[RockyMtnMan]

No new news except now the major outlets are starting to run with it.

[Lazamataz]

No new news except now the major outlets are starting to run with it.

I think Bush will "get it" now.

[searchandrecovery]

"Globalization — whether it's for products or services — may feel like it hurts, but at the end of the day, it creates economic value all around," said Pal.

And the checks in the mail.

[RockyMtnMan]

More offshore ping

[Marauder]

This is of course a dual-edged problem: What isn't sent overseas is done by H1-B workers, whom I call neo-indentured servants because of their low pay and difficulty in changing jobs. The proliferation of these can be fixed, congress willing, but - at present - I don't see an immediate solution to the offshore problem.
It's the supply-demand curve at work, I guess; I'm lucky I have high-tech sales experience. The ability to get face-to-face and talk nuts and bolts with a prospect is one thing that can't be exported, at least not yet.
Now if I can just find a position that doesn't say "local candidates only" as a disclaimer.

[AAABEST]

Adding insult to injury, Emmons and the others had to train their replacements.

As a pretty hardcore free market capitalist this makes me sick.

They have a right to hire and fire whoever they like, but using people in this fashion is immoral and our government issuing visas to these Indians by manipuplating immigration laws to placate interests is infuriating.

People are starting to get pissed off. Pissed off techies can become problematic.

I love free business environment but I don't like watching people get f***ed. It's practices such as this that bring business regulations and enemies. Unions were borne out of this type of greed.

[andy58-in-nh]

This could very well be the issue with which the Democrats will retake the White House, if not next year, then in 2008. It is a real and growing problem, and, as yet, the Republicans do not even have it on their radar screens.

The offshore outsourcing trend has affected not only the high-tech (IT) sector, but is expanding in the financial services and telecommunications areas as well. American companies are hiring foreign workers at a fraction of American wage and benefit rates because it makes perfect, rational economic sense for them to do so in a globally competitive economy. What does NOT make sense, and what will (IMHO) ultimately result in a US financial crisis is that an increasing share of workers are paying no US taxes nor are they subsidizing the ever-expanding entitlement programs that Congress has mandated (SSI, Medicare, etc.) In turn, these same workers are not reinvesting their earnings in American goods and services, which means that future growth and job creation are being stunted. Meanwhile, our convoluted and literally insane tax code combined with bloated Federal spending is choking off opportunities for new American companies to produce new American jobs.

Even though the Democrats' likely prescription for all of this (more government/higher taxes) would surely be worse than the disease, many people will be receptive to politicians who seem to recognize problems rather than to those who seem to ignore them. Right now, the Republicans are ignoring them.

[AlbionGirl]

"The train has left the station, the cows have left the barn, the toothpaste is out of the tube,"..

Somebody help this WC geinus develop a less annoying analogous summary statement. What a pencil-necked, geeky thing to say! The Fred Blassie award goes to this loser, for sure.

[harpseal]

Ping. As has been pointed out by others nothing new here just a major news outlet picking up the Story.

As allways anyone who wants on or off this ping list let me know.

[1066AD]

If the job is sent offshore that's one thing... but if a replacement is hired within the US, being paid Indian rates, then that is flagrant abuse of the L-1 visa program; I believe this was the case with Siemens.

[P.O.E.]

At the risk of seeming repetitive, I'll, well, I'll just repeat what I've said elsewhere on the topic.

Part of the competitive edge other countries enjoy is a lower tax & regulatory burden (and fewer trial lawyers). Lower that burden here in the US.

[Dog Gone]

My paycheck is now processed in Bangalore, India. I'm not too happy about that, because it also means my social security number and tax information is in Bangalore.

How easy would it be for some underpaid Indian to sell my identity to an overseas crook?

How soon will I be seeing overseas charges on a credit card in my name?

[Bloody Sam Roberts]

"Globalization — whether it's for products or services — may feel like it hurts, but at the end of the day, it creates economic value all around," said Pal.

What a crock.

I'd really be interested in hearing this nimrod expand on that comment some more. Right before I stick up his @$$. Then he'll see how much it hurts.

[VOA]

bump

[samuel_adams_us]

Hello All:
There is a quote in the Sunday Denver Post by the president of an outsourcing company called Technology Crafters:

“There’s a lot of interest,” said Robert Welch, the company’s president. “American software teams are awesome for innovation, but in terms of being able to crank things out in a productive manner, they’re no the best on the planet.”


