Companies pay $1400 a plate to learn how best to eliminate your job (Offshoring)

[ghostman]

I study CS and will be in an IT position very soon. And you can bet that I'll b!tch about offshoring like all the other tech guys. Nonetheless, benchiu is 100% correct. I don't like offshoring only because it hurts me personally, but that doesn't mean it isn't beneficial to the US as a whole. If comparable service can be obtained at a cheaper cost (that doesn't seem like the case at this point, but that could change...), why should any American company retain IT workers and promote domestic inefficiency?

 

[BurnItDwn]

I think Jobs is is bigger issue than national defense in the coming election. National defense is easy for a president ... fund all the money that is needed and let the generals & admirals do their jobs.

How about killing NAFTA and WTO, Not buying from any country with human rights violations or sweatshop type employees, etc ?
Sure it would cause some inflation ... but I bet it would bring millions of jobs back to the USA.

 

[bcterps]

Originally posted by: tcsenter

"Buying American" almost doesnt exist anymore. The global marketplace has changed so much that it's impossible to distinguish "American" goods from others.

Nonsense. The law requires the label to state the country of origin and there are still many goods made right here in the US of A. I'm betting they don't even look at any label other than the price tag and never have.

Country of origin means very little. Some Toyotas are assembled in the US yet the company is a Japanese company and the parts can come from a number of sources. Plus where do the profits go? Undoubtedly the are spread all over the place, much goes back to the Japanese parent company, yet a lot is also reinvested in the local economy here.

 

[bcterps]

Originally posted by: BurnItDwn
I think Jobs is is bigger issue than national defense in the coming election. National defense is easy for a president ... fund all the money that is needed and let the generals & admirals do their jobs. How about killing NAFTA and WTO, Not buying from any country with human rights violations or sweatshop type employees, etc ? Sure it would cause some inflation ... but I bet it would bring millions of jobs back to the USA.

And drive prices way up. While you may be willing to pay "exorbitant" prices for your goods and services, most people aren't.

 

[Nitemare]

Originally posted by: benchiu

Originally posted by: HokieESM
I think all CEOs should be paid an integral multiple of the lowest paid employee at their company. No stock, no golden parachutes. (isn't a CEO owning stock like the DEFINITION of insider trading? not only do you have a certain amount of information, you can INFLUENCE stock price). And it can be a HIGH multiple (100... 200... 500?). But some of the CEOs would think twice about moving a job from America to India when the lowest worker goes from a $20K a year janitor to a $2000 a year IT person. Oh... and someone was asking why this was bad: who is going to buy all the stuff that they're producing when they get rid of the middle class? In the societies with upper-to-lower (and no middle), the upper class is a VERY small percentage.

Actually, that has been tried before, I think it was Peoplesoft that first tried paying their CEO a certain multiple of the lowest paid employee. It didn't work and they got rid of that policy pretty quickly. You simply can't attract the proper talent/leadership with that method.

Owners of Ben & Jerry used to pay themselves 7 times the lowest salary...course that's not including stock options. Bill Gates only gets paid like 60k a year in salary as well.

 

[ghostman]

Originally posted by: tcsenter

"Buying American" almost doesnt exist anymore. The global marketplace has changed so much that it's impossible to distinguish "American" goods from others.

Nonsense. The law requires the label to state the country of origin and there are still many goods made right here in the US of A. I'm betting they don't even look at any label other than the price tag and never have.

I think the problem is figuring out what "Made in USA" really means. A jacket from Columbia Sportswear is from Portland, Oregon, but made in China. An HP printer is assembled in USA, but has a printer engine from China. Do I buy it?

I used to look at the country of origin label when I was younger, I but I don't anymore. Barring sweatshop goods, why should you care where it came from? If Japan made a chip that was comparable to Intel P4's, but was significantly cheaper, would you avoid buying it?

