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Home > Archive > Certifications and IT jobs/Salaries > February 2004 > Think your job won't move to India?
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Think your job won't move to India?
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| Jesus Christ 2004-01-27, 5:26 pm |
| I say we deport the ones that are already here. That would open up a huge job market. | |
| jdmurray 2004-01-27, 9:11 pm |
| "the ones?" This thread is about high-tech jobs going to India, not Indians coming over the the USA to take jobs. I prefer legal immigration to the "off-shoring" that's perceived to be very economical to U.S. businesses.
Here's a CNN article that didn't make me feel very good either:
No guarantees for high-tech degrees
"A recent report from Forrester Research projected that as many as 3.3 million American white collar tech jobs will go to overseas workers by 2015."
Hoo boy... | |
| LioKaiser 2004-01-28, 4:53 pm |
| 3-4 years ago, the papers also stated that in the next 5 years, there would still be a huge demand for IT workers. ( In the Western countries ) That counted Netadmins, sysadmins, engineers, consultants, software developers...etc.
Some time later, lots of people start losing their jobs. And the new ones which was supposed to come, somehow failed to show up.
To the point; The papers often write things that are far from reality. I don't really think that "all" jobs are outsourched to India, China, Russia or eastern europe. Of course, there ARE jobs getting moved overseas, but i think thats something which will get toned down a bit in a couple years.
I do think that System/network design, programing/development, web design, call centers, ASP and remote admin might take some more hits though. I can clearly see that those kinda jobs will decrease in the western countries in favour to cheaper countries like those mentioned.
Still, i think the media are over-dramatizing the whole thing. | |
| jdmurray 2004-01-28, 9:17 pm |
| quote:
3-4 years ago, the papers also stated that in the next 5 years, there would still be a huge demand for IT workers. ( In the Western countries ) That counted Netadmins, sysadmins, engineers, consultants, software developers...etc.
Some time later, lots of people start losing their jobs. And the new ones which was supposed to come, somehow failed to show up.
To the point; The papers often write things that are far from reality.
Those predictions were made before the dot com bubble burst in July 2000 and the September 2001 attacks. Had these two events not occured the demand for skilled IT workers and programmers would be quite high today.
I completely believe that in the long run (2-4 years) it will be shown that off-shoring is not as economical as U.S. industries are hoping. There are several factors involved which lower the perceived Quality of Service of the support, and this will eventually piss-off consumers.
There are already many people saying that they won't buy Dell Computers because of the poor quality of their off-shored tech support. Dell believes that this can be remedied with more training. (Of course, Dell currently has some manufacturing quality problems that are also influencing this purchasing decision.)
The only off-shored, tech support success story I've heard so far is with Oracle, and how their Austrailian techies are far superior to the U.S. techies. So much so in fact that people in North America would wait until after midnight PST so they could speak only with Australian support. I don't know if this is still the case, but it is rather amusing.  | |
| Papiya 2004-01-29, 8:46 am |
| quote:
Originally posted by LioKaiser
3-4 years ago, the papers also stated that in the next 5 years, there would still be a huge demand for IT workers. ( In the Western countries ) That counted Netadmins, sysadmins, engineers, consultants, software developers...etc.
Some time later, lots of people start losing their jobs. And the new ones which was supposed to come, somehow failed to show up.
To the point; The papers often write things that are far from reality. I don't really think that "all" jobs are outsourched to India, China, Russia or eastern europe. Of course, there ARE jobs getting moved overseas, but i think thats something which will get toned down a bit in a couple years.
I do think that System/network design, programing/development, web design, call centers, ASP and remote admin might take some more hits though. I can clearly see that those kinda jobs will decrease in the western countries in favour to cheaper countries like those mentioned.
Still, i think the media are over-dramatizing the whole thing.
I hope not!!! | |
| jdmurray 2004-01-29, 9:28 am |
| quote:
I hope not!!!
