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)
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?
So much hand ringing over jobs... (Score:5, Interesting)
Wow (Score:1, Interesting)
Sad Sad day (Score:5, Interesting)
Well... (Score:5, Interesting)
The creation of "expert centers" that handle the more complicated issues has made opportunities for most of us.
Craenor
Supply and demand (Score:5, Interesting)
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.
World Economy (Score:1, Interesting)
it is going to become more and more important to
remember that the world economy is not a zero-sum
game.
The competition that Japan gave the American automotive market probably saved the US carmakers.
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, I have no answer for this (unless a monopoly comes to exist), but as a person, I do find it sad. All I can do is attend Willie Nelson Farm Aid events and donate. You don't have to be greedy to be a Republican.
That said, many foreign economies not only need our jobs, but despite the companies paying what appears to us as pittance, it is by far more than they're accustomed to with local jobs.
Basically, the US is becoming a third world nation, relying on paper wealth, and not producing anything. The end result will be quite scary. Oh, and there is more to Republican values than morality. Bush and his regime is a counterfit Republican one, and I owe him no alleigance. The more libertarian-minded Republicans of the early 90's are gone.
Re:So much hand ringing over jobs... (Score:2, Interesting)
However, it's the savvy investor who builds his/her business for the eventual recovery. Being well placed, with the products it requires is key to not being stuck ramping up while others grab your market.
Notice AMD is going great guns with their product development and roll-outs, even though their a far smaller fish than Intel? Intel seems content to play with their old technology and try to reap a profit. I figure AMD is burning through a fat wad of cash, hoping it all pays off. It might, assuming markets recover in time, if not, they may flame out.
Is history repeating itself? (Score:3, Interesting)
Is today just a dip that will go away? I think so.
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.
Comment removed (Score:3, Interesting)
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.
i got canned. (Score:5, Interesting)
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.
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:World ending! News at 11! (Score:2, Interesting)
"Yes I would, Kent."
Ahh yes... typical hystaria over short term problems.
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 able to do business with a chinese hosting provider, let alone put whatever content we want up).
You want an IT job? Look nationally. Make it clear that you have no problem paying your own way to move. And above all, actually have skill. I had -zero- problems finding my current job, and my former employer is actively hiring...provided you actually -have skill-. Just don't expect more than mid-30's to start.
Re:Estate of the Nation (Score:2, Interesting)
Remember when Japan was selling hundreds of billions of dollars of goods to the USA for years? If they made so much money, why is their economy in the dump? They were so fantasitcally wealthy they were buying up motion picture studios, golf courses, farms (to raise cattle for export back to Japan), banks, you name it. Problem was, they made such good stuff and their standard of living went up so high they priced themselves right out of the market. Other countries are repeating the cycle. The USA seems to survive because it reinvents itself. Probably medical is the next big thing.
Businesses would love to stay here, but they have no choice.
Where'd you ever get that idea? It's all about profit, especially where paying investors is concerned. Wal-Mart was big on selling Made in USA stuff, but quietly went back to selling least cost crap from China when they realized it didn't make any difference except in their own pocketbook. Where you buy your goods for resale is indirectly keeping your business in the country.
And farmers right now are sadly getting squeezed out of our heritage because of large-scale corporate factory farmers. As a Republican, I have no answer for this (unless a monopoly comes to exist), but as a person, I do find it sad. All I can do is attend Willie Nelson Farm Aid events and donate.
You can do more than that, you can elect representatives who place restrictions on how much of agriculture can be owned by corporations, or some such. Certainly coroporate farms should get zero subsidies.
You don't have to be greedy to be a Republican.
As an old school republican once told me. There's two kinds of republicans, the old school (like him) and those who are really democrats. I see his point, even if I don't agree 100% with the democrat assertion. It's all liberal or conservative, based on individual issues, parties are effectively sides with very little real difference in ideology, though republicans do tend to favor business more and people less.
That said, many foreign economies not only need our jobs, but despite the companies paying what appears to us as pittance, it is by far more than they're accustomed to with local jobs.
Actually, it's spreading the wealth around. Wealth accumulated in the USA for ages, now the it's spreading back into the rest of the world. Ever notice a country called The Netherlands? Huge amounts of wealth, carefully guarded. Same applies to the UK. It's 'old money' and those with it are very, very careful about letting it go. Americans still haven't seemed to grasp the concept.
Basically, the US is becoming a third world nation, relying on paper wealth, and not producing anything. The end result will be quite scary.
Not even. The USA is the world leader in economy. Reinventing the USA is key to staying on top. We lost electronics, but still had a booming economy. We lost half the auto market, still a booming economy (even in the worst of times), going to lose a bunch of IT, still going to have a booming economy, we'll find something else to sell. Things are just bad right now because the current leadership isn't focusing on the homefront (and like his father, will learn "it's the economy, stupid" The rest of the world prospers when it sells to the USA. People know this and somehow money manages to come back home. We'll find something to sell to India, Pakistan, China, Vietnam, and so on, and it'll be junk, but because it came from USA they gotta have it.