 

Originally posted by: Nitemare

Originally posted by: benchiu

Originally posted by: HokieESM
I think all CEOs should be paid an integral multiple of the lowest paid employee at their company. No stock, no golden parachutes. (isn't a CEO owning stock like the DEFINITION of insider trading? not only do you have a certain amount of information, you can INFLUENCE stock price). And it can be a HIGH multiple (100... 200... 500?). But some of the CEOs would think twice about moving a job from America to India when the lowest worker goes from a $20K a year janitor to a $2000 a year IT person. Oh... and someone was asking why this was bad: who is going to buy all the stuff that they're producing when they get rid of the middle class? In the societies with upper-to-lower (and no middle), the upper class is a VERY small percentage.

Actually, that has been tried before, I think it was Peoplesoft that first tried paying their CEO a certain multiple of the lowest paid employee. It didn't work and they got rid of that policy pretty quickly. You simply can't attract the proper talent/leadership with that method.

Owners of Ben & Jerry used to pay themselves 7 times the lowest salary...course that's not including stock options. Bill Gates only gets paid like 60k a year in salary as well.

Bill Gates already made his money, and is still making millions because of stocks and various patients.

 

[SherEPunjab]

i think its sad, but it goes back to our govt.

Our education system (compared to the nations to which they are outsourcing) stinks. If there are smarter people willing to work for less, then... can you really blame private American companies? On one hand, consumers demand high quality low cost goods and services, on the other hand, many workers get pissed if jobs move overseas. Someone is going to have to sacrifice somewhere, thats simple logic. And I'm betting that big business isn't gonna be the one to sacrifice. I would really hope that instead of just pouring money, we work from the ground up in terms of improving our education system. Money is only one factor of a good education system. We need properly trained teachers, lower ratios, more schools in densely populated areas. We very challenging curriculums and projects. I'm a product of a top notch public high school, and i can't hold a candle to someone who has graduated from [good] overseas schools.

 

[tcsenter]

I think the problem is figuring out what "Made in USA" really means. A jacket from Columbia Sportswear is from Portland, Oregon, but made in China.

And reads "Product of/Made in/ China" on the label.

An HP printer is assembled in USA, but has a printer engine from China

And reads "Assembled in USA" on the label.

I used to look at the country of origin label when I was younger, I but I don't anymore. Barring sweatshop goods, why should you care where it came from?

You've utterly missed the point (surprise). I am not the one loudly protesting off-shoring and the loss of American jobs. Personally, I don't give two hoots about where the product is made.

And I can assure you, based on first hand knowledge gained living all but the last few years of my life in a strong pro-union community full of anti-globalization and anti-NAFTA quacks, neither do they.

 

[CanOWorms]

I guess most of IT isn't a high tech, valuable job anymore. Would you care if burger flippers were somehow outsourced? Probably not.

 

[Goosemaster]

IT is the cute little baby whose .COM Dad overdosed on Crystal meth. Seriously, that is why we covet it so much.

 

[Rogue]

In the last 6 months, my company has closed down about 4 domestic centers putting several thousand employees out of work. They are putting replacement work in places like Costa Rica, Manila, etc. Just last week I was told by our staffing department that a contest was held in Manila to see who could work the most overtime. The winner worked 132 hours in a single week and walked away with a $100 bill. If that's not the very definition of exploitation, I don't know what is.

Many of you have suggested several controls and measures to stem the flow of these jobs offshore. Here's mine. Regulate the number of hours and work conditions the same as they would have to stateside. Also, to whoever said that these outsource nations have better education systems than we do, think again. These people are getting educated here and going home. I can't think of a single course I've been in at my university where there hasn't been a single foreign student, most of them as instructors. They get their education here and go home to far less pay to take American jobs away, it's that simple.