Papiya, give us your first-person point of view on this situation. Are people (i.e., receint engineering graduates) over there really excited about this new, growing oppertunity? | |
| Papiya 2004-01-29, 10:06 am |
| quote:
Originally posted by jdmurray
Papiya, give us your first-person point of view on this situation. Are people (i.e., receint engineering graduates) over there really excited about this new, growing oppertunity?
well, its a mixed bag. of course people are excited and happy that some jobs are being shifted over here, but we are still cautious. things can change so fast that it is hard to plan ahead. what can come very easily can go very easily as well, so although glad of the opportunity, i am still vary of relying on this too much. the extra money will help our economy, and may stop the 'brain drain' (i mean a lot of our best graduates leaving for usa instead of staying at home), but things like this can be so fickle that you cannot count on it. i think if people in america like computers they should still go into that field...do not go into just for money. and here, i think that u should not choose your field based on what is 'hot right now' because after u graduate it may turn around.
one thing i can say to the americans generally though. i have heard some remarks about protectionism...to keep jobs in usa. to u this may sound self-serving but i do not think that this is a good idea. india has a strong marxist tradition, where there is a lot of protectionist policies. while it sounds good at first, it usually ends up hurting the economy. so if we need specilized workers from aborad, we cannot attract the talent becasue they must make lower wages than a lesser trained worker here. so it is harder to progress. this is especially true in areas where marxism is strongest, like kerala or kolkata. usa has the strongest economy in the world due to free enterprise. when u need extra workers, u get to choose and both benefit unlike in my country. if you stifle this with protectionist policies, u could be hurting ur economy like ours. ours is slow like a dinosaur, is hard for many people to make headway here.
it may be good for people there to consider specilizing in area of technology that cannot go abroad instead. areas where security is important maybe and a foreigner would not get security clearance as well as things that are hands-on like running fiber and hands-on support. my experience is that phone support is pretty sucky anywhere. peoples in data centres who need to be on site to resolve problems will have secure jobs since someone on the other side of the world cannot possibly do this.
finally like gita says, it is best to roll with the punches. just do ur duty and work and try not to fret for the outcome too much. like i said things change so fast that what is here today can be gone tomorrow. real security is just an illusion. and also do not pay too much attention to the media. too much media in every country that i have been in has been too much like entertainment. they jump on one subject and harp on it till you think it is a major problem when it may not be. so u cannot always trust them to emphasize the right things u know? | |
| Papiya 2004-01-29, 10:42 am |
| quote:
Originally posted by jdmurray
I completely believe that in the long run (2-4 years) it will be shown that off-shoring is not as economical as U.S. industries are hoping. There are several factors involved which lower the perceived Quality of Service of the support, and this will eventually piss-off consumers.
There are already many people saying that they won't buy Dell Computers because of the poor quality of their off-shored tech support. Dell believes that this can be remedied with more training. (Of course, Dell currently has some manufacturing quality problems that are also influencing this purchasing decision.)
btw, don't count on this. i do not work in a call centre, but people are trained there like phone operators are anywhere, some are taught to speak with more americanized accents and are asked to shorten or change their names while on the phone. and there is quality control, so that any inadequacies can be dealt with. so please don't count on indian support being inferior to your own, as if there are any problems they can be dealt with, same as would occur in usa. the bad pr they may get for outsourcing would hurt their business more than the support issues in my opinion. its better to be proactive than to count on others being inferior technicians. | |
| jdmurray 2004-01-30, 9:05 pm |
| Those are some excellent observations and insights from your side of this economic emigration (or immigration from your point of view). You should consider doing some research and interviews on the topic and I bet you could sell a really nice, how it looks on the other side of the coin, article to Info World or eWeek.
There's nothing wrong with the idea of trying to keep jobs from leaving your own country, but it should not be enforced using the methods a Marxist government would apply. A Capitalist society may use economic sanctions (i.e., more taxes) to some degree to slow the outward flow of industry, but if applied too heavily it would hurt the economy. Better to use rewards (i.e., fewer taxes) as incentives to stay domestic.
I like the idea of specializing in a skill that can't be performed from "17 time zones away" as a hedge against off-shoring. Information security is a good one as is most any service job too. I just don't want the math/computer/engineering professions to take a hit because everyone is flocking to blue-collar occupations just to keep a job.
