U.S. Jobs Jumping Ship 1524
An anonymous reader writes "As painful as February's big job cuts were, they're even more painful since many of those jobs are never coming back as U.S. employers in a wide range of industries move more and more jobs overseas. CNN has the story." Salon has a good piece detailing how job requirements are changing, asking more and more for less and less pay.
We Do that (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:We Do that (Score:3, Insightful)
At first, I thought, "what crap", but then I realized $9/hr. is about right for lots of jobs outside IT that don't require lots of critical thinking. Basically, $9/hr. is better than 'Cashier' but not as good as 'Technician II' in the grand scheme of things.
Unfortunately, the last decade has seen our standards go way beyond $9/hr. being a livable wage. It seems the U.S. is in for an "attitude adjustment". This, in itself,
and I'm glad we still have H1B's galore (Score:5, Insightful)
now I see that they truly did have our best interests in mind. Employers say "the industry no longer pays salaries like that" when they mean "there are hungry immigrants that are willing to do your job for half your salary"
a big "cheers" to the US government.
Re:and I'm glad we still have H1B's galore (Score:3, Informative)
Estate of the Nation (Score:5, Interesting)
Sure fire ways to make a living in the USA, providing the trend continues:
Farm. People have to eat. If americans can't afford the food, someone else can, there's always a buyer, if you can afford to set the right price. (Sound unethical? You're probably not a republican then)
Become an entertainer (something about americans dancing and singing on a stage works for extracting money from the pockets of everyone else in the world. As of yet americans still make what the world wants to buy in terms of image.)
Own an overseas company, employing locals for a pittance, and selling goods and services to anyone, anywhere who can still afford them. China looks like a good place to sell, it's got one of the few growing economies.
Go into politics. If americans can't afford your price for selling out your country, someone, somewhere will and hopefully you know how to keep your payments away from prying eyes, not that the public really cares anymore, but they might.
Cynical? Why not. You can't expect the current administration or house to insist upon a tariff on imported services, can you?
Re:Estate of the Nation (Score:5, Insightful)
Sure you can, but remember that the american companies like coke, pepsi, McDonalds, KFC, PnG, Nike , etc etc have huge markets outside US, especially in far east populous countries like india, china, japan, korea
Now if govt. of these countries were to impose the same tariff that you speak of on imported american goods,
face it, the world is shrinking day by day, and if affects everybody's life in some way or another
America is a super-power in the world not because of its military , rather because of its economic dominance. But that economy can not be self contained, To be a world leader you have to play the same game on equal fields
To stay competetive in world markets the american companies need to reduce costs at all options, and labor cost is a very convenient option.
Re:Estate of the Nation (Score:5, Insightful)
To stay competetive in world markets the american companies need to reduce costs at all options, and labor cost is a very convenient option.
Oh, really? Then why is it that it's only the worker's jobs that get offshored? American companies could save many millions of dollars per year by offshoring management jobs, but that never happens.
We have American companies claiming offshore workers are better and cheaper (which is one-half bullshit) except when it comes to management. Now isn't that remarkable? We have American CEOs getting obscene salaries and bonuses for putting American residents out of work.
Re:Estate of the Nation (Score:5, Insightful)
If companies like HP would simply hire management offshores, or even a low cost, intelligent CEO from another country, they could save millions a year.
But somehow, that isn't happening, is it?
I am for tariffs on good from other countries. Impose them left and right. As I recall, prior to income taxes being imposed (which was supposed to be a temporary thing, btw) we mainly relied on tarrifs. This brought the 'best and brightest' here, instead of now where we ship the best and brightest jobs to them.
I do not see how creating a 'world economy' helps anyone but the rich. It deflates wages. Maybe I am missing the picture here. Maybe there is a grand schema that will allow balance across the globe. If that is the case, then this isn't capitolism, it is socialism, right? Get everyone on an equal ground? But I can't and don't see that. I only see that somehow jobs are harder to find, and those I do find pay a lot less. I am not speaking of
Re:Estate of the Nation (Score:5, Insightful)
I can think of one part of the picture you're missing: In the eyes of 5,000,000,000 people of the 6,000,000,000 on the planet, you are "the rich".
> Maybe there is a grand schema that will allow balance across the globe.
If by "balance", you mean "equally distribute all wealth among all 6,000,000,000 people", here's another part of the picture you're missing.
If you want that kind of "balance", be prepared to give up air conditioning, your automobile, your paved roads, your heart surgeon, your chemotherapy, your MRI scans, your broadband and 56k modems for a 2400-9600 baud serial line, and a couple of hours a day of electricity.
In short, be prepared to live a lifestyle below that of the poorest inner-city welfare mother. If that offends you as a racist stereotype, replace it with "the most inbred hillbillies in the Appalacians".
I won't presume to speak for you, but as for me, I'm not prepared to do that. As a citizen of a Western nation in a capitalist economy, I was born into the top 15% of the planetary socioeconomic pyramid. I like it here. I'm staying here. And I'm willing to pay 20% of my earnings, every year, to the top 1% to keep it that way. (The top 1% currently takes about 40% of those earnings, but that's haggling over price, not a fundamental argument about the principle :)
> I only see that somehow jobs are harder to find, and those I do find pay a lot less. I am not speaking of .Com era wages, but prior to that- the early to mid 90s era.
The first part is called a "recession". They tend to be finite in length.
The second part is called "deflation". It happens to CPU prices when better CPU designs reach the market, and/or when competing companies design a comparable CPU but charges less. It happens to wages when skills become obsolescent, and/or when competing workers offer the same work you do, for less price.
If you're in the CPU business, you can either cut your price, or build a better CPU. If you're in the job market, you can either lower your salary expectations, or learn about a new technology.
Re:Estate of the Nation (Score:5, Insightful)
Really, folks, this is really the break some people need. Remember when IBM laid off those thousands of engineers in the 80s? Those engineers couldn't find work, but had lots of ideas, and went and started their own small tech firms which fueled the Silicon Valley upswing. (No, not the
Instead of blogging about not having a job, why not write something? Why not create something that you've always wanted to do but never had the time to do it (and now you're unemployed and you still don't have time?)? Don't just "learn" a new technology, CREATE the new technology. A recession/depression is simply an opportunity for many people and the seeds for success are being sown now.
Re:Estate of the Nation (Score:4, Insightful)
See, there's a choice 4. There are ways to bring the standard of living in other countries up toward what the US now enjoys, without getting the entire US to give up everything it has. Wealth doesn't have to be a zero-sum game (as the dread Mr. Limbaugh is fond of saying), although the rich are dead set on keeping it one.
The problem is, this would be terribly counterproductive from the point of view of US companies, because the people offshore would start demanding salaries that are closer to those of the American worker. Much better if we can bring the standard of living in America slowly DOWNWARD until it's closer to those offshore.
