAll]

I am sick and tired of people who say, as a concocted convenient protocriminal alibi, that there is nothing we can do.

YES WE CAN DO SOMETHING.

TAXES ON IMPORT. NO INCOME TAXES ON THOSE WHO EARN THEM WHILE WORKING ON EXPORT COMPANIES

WHEN OH WHEN ARE WE GOING TO STOP KILLING OUR VERY OWN GOVERNMENT EARNINGS AND EARNING POTENTIAL AT THE BENEFIT OF 3rd WORLD NATIONS AND OTHER IDIOTS!!!!!!

[JudgemAll]

We had a war of independence because of various direct and indirect export taxes, by the way, which castrated the inventive spirit at home.

[Feldkurat_Katz]

To answer the challenge, Microsoft Chief Executive Steve Ballmer last month said in New York that the U.S. must churn out more math and science graduates. That would raise the supply of computer engineers -- and push down their salaries to about $50,000 a year, he says.

In order to address the problem of unemployment among computer engineers, we are going to produce more computer engineers. Dilbert's pointy-headed boss is a real person and his name is Ballmer.

[A. Pole]

As the cost for payment collection falls, airlines are now able to chase delinquent accounts they once had to ignore. And data entry or call-center employees in India are not only cheaper, they're more motivated than their U.S. counterparts, the study found.

Collection agency employees in India are more motivated, more aggressive? Do they have easier access to the personal data?

[Feldkurat_Katz]

Collection agency employees in India are more motivated, more aggressive?

The moral of this is: if the bill collector speaks with an Indian accent, yours is a low priority account. Ignore the collector.

[Leatherneck_MT]

You forgot..

'Want fries with that?"

[Feldkurat_Katz]

Ballmer's Solution

To answer the challenge, Microsoft Chief Executive Steve Ballmer last month said in New York that the U.S. must churn out more math and science graduates. That would raise the supply of computer engineers -- and push down their salaries to about $50,000 a year, he says. That's about what the average U.S. high school teacher earns.

Lowering U.S. salaries would make sending jobs to India less likely because ``the whole economics of that proposition starts to look quite a bit different,'' Ballmer said in a recent speech.

Speaking of "economics of that proposition", here we have Microsoft's CEO making an elementary mistake! Nobody is forced or predestined to study computer science; if the salaries came down to 50 k per year, smart young people would study something else instead, e.g. mechanical or chemical engineering, both of which would offer better pay. Heck, if computer engineers earned the same as teachers, then why bother to study computer engineering? It takes less effort to get an education degree, the knowledge does not become obsolete in three years and the job security is greater.

As always, you get what you pay for: in Steve Ballmer's world computer engineers would not only be cheaper but also dumber as smarter guys would have gone elsewhere.

[A. Pole]

Nobody is forced or predestined to study computer science; if the salaries came down to 50 k per year, smart young people would study something else instead, e.g. mechanical or chemical engineering, both of which would offer better pay. Heck, if computer engineers earned the same as teachers, then why bother to study computer engineering? It takes less effort to get an education degree, the knowledge does not become obsolete in three years and the job security is greater.

Good point!

[oceanview]

no, because the companies don't care. The attitude is: if ALL of us offshore, then none of us will have a competitive advantage over each other, and we will all benefit from lower costs and higher executive compensation.

[Noumenon]

There are still some things that can't be outsourced or offshored. I started my own business. Read the introduction to the commercial section. More small business owners should speak in this manner.

[bvw]

Nothing that I learned in physics, math, electircal engineering, mechanical engineering, industrial engineering or "computer science" has ever become obsolete. There is new stuff, sure. But a new language or a revsion or Oracle does not obsolete the basic stuff one learns if at a decent school.

Yet the market -- the buyers, the filterers of resumes -- they have a faddish view of what they need. That ignorance -- blindness -- is a malignancy born of fiat money, like so many other vices. Fiat money rewards no-account, risk-avoiding decisions and arbitrary randomness and penalizes rationality. The only rule is go-along.

[RobbyS]

It will help if education costs are reduced. But this would require a different mindset on the part of educational administrators.

[oceanview]

Ballmer isn't going to get what he wants, because at the $50K salary level, no one will invest time in college for engineering. why bother.

its happening already, most US engineering college seats are being filled by foreign nationals, the american kids are piling into law school, business, finance, education, government, etc. and frankly, I don't blame them.

and when those graduates take jobs in those fields, they will form the basis of a permanent Democratic majority in the US. Maybe as soon as Hillary! 2008.

[Noumenon]

Dell has already pulled their corporate customer support back form India for just the reasons you've mentioned. It may take a little time, but the ugly downsides of offshoring - the cultural gaps, the theft of IP and confidnetial business process information, the almost total disreaged for copyright law - will make themselves felt in the boardrooms. The short-term gains resulting from offshoring will cost these companies far more than they ever bargained for.

[oceanview]

college education costs will never be reduced, they will just be supplemented by more government funding. the employees in education: teachers, professors, administrators, the Democrats know that they are "their people" and will protect those jobs. I give the Dems credit in this area, they protect the people who vote for them. whether its social services for the poor, government workers, teachers, higher education, media companies, etc. Its only the stupid Republicans who see a block of people who vote for them, private sector middle class tech and information workers, and throw them to the wolves to compete with India and China.

[oceanview]

Dell will retrain those people in India, take more time to develop the program, and send it back in a few years. they will never give up the lower costs, they just did it too fast. Its going back to India, trust me.

[kittymyrib]

And while we are at it, let's make sure that Ballmer and that college drop-out Gates only make what their Indian counterparts would make for heading an Indian computer company. Fair is fair.

[templar]

There is something these leeches can do, end the burdensome, onerous, punitive, taxation and regulation of every aspect of our lives!!!!!!!!!!!

Ain't gonna happen. Got any idea how many new regulations were added this year? Or how much new spending the government instituted (which will require more taxation eventually)?

[chris1]

What a sin! I wish these pols would all go to H$%^. They could care less about the burden they sack us with.