I find this quotation completely laughable! What a joke! If the Indian software companies were held to the same high standards that the software companies in the United States are held to, their prices for labor and product would be the same. A good example would be that a customer product takes 10,000 lines of “C” code in order to provide the customer with the amount of functionality they need. The Indian programmer writes the code and the documentation in order to install and use this piece of software. The Indian’s American counterpart writes the 10,000 lines of code, the documentation to support the installation and use of the software and he/she will also write the ISO9001 documentation required to go along with the software product which includes the project planning document, the software design document, the software testing documentation, the architecture review board documentation, etc. As you can see it’s obvious who takes more time to produce their product and who does a more careful and a better job. So just how many Indian software companies are ISO9001 certified? I wonder! American IT management would like their customers to think the quality is the same but underneath it all, we all really know the truth.
Let me relay an actual customer event that took place recently, a large Swiss Bank found an operating system defect on their system while trying to write an application to produce custom graphics for their bank statement printing. The function they found the bug in was wcstombs which converts wide character set strings to multibyte character set strings. Anyway this customer was/is paying for 24 X 7 development support and called into the 1-800 number and talked with a support engineer here in the United States. The customer was told that the engineers where looking at it and that they would be updated every morning until the fix was shipped. The software these days is written in India, it was Friday morning here in the United States, the Indian programmers don’t work weekends or overtime and are not required to be called out even if there is a customer emergency. The support representative from the United States called the customer on Saturday morning, Sunday Morning, Monday morning, always telling the customer that the engineers were working on the fix even though they weren’t. The customer finally received their fix the following Thursday afternoon, thus making the delivery of their bank statements late and costing them a lot of extra money for shipping, etc. Previous to this instance that same software had been written here in the United States, the customer would call in on Friday morning and a real software engineers was working on it within the hour, a test fix was usually supplied before the weekend was out and the customer would have shipped their statements on time. Now if you were that customer, would you be happy with your 24 X 7 development support?
I have one last comment, I find it interesting that a Japanese company named Toyota can produce a superior car with American workers and the CEO only earns 1.5 million dollars a year and an American company named GM pays their CEO 30 million dollars a year, uses foreign labor and produces cars with twice the number of defects per thousand cars shipped. I personally believe that the real problem in this country is the inept management running our companies, they cost more, create more headaches and redtape and then pass the blame down to the engineers and those doing the real work.
When will it stop? Enron continues to go on and on and on, this time the management is pushing the blame on the engineers and replacing them with foreign workers when the real responsibility and problem lies with them, they are the ones who agreed to all the extra work for the products, not the engineers and yet they take no responsibility for their own actions.

[MelBelle]

I can honestly say that since loosing my job to India on June 1st, I'm glad I didn't stay up all night learning programming just like my boss told me I should do....It wouldn't have helped a bit. All of our programmers in my Los Angeles group - with the exception of a few - lost their job in my company's offshoring project.

I've been told that I still should train and get certifications in IT, that certified IT workers will still get jobs. I would prefer to learn a new trade that will keep me employed. Any suggestions?

[stylin19a]

Wow...this thread has been everywhere. What I was hoping to read was some solutions. The few solutions I have seen are not pactical for everyone.

Alas, I do not have a solution. What I DO have is a plan.

I'm running up all my credit cards to the max.
I'm cash-out mortgageing my house to the hilt
I'm buying new cars
(I keep a beater that will run til the end of time)

I'm moving all my savings and money into my 401k.

When the inevitable happens, I will of course, use the laws of my state and country as they exists and claim Chapter 7 bankruptcy.

In the mean time, I'm learing how to turn a screw, pound a nail, change auto oil, tune-up "some" of my cars, learn about landscaping, work on my golf game, volunteer for stuff,...and beg my son or daughter to take care of me when I'm a doddering old fool, dribbling tapioca down my chin.

oh.by the way..for some of these things---> </sarcasm off>

[PatrioticAmerican]

They are running it because Bush said that American tech jobs are going overseas because we haven't kept up, which is a bold face lie to attempt to hide his tracks of doing nothing about the situation.

If affect, Dubya said, "Put some ice on it."

[MissAmericanPie]

These guys have something that cannot be outsourced. Innovation. It has always been Americas strength, these boys should make sure there is a million dollar price tag on their ability to innovate.

[nmh]

The major liberal media networks will play this up to make Bush look life a failure. The truth, like any other time, people must seek out new skills.

[HitmanLV]

Adding insult to injury, Emmons and the others had to train their replacements.

We really are raising a legion of gutless wonders. I would have walked out before doing this. You get no points for being nice on the way out. Of course, every job I ever quit has been a scene, so what do I know?

Chicks did it, though!