(Not that I'm saying that there's a conspiracy to do this or anything. Doesn't need to be... shipping every possible non-executive job offshore to places where workers are paid pennies on the dollar for a long period of time will do it just fine without anybody PLANNING anything.)
There is not only enough food in the world to feed every single living human being, but DRAMATICALLY MORE THAN NECESSARY. And yet people starve. Because if everyone in the world had enough to eat and a place to live, they'd start thinking in terms of other things they could do besides slave away for almost enough to keep from starving. We have the capacity and the money to make basic (flavorless, nasty, unappealing) food free for every person in the world. We will never do it, because we need slave labor.
-fred
Re:Estate of the Nation (Score:3, Insightful)
Try telling that to Iraq....
Economy without military doesn't make a superpower any more then military without economy does. You gotta have both to be dominant.
Re:Estate of the Nation (Score:3, Interesting)
Businesses would love to stay here, but they have no choice. And farmers right now are sadly getting squeezed out of our heritage because of large-scale corporate factory farmers. As a Republican
Re:Estate of the Nation (Score:3, Interesting)
I consider myself a political independent, but I lean very heavily toward the Democratic side.
Nevertheless, I really respect libertarian Republicanism. Your comments make me realize that as much as I hate the current administration, the saddest thing may ultimately be the fact that there is a wonderful tradition in the Republican party that's being shafted by corporatist-religious ideologues.
The thing that
Re:Estate of the Nation (Score:3, Insightful)
The US has ALWAYS been third world (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Estate of the Nation (Score:5, Insightful)
I don't vote for people like Bush, because they're only concerned with War and God (in that order). I think most of the Republican Party's core values are good, and would benefit this country, so voting Republican is a pragmatic decision to get those policies implemented. IF the Republican party swung things too far to the right, then I WOULD vote democrat.
Liberal-conservative is a phony paradigm that defines the parameters of the debates in a rather silly fashion, but I can't help but to be annoyed with Democratic policies with respect to the economy (and the other way around with civil rights, but only within the last 5 years).
Let me break it down for you (Score:5, Insightful)
Gun Laws - ridiculous. 2nd ammendment is there in the CONSTITUTION. Republicans win this one.
4th Ammendment - Republicans want to search you, your house, your moms house etc in the name of the "war on drugs" and now the "war on terror" Dems aren't much fuckin' better. But dems are a little looser so dems win this one.
Abortion - Well in reality making it illegal doesn't prevent it from happening, it simply makes it punishable. so even if you are against abortion, you have to realize outlawing it is futile. Dems win this one. Women truly have a choice in reality. A choice between a safe & legal abortion or no abortion is better than a choice between a dangerous illegal abortion or no abortion. Even God would agree with this logic.
Corporate welfare vs worker rights/ Labor. Until I own a corporation, I have to consider myself a worker. Dems win this one. How anyone can vote for something that will reduce their wages, reduce their health care, make them work longer hours all so that some asshole in a board room can export thier job to india to make even more money is beyond me. WAKE THE FUCK UP. How 'bout a little self preservation!!!! Unless you own a corporation, you need to see the light!!!
Jails versus Education: hmm, spend money on educating our children so that they will be prepared to lead our country when they inherit it, or cut spending in schools and parks & rec programs only to eventually spend more money on jails to house our misguided uneducated forgotten youth? tough one here. gee, what should we do ?
Democrats win. Republicans are greedy assholes who can afford private shools for their children. What about the rest of the nations. Those punk asses that are not getting education and resort to crime will hopefully rob your house you greedy fuckheads. (unfortunately you rich bastards live ina gated community, so they'll rob my house and the house of other working men and women, which is unfortunate because it's YOUR POLICY that destroyed thier chances of making it in this world).
Corporate friendly env. policy versus environmental friendly environmental policy. Hmm, in my short life time I've seen 200-500% growth in my home town. Land Development is BIG BUSINESS. It's sad to see them rape the land to build a shitload of cheap ass houses all crammed in tight next to eachother. If those greedy fucks would build one or two less houses per project then all the families that moved in would get yards and a little bit of privacy. Instead they are living in a future ghetto that frankly looked better as natural land. That's the friendliest of the land uses. Chemical plants, manufacturing plants, refineries, junk yards. SHEESH!!! This whole country will be one paved piece of shit in less than 50 years. It's fine if you own a big ass ranch in texas, who cares if your refinery pollutes the fuck out of some poor neighborhood in the wrong side of town. Maybe it will kill those "niggas" before you have to arrest them after they drop out of that shitty high school you wouldn't approve the tax dollars to fix up because you wanted some tax cuts to afford to pay off the crooked politician who allowed the refinery. FUCK!!! Democrats win this one too.
You see, aside from the gun thing, republican policy benefits only a small minority of wealthy assholes. The rest of us get screwed every which way in a increasingly painful cycle. We lose our jobs so our kids go to cheap schools which don't get good funding because money is going to corporations so our kids poor and pissed off do drugs or get pregnant or drop out or graduate and go to college despite the odds, then they lose their jobs and their kids go to crap schools, etc. etc. over and over again while more and more of us become poor and a few fortunate a-holes get richer and richer.
well, it can only go on for so long before we unite and kill you you fuckin rich assholes
Re:Estate of the Nation (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Estate of the Nation (Score:3)
Farming - worst job in the nation. Also exported. (Score:3, Insightful)
Farming has been listed as the most undesirable job in the US for a decade. Don't think your food must be grown locally.
Re:Estate of the Nation (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Welcome to economics 101 (Score:3, Insightful)
So much hand ringing over jobs... (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:So much hand ringing over jobs... (Score:5, Insightful)
It's my firm belief that we are about to invade Iraq because the current batch in W. DC can't figure out how to improve the economy. (Hint: Economies flourish in a stable and peaceful world)
There has to be a lot of pent up demand out there considering that everyone has been stalled for a couple of years now.
No. If there's no demand, there's no demand. Interest rates are at incredibly low levels. Go an idea and can convince a bank to fund it? Go into business, best time ever for loans, no competition for the money. Why? People afraid nothing will succeed and they won't be able to pay back the loan.
I'm quite positive the image projected by the president has 90% to do with the health of the economy, and Bush projects fear and loathing. Clinton (what ever his other warts) projected a positive, inclusive image. It took a while, but economy grew. It started to shrink when it sunk in that the ride was almost over.
If we're saddle with Mr. 'Axis of Evil' for another 4 years, after 2004, we might as well open trade schools for ditch diggers.
Re:So much hand ringing over jobs... (Score:5, Insightful)
True the uncertainty over Iraq is stalling economic recovery, but the flip side to this is that the bust is so bad precisely because the boom was waaaaayy too big. Nasdaq worth 5400?
No, the Nasdaq was never really worth 5400, people just kept throwing money at the market, inflating it to unsustainable highs. One of the big problems we're facing now is people are complaining about when the Nasdaq will get back that high, when in reality it never should have been even clost to that high in the first place.