And I agree about the quality control of tech support. My main complaint is that the phone techs themselves usually have little first-hand experience at solving the problems they are giving their "expert" opinions about. I am always so glad to talk with a service engineer who actually cuts his (or her) knuckles on the product. | |
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| Only the entry level/tech support position and a lot of programmer/developer positions
However, they only can reach to certain level because gon't can't have them all move out.
Also, we (U.S) have to maintain the technical advantage over other countries..
Just another re-enginneering, but this time is for all IT workers at the U.S... not just a company.
Bad.... very bad and sad... "Shame on those CEO and CFO" | |
| Freddy 2004-02-12, 1:30 pm |
| There really isn't anything anybody can do to stop the job emmigration from the US. In 1994, then president Bill Clinton signed an treaty with the United Nations called the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT) and the US Senate ratified this treaty. This agreement places our policy on trade agreements into the hands of the UN. As we saw late last year, whenever the World Trade Organization doesn't like what we are doing, they simply allow sanctions to be brought against us by other countries until we "correct" our policies.
Jobs in manufacturing, IT, communications, and a host of other categories have gone abroad to take advantage of the low cost of labor in less developed, non unionized, countries. This trend is not going to stop until or unless we in America become willing to work for less than half of our current rates. At some point, we probably will have no choice in the matter. The environmental restricitons in our country are not mirrored in most other countries in the world, so the US is out of the question for a lot of industries that used to pump billions of dollars per year into our economy.
How long we will be able to continue our economic growth remains to be seen, we will definitely have to continue to adapt to an ever changing, globalized economy.
Be prepared to change your career, get a new degree, or even move to another part of the world in order to keep working. It's the way of the New World Order. | |
| jdmurray 2004-02-12, 8:22 pm |
| quote:
Be prepared to ... or even move to another part of the world in order to keep working. It's the way of the New World Order.
This will NEVER be necessary unless the USA is in total, sustained financial chaos. Moving abroad to pursue a better position of employment is one thing (e.g., transferring to a branch office in a foreign country), but moving "in order to keep working" would require a near total economic collapse of the US economy (as is happening in Mexico?) | |
| ndevine8930 2004-02-12, 9:18 pm |
| And just what do you think these record deficits and favored tax cuts, that only increase the deficit are doing? With all of these jobs going over seas the tax base is erroding. $40,000 a yr jobs are being replaced with $8.50 wal-mart jobs with no benifits. People here making wal-mart salaries and can no longer afford that 42" plasma, or that SUV. What will the Corp do so they can show the investor tha they are still making money? Cut more people and outsource more, take the money that used to be salary and roll that into the profit column. People seem to miss the point that we work->get paid->spend money->Corporations make billions. When you take away the work, no one gets paid, no one spends any money and soon you have this cycle of endless cuting and moving or "Resource allocation" or "Downsizing" or "outsourcing" any one of the many words they spin on it. Sound familiar? Am I the only one that notices that all these so called sudden explosion of Corp. profits and in the midst of a job-less recovery is the same amount of sales and in some cases less than last year but, they are taking in 50% more profit? Sounds like Busheconimics to me, you do the math!!! | |
| Freddy 2004-02-17, 2:17 pm |
| The important issue here has to do with our trade defecits with other countries. As long as we continue to buy mass amounts from other countries with them buying little or nothing from us, will eventually end in disaster for us. There are other countries who have preceded us into this arena. Canada, Argentina, Mexico just to name a few. Canadanian dollars dropped like a rock shortly after they got into a NAFTA with us back in the 80's. Today they are so deeply in debt that they are in the process of phasing out their own military.
Mexico is a pretty well known problem.
Argentina has had annual inflation rates between of between 80 and 100% every year for over a decade.
What makes you think that we will fare any better? | |
| cmelch 2004-02-19, 10:54 pm |
| I heard today that some companies are moving call center jobs to South America. Two reasons: One-Americas growing Spanish speaking population Two-Everything will still be in the same time zone as the rest of the US. Is there any other ways that we can get shafted? | |
| DivxGuy 2004-02-21, 9:55 pm |
| quote:
Today they are so deeply in debt that they are in the process of phasing out their own military.
Umm, Canada has had a genuine budget surplus for several years now.
The military has been shortchanged to favor social programs, not because the country is broke. |
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