On the other hand, I am not worried about losing my job to offshore workers. I have made it a point in my life to be able to do many things well. I have several skills that I can fall back on, besides my IT skills. I recommend you all do the same. There's one thing my employer has been good about as far as I'm concerned. They don't waste money by having 4 people to do 4 different menial tasks. I run my entire IT department by myself. I don't have a separate Exchange administrator, a separate DB Admin, a separate web server admin, etc. I'm the go to guy. I firmly believe that this is the reason our jobs are going offshore. Because companies are finding that they're paying some guy $50,000.00 to do one single job and three other guys the same amount to do their single tasks too. I can't count how many IT departments I encounter where there's ten guys sitting around, surfing the 'net and bull$hitting all day long, one waiting for the web server to lockup, one waiting for someone's e-mail to have disappeared and the other eight waiting for their tiny little facet of work to spark up. You want to stay in the market? Damnit, then you had better start selling your employer on how you can replace 3 or 4 or 5 of their current IT people and cut their costs now. The days of 1 admin to every 100 users are over and it's time to roll up our sleeves and get to work.

 

[Zee]

Originally posted by: tcsenter

Now tell me what corporation is going to say "270 million a year isn't much, we should keep the jobs in the US."? NONE. It's all about the bottom line.

Actually, its often not about the bottom line. Often, its about not going bankrupt.

You can't expect any company to unilaterally disarm. Many companies have made heroic efforts to keep jobs here for as long as they could while they lost market share to foreign imports or domestic competitors who began off-shoring years ago.

And I have absolutely no doubt whatsoever that the question is not if they are doing this, but how long it would take to catch them doing it.

this is true. Cablevision/Optimum Online had a surge of increase in subscribers. (something like from 700,000 to hitting close to a million). Instead of outsource, they are pouring a lot of money into hiring Temp-To-Perm people. the benefits and such are nothing to scoff at. I'm actually very surprised OO hasnt outsourced, but instead are hiring hundreds of helpdesk support people...

 

[nanyangview]

GOOOD OUTSOURCe, incompetend people should not be paid $60/hour that can't do jack.

All i can say, the mathematics and science standard in USA and Canada suck to the extreme. Period. Incompetent teachers that strike at their own will. Labs are absolutely crap and using 30 year old textbook for science. WTF, I MEAN WTF.

Universities here are good, but the students that comes are not even close at functioning competently in the university curriculum.

Yes the chinese students in mainland china ARE VERY HARDwoRKING, YOURS AND OURS high school life is a JOKE, a BIG JOKE compared to theirs.
I have cousins in China that goes to school from MONDAY TO SUNDAY (YES SUNDAY!!) The only time they get off is during public holidays or the remainder of a Sunday Afternoon. That type of lifestyle starts in elementary school. School system in Korea is EVEN HARDER.

Many of them do not have the opportunity to immigrate to N-america. Thus the outsourcing provides the perfect opportunity to make use of the mass utapped talent pool.

 

[nanyangview]

I have seen both sides of the coin and i'd pick an Indian kid over an American kid anyday. Simply put, the lack of common sense and maturity here is appalling. Too bad for the call centres part. I don't like any of them - americans, canadians, indians - all of them suck at customer service. Maybe Indians suck a bit more because their first language isn't English. As for the "oh i did it the hard way part", i wasn't blaming the american society in anyway (how foolish can you get? - the inference my parents don't like me - i'd support my parents till i die if they need me unlike the kids in the USA who get rid of their parents). If you did it the hard way, good for you but that doesn't make you the majority. Also instead of calling Indians morons and idiots, get your companies to do something. The market is now Phillipines and a lot of other Asian - South Asian countries. In a country with a population of a billion, for every moron you meet, there is a helluva smart guy around. Typical indian kids don't date, don't party friday night and don't have sex before their marriage - what do they do with their "loser life"? - they study.

 

[Feldenak]

Originally posted by: nanyangview
I have seen both sides of the coin and i'd pick an Indian kid over an American kid anyday. Simply put, the lack of common sense and maturity here is appalling. Too bad for the call centres part. I don't like any of them - americans, canadians, indians - all of them suck at customer service. Maybe Indians suck a bit more because their first language isn't English. As for the "oh i did it the hard way part", i wasn't blaming the american society in anyway (how foolish can you get? - the inference my parents don't like me - i'd support my parents till i die if they need me unlike the kids in the USA who get rid of their parents). If you did it the hard way, good for you but that doesn't make you the majority. Also instead of calling Indians morons and idiots, get your companies to do something. The market is now Phillipines and a lot of other Asian - South Asian countries. In a country with a population of a billion, for every moron you meet, there is a helluva smart guy around. Typical indian kids don't date, don't party friday night and don't have sex before their marriage - what do they do with their "loser life"? - they study.