In reality the "irrational exuberance" of the late 90's, whether or not attributed to Clinton, is the reason the downturn is what it is and why it is so hard to get out of. In reality the President at the time has very little to do with economy in many circumstances. The
Re:So much hand ringing over jobs... (Score:4, Insightful)
> That's just silly - why not? Are they waiting to see if Iraq maybe wins?
Actually, they are.
In order for me to make good money selling widgets, I need to build widgets cheaply, and you need to have enough money to buy them at a price that allows me to make money.
If oil is expensive, widgetmaking is expensive. My widget factory needs electricity and heat. My widgets might be made out of plastic. My widget factory might have to fly widgetparts in by FedEx, or hire truck drivers to deliver pallets of finished widgets to widget stores.
Likewise, if oil is expensive, you're spending more money on gasoline and have less money left over to buy widgets.
Right now, oil is expensive becase we don't know how much of it is gonna flow after the war. If Saddam manages to drag this thing out long enough to permanently destroy his wells and pipelines, or to spread this around and destroy other nations' oil infrastructure, oil will remain expensive. Last time around, he made a big mess, but we got the mess cleaned up in less than six months, and I'm sure you know what happened to the economy from 1991 forwards.
By the way, the price of oil fell to around $10/barrel in 1997. Funny what else happened to the economy around 1997, isn't it?
World ending! News at 11! (Score:5, Insightful)
Sad Sad day (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Sad Sad day (Score:3, Insightful)
Companies exist to make profit, not to please customers. If pleasing customers is the surest route to profit, then that is the direction that they will head. If say, customers would prefer something cheap over something with good service, then companies will ditch service in favor of cutting costs. Its not sad, its just an economic reality.
I had an Indian Dell Encounter... BAD! (Score:4, Insightful)
Trying to make anyone on their phone or email support understand was equivalent to banging my head against the wall, at least when they had a foreign accent. It went like this:
ME: " I have this problem"
DELL: "Here's a suggestion that is irrelevant to your problem" - something along the lines of, put in your System Recover disk.
ME: "No, you don't understand...blah blah blah"
DELL: "Here's the same suggestion, verbatim, that is still irrelevant to your problem"
ME: "You're not listening!"
DELL: *Repeats same scripted response again*
Finally, after doing this about 6 times, they finally broke down and handed me to an American supervisor. Once they did:
ME: "I have a problem..."
DELL: " OK, we have this solution, OK?"
And with that, a new Linux/Win2k compatible sound card was sent out. What should have taken 10 minutes instead ate up a full day. I guess a full day of 800 phone charges is cheaper than 10 minutes of American salary.
The lesson I learned: it may be cheaper to buy a Dell than building it yourself, but it is just not worth the aggro. Which means that I'd buy or recommend Dell if the support were actually an added value, and probably pay more than they're charging now.
Yeah, I'd say that this free trade thing ain't working out.
Dell is just lousy in general. (Score:3, Insightful)
These things jumped out at me:
1. Their order tracking system is so unreliable that they are willing to assume (with no data in
Re:I had an Indian Dell Encounter... BAD! (Score:5, Interesting)
"Please pass me through to your supervisor. Whover is writing your support script has made an error"
1st level techs are highly scripted and you need to know how to break out quickly when the problem is something that isn't going to be in their scripts.
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:So? What's wrong with that? (Score:5, Insightful)
Since the government started granting charters for corporations being a public good? Since businesses get many tax benefits that individuals don't get and cry about "lost jobs" any time anyone talks about getting rid of them? Since our tax dollars pay for the promotion of their products to overseas markets? Since we send our sons and daughters overseas to protect their economic interests in other countries?
Perhaps they don't owe me a job, but they sure as hell owe some people in this country jobs for everything that we provide to them.
US vs. other countries (Score:3, Insightful)
Well... (Score:5, Interesting)
The creation of "expert centers" that handle the more complicated issues has made opportunities for most of us.
Craenor
I hate to point fingers but... (Score:3, Insightful)
Not that veering to the "right" too much doesn't cause catastrophe with monopolies and such, but we really have made doing business in this country incredibly difficult (especially small businesses). Haven't we asked for this?
There was a senator or rep who was a staunch Democrat who, when he retired, tried to start a small business (a hotel I think). His business floundered because of many of the extremely harsh policies that he himself had pushed. Also, former NYC mayor Ed Koch (of People's Court fame) began his term quite social minded, but he lamented that his ideas for transportation of homeless actually costed more than just paying for cab rides for every homeless person (there's more to it than this, my memory is just a bit shaky).
Basically, I feel the pendulum has swung too far to the right perhaps, and overseas business has gotten too attractive, since we've essentially pushed these businesses into a corner with our well-intentioned programs.
Trend (Score:5, Informative)
Re:I hate to point fingers but... (Score:5, Insightful)
Sooner or later the trend in outsourcing is going to bite us in the ass, and not in the way that most expect (i.e. improved foreign competition). The United States is a consumer society. The economy cannot survive without that day-to-day addiction we call shopping. You should thank those $20/hour auto workers for going out to the mall and buying televisions, DVD players, computers, and so on (instead of throwing the cash in a Swiss bank account), b/c such behavior makes the things we love inexpensive for everyone. Not to mention the fact that a job in the mall or the local coffee shop is a better evening diversion for a teenager than drugs, gang participation, or other forms of self-destruction. Lower those wages to "reasonable" levels and enjoy the fallout as nobody has any money to purchase anything, save payment of rent/mortgage and other debts.
There seem to be two possible futures for the United States. The first is a somewhat mid-20th century model, where the country is predominantly middle class, and the nation as a whole is stronger for it (and no, trolls, mid-20th century racism and sexism ARE NOT essential components of a middle-class model). The second is a model where a sizable but still small number of elites controls the wealth of the country, and the lower class has no voice. This model is currently in operation in many third-world countries. Only one of these models represents a peaceful, liveable future. If you like the second model, enjoy the dirty bombs and mirrorshades.
Just Remember That It's Magic (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:I hate to point fingers but... (Score:3, Insightful)
That argument doesn't hold water. Take the auto workers, for example. Let's say they made just 8$ an hour. That's a large cut in pay, but still about ten times what a Malaysian would make. Here in Texas, unions are less prevalent, and the prices of consumer goods are (on average) 50 to 70 percent the price of what goods are in the Northeast coast (my friend goes to Yale; we've discu
Re:I hate to point fingers but... (Score:5, Insightful)
Have you tried raising a family on $8/hour lately? Here in Indiana (where prices are also much less than on the East Coast), there are McDonalds hiring for $7/hour. Good luck buying a house, or even renting one, on $8/hour.
Or cut down on the programs, let business boom, and pass that economic gain to the average American? The biggest problem I see with this is that trickle-down economics DON'T WORK. When the people at the top of the economic food chain make more money, they don't pass that money down to the guys making $8/hour, they keep it.
Re:I hate to point fingers but... (Score:4, Informative)
- There was a senator or rep who was a staunch Democrat who, when he retired, tried to start a small business (a hotel I think). His business floundered because of many of the extremely harsh policies that he himself had pushed.
Yeah, a story like that has to be true. No one every makes come-uppance tales about people of different opinions to show them suffering from their misguided ways.In this case, the story is true [inc.com].
Re:I hate to point fingers but... (Score:3, Insightful)
Highly paid, rigid labor markets are on full display in France and Germany. Compared to our unemployment rate, they're perenially stuck at 10% give or take, a much worse figure. The union effect is real.
Re:I hate to point fingers but... (Score:3, Insightful)
Proving that CEOs make a lot of money does nothing for any argument, b
Re:I hate to point fingers but... (Score:4, Insightful)
I dunno about union math, but my math gives me "9,300,000 / 40,000 = 232.5" And that's ignoring the costs to the employer in terms of payroll taxes, pension benefits, and health care that turn those $40K jobs into $50-60-70K expenses.
But let's stick with $40K in our plan to ifre the CEO and redistribute his $9.3M of ill-gotten wealth to the glorious proletariat!
Congrats, you've saved two hundred and thirty-two jobs out of 335,000 [ford.com] according to the 2002 report. Workers of the world, get in line, because it's gonna be a long wait.
> My question is, why are you concerned with small time gains at the bottom the the really flagrant theft and waste is going on up top?
My question is, why are you concerned with small time excesses at the top when the really flagrant waste of shareholder value is going on at the bottom?
Not just the US. (Score:5, Insightful)
It's an ebb and flow. There will always be work to do, but kiss your dream job of designing websites for 6 figures per year goodbye - because it was never worth that much.
So what's the solution? (Score:5, Insightful)
The CNN article makes an intersting point good point
In the 1990s, it seemed all one had to do to buy a ticket to Easy Street was learn a programming language or how to manage corporate computer networks.
Okay, so I've learned a dozen ways to shoot my foot clean off [healyourch...ebsite.com] -- and now this article asserts that my skills are just as easily found abroad as here locally.
But is that really what is happening. When I read the above quote, I wonder, how many QUALITY programmers are losing their jobs to concerns overseas?
Similarly, if this is the case, okay, so now what? The computers didn't disappear, nor is the need for software going to go away.
Do we work for less? Do we (dare I say it) unionize? Pass laws? Comments, please.
Protectionism (Score:3, Insightful)
IMO, it's somewhat hypocritical to defend the U.S. as the great bastion of free-market capitalism, and then get extremely protectionistic when the jobs move somewhere cheaper.
That's the problem with a global economy --- it's global. If the standard of living in the U.S. can't be sustained because people elsewhere are willing to work for cheaper, then the standard of living will have to adjust. Of course, you know as well as I do that there's no way any politician will ever let the standard of living ever decrease, so we have protectionistic measures like repeatedly trying to save the steel industry, when market logic dictates that it should be mostly moving to Korea.
To end this comment on a bright note (hey, it's Friday, let's be optimistic about the future.), this could all be obviated by the march of technology. I'm betting on life being good once nanotechnology comes of age. Yeah, it's a while off, but then, today seemed a while off to the people of 1903.
Re:Protectionism (Score:3)
Of
Re:Protectionism (Score:5, Insightful)
Tell you what.... when it's as easy for me to go to another country and work as it is for foreigners to come HERE and work for peanuts.... then maybe I'll think about not complaining about it.
As it is, I'm competing with foreign workers, college educated (at no cost to themselves generally, or they're from one of the few wealthy families in their home region,) who are willing to do the same job for less money because they don't care about having an american standard of living even tho they're living in america, and they aren't as deep in debt as I am from student loans.
Know what? I'd love to spend a few years working in another country. Australia? Yeah.... I can work for three months at a time. Most of Europe? I have to either be independantly wealthy... (be able to prove I can support myself for a given number of months) or have a business to start up. (No.... websites don't count.)
People are bitching about 'protectionism' a lot on this thread... but none of them ever seem to mention the protectionist policies of OTHER COUNTRIES.
When I actually CAN 'follow the jobs' the way people from other countries can, we can talk.
Supply and demand (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Supply and demand (Score:5, Insightful)
so don't compare 1980 money to tadays.
I would gladly lower my salary to 25K, if the price of everything I pay for was in 1980 prices.
IT Exodus (Score:5, Insightful)
As a small business [peyser.com] systems administrator/web designer, I'm not sure that it's appropriate to claim that the IT industry will be leading the exodus overseas. Sure, call center workers, perhaps. But most of the people I know who consider themselves IT industry workers aren't working in call centers. With the plummeting rolls of visa applicants because of increased INS restrictions, "outsourcing" IT jobs to overseas has to focus on button pushing jobs (like first level support) or large-scale coding projects. I just don't see your average systems administrator being terribly worried about the market right now, despite the downturn. Maybe it's that my company works in DC with the federal government, but so far all the downsizing has done has been to trim the deadwood from shops that employed people who weren't very IT oriented to begin with. How many people listened to those radio ads and thought "I could be M$ Certified and make thousands more a year even though I know nothing about computers!" These people are the ones losing their jobs.
Re:IT Exodus (Score:3, Interesting)
Most of the tech jobs that I've seen heade overseas have been low-level programming/dev work and call center/tech support work.
I -DON'T- see systems administration moving overseas. I -DON'T- see hands on, on-site technical support moving overseas. I DON'T see (much) hosting and hosting services moving overseas. India, China, Indonesia, et al -still- do not have the infrastructure to do large scale hosting (ok, China probably does, but most non-Chinese folks aren't going to be ab
One Advantage of the H1-B system (Score:5, Interesting)
Well, at least the H1-B's that are in this nation are consuming goods and services that are much likelier to be provided by American citizens than if they were coding in their home countries. If there were no or fewer H1-B's around to lower the cost of software production then there would be even more of an incentive to outsource overseas.
Make it on your own (Score:4, Insightful)
Personally, I've always been a contractor, for over 8 years now and sure, the money isn't as good as it was 2-3 years ago, but I still make plenty and have constant work.
Plus, there are perks:
I get equity shares, not options.
I work from home so I don't have to commute.
But there are down sides:
Pay for my own medical
Pay a higher tax rate
Pay for subcontractors
Pay Pay Pay
Personally, I think there are many talented people on Slashdot who do server/network administration, web design/development and many other tech skills, and if they find it's hard finding a Fulltime position might stand to benefit from consulting rather than job hunting.
Recessions (Score:5, Insightful)
Christ, if you think this is bad, thank God that we weren't alive during the Great Depression. That didn't sink us, and this won't either. Also, for those who argue that this time it's different because of globalization: the world was more globalized in 1910 than it is now, because of European colonialism.