And meditate in sub-freezing temperatures wearing nothing but jeans and a t-shirt all while bemoaning their lack of female companionship.

Oh wait, I shouldn't make broad generalizations based on my limited view.

 

[Pocatello]

The American consumers choose to buy stuffs that are cheaper. They don't want to spend $2000 for a computer. Don't blame American companies for exporting jobs, look at yourself. You want the best price, you got what you want. If American buyers refuse to buy crappy products from China, maybe they can keep their jobs.

 

[tcsenter]

In the last 6 months, my company has closed down about 4 domestic centers putting several thousand employees out of work. They are putting replacement work in places like Costa Rica, Manila, etc. Just last week I was told by our staffing department that a contest was held in Manila to see who could work the most overtime. The winner worked 132 hours in a single week and walked away with a $100 bill. If that's not the very definition of exploitation, I don't know what is.

You don't know what exploitation is.

Exploitation is when you go into an impovershed community where people have no jobs and have a bidding contest to see who will work for the least amount of money. The "winner" is driven by desperation to bid an amount that will barely improve upon his situation.

Exploitation is when you threaten to fire employees who refuse to work 130 hours per week.

Exploitation is not when you offer in addition to regular wages a reward to the employee who freely works the most overtime.

But don't feel bad, you're not the alone. Persistant affluence over many generations has resulted in many young Americans believing that "child labor exploitation" is when dad withholds allowance until the teenager cleans the garage and mows the lawn.

 

[bozack]

Originally posted by: Rogue


On the other hand, I am not worried about losing my job to offshore workers. I have made it a point in my life to be able to do many things well. I have several skills that I can fall back on, besides my IT skills. I recommend you all do the same. There's one thing my employer has been good about as far as I'm concerned. They don't waste money by having 4 people to do 4 different menial tasks. I run my entire IT department by myself. I don't have a separate Exchange administrator, a separate DB Admin, a separate web server admin, etc. I'm the go to guy. I firmly believe that this is the reason our jobs are going offshore. Because companies are finding that they're paying some guy $50,000.00 to do one single job and three other guys the same amount to do their single tasks too. I can't count how many IT departments I encounter where there's ten guys sitting around, surfing the 'net and bull$hitting all day long, one waiting for the web server to lockup, one waiting for someone's e-mail to have disappeared and the other eight waiting for their tiny little facet of work to spark up. You want to stay in the market? Damnit, then you had better start selling your employer on how you can replace 3 or 4 or 5 of their current IT people and cut their costs now. The days of 1 admin to every 100 users are over and it's time to roll up our sleeves and get to work.

Right, but what about redundancy? what if you are out sick, what if something happens and your one guy isn't there....if you are supporting a large high demand company and you have the lone gun, or even a skeleton crew and crap hits the fan then you are screwed and more than likely you will be the fall guy an in the unemployment line by the next day...

don't get me wrong, I commend you for your sucess at consolidation, however I don't think this is a winning formula for every company...while it is nice to have jack of all trades that can do many things, chances are you are getting someone that is better at one thing than they are all the rest, and some companies demand expertise in every area..heck I work for a large biotech and currently they have a similar system to what you describe (one person for each function) and while there are downtimes for people, there are also times when everyone is slammed with work...

personally I don't think offshoring is really going to hurt desktop support or support that is needed on site that much, but rather call centers and programming since there is no need for a presence to do this kind of work..email, telecom and anything else that is physically here in the US will still need support. Certain environments can get away with one guy running a site (like when I worked for Lotus) but others demand that a good deal of people be on hand all of the time (When I was working for NASA and now Astra, lots of handholding with the user community and also many on site and highly specific equipment and software applications that need immediate attention)

But then again this article mentioned white collar positions wereas many I know consider IT support of any sort more of a blue collar job.