Re:Recessions (Score:5, Interesting)
The situation I think is worse then anyone relizes. I am willing to code c++, java, or do webpage design for 8/hr with no medical benefits. I am that desperate yet, still viewed as overvalued. I have a friend who use to make $70k a year who now makes 12k designing webpages and is about to lose his job to an Indian outsourcing firm for less! ITs silly.
An Indian can work half that wage and miminal wage laws prohibit making under 6.50/hr. Indians have free health care and a very low cost of living so they can work cheaper then Americans can.
I am not an ego maniac and would love to work for under 20k ayear. The fact is even people with many years of experience also are willing to work for about that price while CIO's are getting woodies. Its very sad.
But you know what really gets me? Microsoft and Sun are lobbing for more h1b1 visa's and are outsourcing to India and Singapore at the same time. Go read any of the jobs being offered at Microsoft's website. Most of them are at Microsoft India.
May American IT work r.i.p.
India is too late... (Score:3, Funny)
Oh, wait...
An Intel guy told me ... (Score:5, Funny)
Is history repeating itself? (Score:3, Interesting)
Is today just a dip that will go away? I think so.
Re:Is history repeating itself? (Score:3, Funny)
Prosperity went down in the 80's and 90's (Score:5, Insightful)
In the early 70's, you could:
Buy an average car for 1/4 to 1/3 of a yearly average household income.
Buy a house for 2x-5x of a yearly average household income.
Today, its more like:
Buy an average car for 1/2 or more of a yearly average household income.
Houses start at 5x yearly average household income.
But here's the kicker: in the early 70's, there was almost always ONE breadwinner making up the average household income. Now, its almost always TWO.
When I was a kid living in Brooklyn, taxi drivers routinely owned homes and cars, and mom didn't work. Today, Mom and Dad work in some service drone job, and can't make ends meet. And that was true 10 and 20 years ago.
Things have gotten a lot worse.
Where do you live? (Score:5, Informative)
A nice, new Honda Accord is less than 1/4 the national average household income. A house in a less inflated real-estate market should work well for you also. $120K for 4 bedrooms here in Indiana, and interest rates are rock-bottom.
For the record, the average household income in 2002 for the whole US was $58K [washpost.com]. Your numbers for the value of stuff in the 70s are still true today. 1/3 of $58K is a little over $19K. Plenty for a new car. Houses start at only a little more than 1x that here! Lots of small houses in the $85-$90K range. Huge houses (by valley/nyc standards) are available for $150K.
You're comparing apples and oranges (Score:3, Insightful)
Aren't we being Selfish? (Score:5, Insightful)
Think of the people in India that just had their standard of living raised. Who is to say that their living standard is less important than your living standard?
We complain and complain about the Recording Industry backing up a "inferior business model".
So are we! Its time we found something else that we can do better/different.
Welcome to a free trade world (Score:3, Insightful)
Having spent days hacking around with some perl code that my (non-IT literate) colleagues think is just magic, I know that this sort of thing is really not very high skill at all and so of course graduates in Bangalore could do it for less money.
In the mean time we ought to use our greater capital stock and education systems to learn even higher skills and stay ahead in the game.
NOT a free trade world (Score:3, Insightful)
We're dealing with countries that have no regulations about the health and well being of employees.
We're dealing with countries that have no regulations about the environment.
We're dealing with countries where the economies are still centrally planned enough such that the cost of labor doesn't rise with demand.
When there is truly a level playing field, sign me up. But stop tooting about how the siphoning off of jobs is somehow related to the holy grail of
Economic rationale... (Score:5, Interesting)
Here's where it always sucks for those workers. The demand curve contracted sharply after the tech bubble burst, so the wages dropped correspondingly. This of course is what every sector (except for the government sector, unfortunately) faces from time to time. A micro-example is the set of jobs created for building a house. Suddenly the house is finished and demand falls to zero.
So what's the long term prognosis? Unless some new wave emerges that causes another correspondingly large shift in demand for tech workers, wages will be where they are, and probably fall further with international competition.
The bright side of all of this, and it's hard for us tech workers to see, is that everyone else gets cheap software and information services. This is the way the system works. The alternative is to chase demand curve shifts and change careers every ten years or so, which is probably not such a bad idea from a spiritual point of view anyhow.
This is not new. Manufacturing, Semis, etc. (Score:3, Interesting)
The real issue is what will replace these jobs. So far forecasters are looking at advanced services such as finance, healthcare, and design/r&d to shore up the expensive US labor market. Maybe...how many biotech researchers do you know? As for software, its a done deal. You can get minimally adequate functionlality from overseas code and thats all anyone cares about as long as it is cheap.
Question: Would Learning Hindi further my career? (Score:5, Funny)
i got canned. (Score:5, Interesting)
most of these are design jobs (Score:5, Insightful)
The fact is, a smart employer is going to try and get the best people for their money. Because of the sorry state of the economy, you can hire web designers for $30K/year. As to those who actually like the idea unionizing IT, I can't think of a worse solution. Unions were once a necessary evil when work conditions were deadly, people were being exploited, and children were forced to work. Today, Unions exist in sectors where it easy to Unionize or the product or service is crucial to the economy, dock workers for example. Unions don't allow promotion based upon performance, instead factors such as years in the union and degree level decide promoteability and pay-rate. You could be the shittiest teacher in a PA school but if you have your masters, you will receive X amount of money simple because of your degree. There are countless other examples detailing the evils of unions, not that all unions are evil. Without unions, workers would not have the protections that exist today, but the Union model is outdated for the 21 century. Ever try getting a booth setup at the Javitz center?
Is this -really- a bad thing? (Score:5, Insightful)
$.02
My Company Uses Offshore Labor... (Score:5, Interesting)
They are cheap - about $1000 US a month for their services.
From their resumes and other clients, you would think that they are well trained and efficient.
Unfort, I don't find their work that valuable.
First, while their English is good, it's not good enough. The communication barrier has caused several problems, resulting in database downtime that need not have occurred.
Second, while they advertise themselves as DBAs, there is only one that I marginally trust. We have had to create detailed instructions for doing simple things. They take days to do what I can do in hours, and often fail at what I consider simple, bread-and-butter DBA tasks.
Third, we don't have much of a stick over their head. Should they walk off with our data, our schema, our code, or just trash our site, there is little if anything we could actually do.
An article (recently posted on Slashdot) mentioned that the larger the company, the more likely they were to move IT jobs overseas. In the long run, this is a counter-productive move. Firing a bunch of people will lower the demand for your goods and services; the unemployed don't have the money to spend. And you create a group of seriously pissed off people with time on their hands.
The Salon [salon.com] story mentioned a website called a site [fuckthatjob.com] where people post these ridiculous jobs. Perhaps someone will come with a site that will list companies that have fired local workers to ship the jobs overseas.
The whole thing makes me wonder if it's time to start thinking about a new career. It's kind of scarey to wonder if tech jobs will become as scarce as those well paying manufacturing jobs of the 50's and 60's (you know, the ones that are now in China, Taiwan, and Mexico).
Re:My Company Uses Offshore Labor... (Score:3, Interesting)
Having rewritten 90% of the code we got back - after painfully detailed specs were prepared - I don't see any benefit in this offshore work. We have the same problems you are experiencing.
Bad communication.
Hopelessly inflated skill levels.
No real accountability.
Yet, and this is the kicker, management will continue to think this is worth it because these guys charge $6/h and I charge $60/h. No amount of common sense or proof of past screw-ups can convince them that the guy with the cheapest r
It's worse than it appears? (Score:3, Insightful)
These overall job losses are happening despite a probable 75,000 job openings. Eeek.
Unions (Score:5, Insightful)
Let's Outsource CEOs (Score:5, Funny)
In short, we've got to outsource upper management to off-shore countries.
There are plenty of well trained and highly educated people in foreign countries that can do excellent upper-management work: CEOs, CFOs, vice presidents... and they'll do them for pennies on the dollar of the exhorbatent prices we pay for CEOs now. 40 million dollar golden parachute? No more!
I don't buy this (Score:5, Insightful)
- The quality of the work being done by Indian (or whatever) programmers (or whatever) varies wildly. Some of it is good, a lot if it is not.
- In my experience, companies like Amex who outsourced their entire IT needs to IBM India (yes, IBM India) and let loose hundreds of employees are now rehiring those same employees (mostly analysts and PMs) through third-tier consulting firms at a much lower cost. So they get the quality they need (because they can't get it from Indians) but they save a bundle of money. It's not uncommon to find a project manager at Amex directing 15 indians that used to be manager or director of so-and-so two years ago. This is (I think) more about deflating the job market than shipping jobs to other countries.
- The perennial "web programmer" and "web designer" and so on is out of work because there is no more market for them. There are no more dotcoms hiring teams of 20 people to "design" three web pages at ~$60K+ per year. No way. But software developers and architects and so on with solid experience and real skills are still finding jobs. The subject of the Salon article sounds to me more like one of those foofy "html programmers" or equivalent than anything else.
The dotcom boom created thousands of jobs that were filled by people with 6 months of experience and a "computer degree" from a community college or Devry. Sorry, but those are gone. No more demand. These people should go back to what they were doing before the went into "computers" to make "big bucks".It sounds callous, but it's true.
article: "must have 5 years experience" fallacy (Score:4, Interesting)
My favorite anecdote was a job ad requiring 5 years experience writing technical manuals for military vehicles. People who write such job ads end up paying more than they should because of this "illusion of scarcity."
Economic pyramid scheme? (Score:3, Interesting)
The motivation behind cutting costs in things like IT is so that the business as a whole (and particularly the execs) can have more money.
However, in order to *make* that money, customers need to be able to afford the product. If no one is making a decent salary (by which I mean at least $40k for a household), no one is going to be able to afford the products at their current prices. The only alternative will be to cut the selling price, which eliminates the original reason for the outsourcing. Either that or continue the pyramid and find an even cheaper country to do the work, and temporarily make money off of today's India and China.
I am also curious as to the long-term results of basically removing increasingly skilled jobs from western countries. It's not like we can *all* be fast food cooks.
The politicians have sold out the American Worker (Score:4, Interesting)
For the corporations the equation is always simple and, for the most part, always the same. The path that reaps the greatest profit is the path to follow. Period, end of story, no appeals allowed.
Out sourcing work to cheap labor increases profits so it will continue. There are three ways that jobs may start coming back to the US.
1. We lower our wages to compete. (Not a good option)
2. The legal system does something that impedes jobs from being outsourced. (Not a good option)
3. It becomes more expensive to outsource than to keep jobs in the US. (The best option)
Option number 3 will slowly occur as the living standard rises in the countries where the work is currently being outsourced. As the workers wages rise and come in line with the wages in the US costs of producing goods in those countries will rise.
This could take a long time, however, and one of the big questions is: When the cost of production comes to parity where will the factories that produce the goods be located? We may be loosing jobs for a lot longer if there is no incentive to move the jobs back to the US. The startup expense is one thing that is keeping some factories in the United States but once moved it will be the same startup expense that will keep them out.
It will be interesting to see how politicians deal with the effects of selling out the American people to the corporations.
Falling off the Wave (Score:5, Insightful)
I've had my share of ups and downs in this industry. I started my career in the Savings & Loan industry -- and after that industry went bust in the early 80s, I had to find a new place to make a buck. A similar collapse hit the "web industry" over the last five years (lots of unjustified hype, bad management, etc.) -- and while I wasn't writing web pages or Flash animations, I was affected nonetheless. I worked as a development director/lead technologist at a couple small businesses that killed themselves by leaving reliable industries to "webify" their product. Both companies are gone, but I'm still here.
There's nothing unique to the computer industry when it comes to bust-boom cycles. It happens all the time in other industries. My wife began her working life 25 years ago as a geological drafter -- you know, with pens, ink, fancy templates. The collapse of the oil and minerals industry did more to end her career than any new reliance on computer-aided drafting. Is she crying in her soup? Heck no -- she worked for various social agencies, often for low wages or free, and built herself a new career in disaster recovery and education. Businesses may come and go, but there'll always be disasters. ;)
Right now, I'm doing contract work, writing a book, and placing myself for a "coming thing" that may or not be big in our industry. My wife has a nice, stable job; our kids learned long ago that their Mom and I don't listen to "gimme, gimme." It's sometimes difficult, but we keep surviving. Never surrender, never give up -- a good philosophy from a very funny movie.
Law Enforcement (Score:3, Interesting)
One of my coworkers had an interesting idea though. He was considering signing up with the California Highway Patrol. It seems like a good plan. Officers make over $50k a year for entry level, get tons of benefits (like $3000 a year for meals), extra perks/pay for specialized skills (such as piloting or even bilingual), and there is a real growth opportunity. Police officers are in high demand in California right now. Look in the classified in any paper and you will see several listings for several cities. Even my sleepy little hometown of Half Moon Bay, CA is always looking for new officers.
I actually considered, and am still considering, signing up too. I'll have to get in a little bit better shape before I do, but that's not a problem. It would be a rewarding job where I could make a difference, and make some cash too. Something to think about, anyway. You gotta give it up to the Uncle Sam. Best employer you could ever have.
Yourdon: "Decline...American...Programmer" (Score:4, Interesting)
Loss of jobs and a nightmare thread of thought (Score:4, Interesting)
If you look at all the new grads coming out, they have been told time and again that technology is their ticket to success. They've been pushed through universities like cattle, but they never expected the slaughterhouse to be right at the exit. Now that there's a glut, economics is dictating huge competition driving down salaries. Tech suddenly isn't as sexy any more, and people are flocking to jobs at more traditional companies. Tech companies keep outsourcing more and more.
But let's move this one step further. People coming into university see this. They stop coming in. Innovation and research starts slowing down. Nanotech and biotech research vaporizes because the capital base that is partly cross-subsidizing it vaporizes slowly. There is no killer application driving the tech economy. We can do with what we already have.
What we may end up with is the majority of our technological manufacturing and knowledge base outside the United States. The United States (and, to a large extent, the rest of the Western world) could become dependent on foreign technology the same way it is dependent on foreign oil. Yes, many of these jobs being outsourced are staying within the foreign subsidiaries US companies, but the bulk of the knowledge is not on US soil. Those workers can walk away at any time without recourse for the US companies.
My point is that there are very serious implications for everyone's life in general. If the majority of the expertise and manufacturing ends up outsourced to what are effectively third world countries, we could be subjected to embargoes by cartels in the same way OPEC has power today. It could even impact national security, since overall research into technology could stagnate and the pool of available scientists and engineers dwindles.
If you think it can't happen, think again. It already has in large part. If not for cooperative trade agreements, many of the bulk goods coming into the United States would disappear overnight, from Tommy jeans to Sony TVs. This means that there may be greater reliance on the US military to protect us. Unfortunately, many of these countries possess big weapons that they didn't have 50 years ago. The US won't be able to push them around like they have already, and this will cause a loss of control.
So what can we do about this? We need to vigorously publicize the nightmare stories of outsourcing. We need to show homegrown successes. We need to get these people waking up before we end up hanging ourselves by our own rope. We need to prove that we are better than those working in third world countries. We need to show what made the United States a great country - hard work, perserverance, and a good brain.
OR
We had better give up now and accept a much lower standard of living, and all of the shock it will create. It will be either one scenario or the other. But not both.
$10/hr after 4 years college? Make more at 7-11 (Score:4, Interesting)
NOT good.. (Score:4, Interesting)
This will NOT improve global economy, this will improve local economy of OTHER countries. Do you think India is going to stop taxing American imports just because a very, VERY small minority of the population is getting paid well by third world standards? Are they going to start outsourcing their jobs back into the US? I doubt it. So corporations make some money from cheap labor, because the country they outsourced to doesn't have labor laws, the outsourced country is only slightly better off, and we have Americans who can't find work to feed their own families. I fully admit I CAN'T compete with an 8 year old chinese boy in a sweatshop. I would never WANT to compete for that job, and no one should have to live with that kind of job, just to survive. If you want to rememdy the global economy, human rights MUST come first, as money is just a measurement of a human time.
Also, as an American, I have given my governemnt certain rights over me, so that they can work in good faith toward my best interest and the best interests of the American people, not so that they can make the world a better place. I could give less of a shit if my job supports an Indian Family who were previously impoverished, if now MY family is impoverished.
If employers are allowed to ship our jobs off to foreign countries with no penalty, rather than hire us to produce their product/service, then I should be able to ship in products and service from foreign nations without penalty or tarrif.
So explain to me how it is a fair playing field when corporations can undercut salary expenses by shipping jobs to foreign countries, while still being protected from Industry in those foreign countries underselling the same product/service over here?
It also undercuts traditional American values. We are beggining to no longer be the land of oppurtunity. If Americans can't get jobs, aliens can't either. So instead of a bright, well trained Indian worker coming over here to have a high standard of living, he has to stay in his home country, getting paid next to nothing and still living in third world conditions.
And to all the +5 Informatives spouting "Americans think just because they are American and have an education they have the right to a high standard of living and a decent job.", all I have to say is, You are god damn right we do. My father, grandfather, great grandfather, etc.. fought to give me that right, and I would fight to give my kids the same right. Why should I have to lower my standard of living so others can raise theirs? It's not like we've always been on top in the global economy, we made it there, and we made it there for ourselves, not for others, although we are gracious in letting others join in. Why should we sacrafice our high standard of living instead of foreigners sacraficing their nationality? If you want what we got, then you can come to America, but America should NEVER come to you.
I know, I know, I'm rambling in my digression. I do tend to get upset when I see non-Americans blaming the US for whatever is wrong with their countries. (ie. chinese bitching about US tax imports instead of 0 chinese labor laws).
I see a few -1 Flaimbaits coming, but oh well, this is how I feel
i AM an "outside worker" (Score:5, Insightful)
i live in Sri Lanka and work for the webdev section of a british dotcom. at the moment the company has 20 webdev people in the UK and 4 in SL (the rest of the team are support staff and grafx ppls), but according to the ceo they are thinking of downgrading the entire uk structure and hiring more people here in SL.
my point is here... by UK standards they are paying us peanuts!! i get paid less than 7% of what the job i do would cost if it were being done by a brit. (trust me, i checked the numbers, a dev guy would get UKP2,000 there i get the equivalent of UKP150)
but this amount lets me make about 10x of minimum wage here which is a decent amount.
but there are downsides to this.
- MOST ASIANS ARE DRONES!!! if you want them to do a piece of work and keep doing it they are perfect. but our society and education system which puts more weight on conformity and herd-following (and no i DO NOT mean chasing a bunch of cows around 8-) ) means that if you want to do something innovative here you got to find those exceptional types who can think and improvise. and those ones are already in the US on their H1B
- most people in asia don't speak english all that well. this leads to confusion and problems in communications with the westerners
i was hired because i am one of those few nonconformists who decided to come back to my country (went to uni in OKC, USA, saw the dot bomb about to drop and buggered off, also my parents run a moderately successful company here), i can think on my feet and i am am bilingual (i speak both languages well enough to pass for a native, in fact when i was in the US i frequently was)..i see my friends trying to make a living in the US and i feel sorry for them (degree holding CS guys stacking shelves in wally world...) personally i would love to get them down here where the cost of living is low, and if you know how to manipulate the system (which, believe me i do) you can live and work. sure you'll miss your mega malls, and seeing the latest movies as they come out, no mtn dew, no game arcades and no DSL.. but we got great weather, cheap housing (by us standards anyway) and beaches...
personally i would LOVE to have a few slashdotters come join me here, and i am already running a dotcom that could use some help (so its not making money atm but i'm working on that part)
i guess the point i am trying to make is this. the US has been training its people for freedom and creativity, the east for drones. put the two together and you get a potent mix. we could use some creative thinkers here, you could do with some drones there.
anyone wanna come mix it up??
Suchetha
People aren't getting it (Score:4, Informative)
I'm really amazed at the number of people on all sides of the political spectrum who can't figure out what's going on around them. Foriegn outsourcing is not about corporate survival except in companies with a historic record of mismanagement. Let's say you're making millions of units of almost any mass market item a year. The difference between the cost of doing R&D here and in India spread over X-million units is fairly trivial. A recent article quotes a CEO as saying that he expects a problem with Indian competition 10 years from now, but this is saving him money now... what's implied is that 10 years from now will be someone else's problem.
This is about notching up earnings in a down economy so CEOs can make the profit targets which will enable their next batch of stock options. It's the same sort of thing that has produced Enron-style shell games to inflate reported profits.
Like just about everything else that's been going on in the last few years at the large corporate level, it's about short-term maximation of profits. Not for the stockholders, for the CEOs themselves. The stockholders aren't going to know when to dump their stock to get maximum value for it. The CEOs don't have the slightest interest in their employeess, the health of the nation or the communities in which they're doing business, profit for the stockholders or building good companies anymore. "The commons" is just something to privatise a chunk of and strip-mine that chunk until it's worthless.
This is hardly surprising. When one's main form of compensation is based on meeting quarterly profit or stock price targets, one doesn't want to invest in long-term R&D or employees or anything that might conceivably interfere with making the next batch of stock options kick in. Doing anything interesting and creative that doesn't show an immediate return is the sort of thing that makes investment analysts who generally don't understand what the companies that they advise about do real unhappy. Make them unhappy and the stock price drops. The stock one previously got in compensation drops in value... along with the CEO's personal net worth.
Why hasn't private industry built a space infrastructure capable of supporting things like a powersat network supplying enough energy to make Middle East oil permanently obsolete? In general, the present corporate business model can't support major projects that would take 10 years to provide a return on investment. A typical Fortune 500 CEO isn't going to start a project that's going to do nothing for him but make a successor look real good.
The funniest part about this is that the CEOs doing this appear to be under the impression that India is just another bunch of burbs whose residents talk funny, have an interesting ethnic cuisine and work real cheap.
[Note 1] They are normally on the edge of nuclear war with their Muslim neighbor, Pakistan, mainly over religious hostility. The dominant religious grouping (Hindus) is calling for the expulsion of Muslims. Poor Muslims are being physically pushed into Bangladesh.
Message: 10
Date: Fri, 14 Mar 2003 11:08:10 -0500 (EST)
From: "IntellNet"
Subject: News Flash: Ten killed as bomb rips rail coach in Bombay [globeandmail.com]
Ten people were killed and 75 hurt yesterday when a bomb blew up on a train packed with homebound commuters in Bombay, the deadliest in a spate of blasts in India's financial capital in recent months.
Note 1 - to read this kind of happy fun news yourself, subscribe to OSINT-L [mailto], the Open Sources Intelligence mailing list.
What I describe is business as usual.
Third World generally translates as "powder keg".
However, the CEOs who are doing this know that if they lose their bet and one of their call centers disappears in a conve
Re:If foreigners are better workers, so what? (Score:5, Insightful)
It's not the economy, nor is it the quality of thw work done. It is the insatiable greed of the business owners who would sell their company's long-term profitability, and the company itself, down the river to beat the next quarterly earnings predictions.
Read up on what happened to Montana Power and Electric to see this unchecked greed at its worst. A company that was profitable for over 100 years is now dead. Buried under the gree and stupidity of the last CEO.
Re:Here's a job I saw last year (Score:5, Insightful)
%100 dead serious!
I am unemployed and I am about to apply for a 7.50/hr job at OfficeMax stocking shelve's. I moved back in with my parents because I can no longer afford rent. It would look so good on my resume to do any tech work that I would be willing to work for the same pay as a merchandiser at a store.
This is the reason why many jobs are going to India. You guys are not willing to work for this price range. Believe it or not an Indian could do that job for 5k a year! No shit!
20k a year is expensive in the eyes of CIO's. If we volunteer to work for 15k then they might not ship us off to India. If we demand 40k then you can kiss your career goodbye.
Lot more than web designers (Score:5, Interesting)
My extended circle of friends and I all have solid educations and lots of experience covering pretty much every aspect of IT that you can name, but no potential employer will give us the time of day. It's not a matter of demanding unreasonable salaries either - if we call their bluff and say that we're willing to accept a low salary just to pay the mortgage, we're told that we're out of consideration since the boss is sure that within a month the economic fairies will come around and we'll bolt for a well-paying job at a new startup.
Finally, my connections on "the other side of the fence" have told me that the ridiculous requirements on these lists are there for a reason - the powers that be want to give the appearance of looking for an employee, but they have no intention of actually hiring anyone. The way they hid this is by creating lists that no single person could possibly satisfy, then offering a wage far below what such a mythical person would actually accept.
If somebody actually had all of that experience and was desperate enough to accept the salary, some overlooked requirement would be discovered. E.g., for a while a popular overlooked requirement was that you had to speak fluent Japanese - and have spent several years in that country.
Re:News at 11 (Score:4, Insightful)
If too many US jobs go overseas, something similar might possibly happen. Economics "says" that if too few people can afford to buy your products, you may go out of business. If it happens to too many companies, the "economy" starts going downhill. Eventually, the accumulated capital in the US may be depleted and companies who moved jobs overseas will have no customers.
Re:News at 11 (Score:4, Insightful)
No. Here's how it breaks down: They aren't protected by labor laws and work twice as hard for a fraction of a fraction what I HAVE to get paid. We have minimum wage in this country to protect people from working for $1 a day, a majority of the countries being outsourced to don't.
"You are not obligated to live in the US. Companies are not obligated to hire US based employees. "
No, but I am obligated to pay an import tax on foreign products to protect the same companies that are shipping jobs offshore. If they can ship off jobs so cheap, I should be able to import goods/services just as cheap. Why is it that a coproration should enjoy protection that the people of the nation supporting it don't receive?
"If you don't like it, well, shut up because you can't change it. It's called economics, and even if you want something else to be true, it isn't going to happen."
That was a pretty stupid statement. Yes, we CAN do something about it. We can elect officials into office who support an export tax on offshore work. and It's not economics, it's politics. Why should they be able to sell my job to foreigners for cheap, when I can't buy their product from foreigners for cheap?
"Why do people continue to bitch about this? You are over-capitalized, and are obsolete. Find another profession."
Again.. stupid. So if Uganda starts instituting slavery, and forcing slaves to do tech support, all paid tech support around the world becomes over-capatalized and obsolete? Find another profession where?
Re:Here Is the Problem With Bitchy IT Workers (Score:3, Insightful)
The ultimate goal of a good programer is to do away with repetitive tedious work. As that happens, processes streamline and less employees are needed for the same operations until eventually they are all replaced.
The programmer is here to replace unskilled workers with robots. Don't you think that's worth a load of money to a CEO who is looking 5-15 years down the road? The problem of today is that they are no longer looking at the road, they are looking at the tail-lights a
Re:It's not that bad. Quit whining. (Score:4, Insightful)
There have been other U.S. industries that have been moved offshore permanently....the steel industry & heavy tool & die, for instance, is but a shell of its former self here (my dad's industry)
What're the next Big Things? Healthcare, biotech, nanotech, alternative energy, security....plenty of things to keep a geek happy, but first our employment recruiting process needs an overhaul...we geeks can learn new things, and don't want to be doing the same thing for 10+ years. Hopefully HR & recruiters will sprout a brain stem in this matter soon, as there will be new kinds of jobs, and NO ONE will have 5+ years experience doing them.