Re:So what's the solution? (Score:1, Interesting)
One of our biggest problems is that we are so 'stupid' to think that we can influence corporations as idividuals. You jus-canna-do-it!@!@@!!!!!
The only way to make things better is to organize into a group that can 'collectively' work towards our goals. Until we figure that out, we're screwed.
Airline pilots are unionized, so are teachers and any other number of highly skilled workers. Why are we different? Because we are stubborn. We work on problems and beat away at them patiently until we solve them... and that does not work for this type of problem.....
Re:Recessions (Score:2, Interesting)
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.
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."
Re:So much hand ringing over jobs... (Score:1, Interesting)
mega job listings-- you wish.
Do you think people are suddenly going to upgrade their computers and buy PDA's just because the Iraq thing is over?
No way. The fundamental problem is there is nothing the consumer really needs out there. My mom is fine with her Win98 PII computer. Only geeks like us and big time game players care about incremental tech increases.
Want to see another boom-- pray for someone very clever to discover something everybody will want (like the internet). 3D monitors/television is the only thing I see on the horizon.
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.
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's most upsetting to me about the current climate is that there's no dialogue about issues, just pandering of propaganda. For example, I really am a huge supporter of public education, from the k-12 to university levels, and like to see lots of funding go into it. But I also completely resonate with arguments that teacher unions (and unions in general) hamper progress and competition. I think there's something to be said about cutting taxes and curbing unneccesary spending, but I do think you should have the money to pay for services if they're needed.
In general, the most scary thing to me is that there is no public discussion of what's really going on. The republicans in office right now use competition as a justification for corporatism, and democrats either sit idlely by and watch, or respond with nonsense generated by labor groups.
I feel like no one is actually talking about the problems that need to be discussed.
Are we talking about outsourcing of American jobs in the public dialogue? No--we're talking about "evil" foreigners and invading Iraq. Are we talking about improving America's competitiveness--both in terms of institutions and citizenry? No--we're talking about "evil" foreigners and tax cuts. Why tax cuts? Who knows! Because they're "good", of course. Do I think tax cuts are bad? Not necessarily--but I think there are other things that could be discussed.
There needs to be reasons for things, discussion, and debate.
It seems to me the real problem is that there's no serious, rational consideration of problems facing America. Your post makes me realize that the only thing more scary to me than Bush administration is the fact that I haven't heard something I really have to wrestle with politically in some time. I feel like the policies on the table are completely useless, don't address issues, and do nothing but advance greedy ideological extremists (on either side). For once, I'd like to hear some policy statement that I find myself saying "hmm--I disagreed with them, but they do make a good point."
There's no discussion, and no discussion of reasons anymore in politics. It's a dangerous thing.
Re:So much hand ringing over jobs... (Score:2, Interesting)
The US has ALWAYS been third world (Score:5, Interesting)
Fuck you. (Score:2, Interesting)
First a general rule, troll: When your neighbor loses a job, it's a recession. When you lose a job, it's a depresion. I don't have to lineraly extend my future more than a few months or so to know that I will soon lose my the rest of my savings, my house and hopes of a good education for my 15 month old daughter.
It's been idiotic for 30 years or so, or have you not been watching US manufacturing capacity go down the tubes? Those who do, know and those who know get hired. With all of that contraction, US industry has not done much hiring in the last 20 years. They are out of people, out of knowledge and out of luck as those who know retire. There ARE people elsewhere who HAVE been making things and they do know what they are doing. This trend will only accelerate as more and more big dumb companies decide to "outsource" their manufacturing and knowledge base. Bill Clinton's "Service Economy" was the dumbest thing ever. It depends on control of intelectual property that will increasingly be foreign. Even military dominance will fade with knowledge.
A good start to solving the problem would be to STOP TRADING WITH SLAVE ECONOMIES SUCH AS CHINA. We would have to convince our friends in Europe and elswhere that it's in their best interest to not train and fund their future masters. Otherwise, we all lose.
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.
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: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 rate isn't always the cheapest guy to do the job.
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.
Offshore labor (India and Russia) (Score:2, Interesting)
We found one AMAZING guy in Russia. $15/hour. He's not always consistent (he's 23, just got married and still setting his life up) but he understands and does what he's asked in a reasonable amount of time.
Two other programmers from Russia and two others from India were either incompetent, incommunicative, or both.
I'm not worried. It will take a LONG time for them to train to our standards, and when they do they simply RAISE the amount of useful labor produced and therefore raise the quality of life for us AND them.
Yourdon: "Decline...American...Programmer" (Score:4, Interesting)
This is what customers want. (Score:2, Interesting)
German Engineering
Japanese Quality
American Service
Mexican Price
I hate to say it, but he was right and that's what companies are trying to do when they outsource jobs. Consumers are so sensitive to slight differences in price, so if one company in their sector makes a change to save a very small amount of cash while putting American workers out of work, every other company that markets the same goods or services has to do something to cut costs by the same amount. We have to realize that the American consumer is driving this phenomenon. I don't know how to fix it, but we are creating our own problem.
Re:So much hand ringing over jobs... (Score:1, Interesting)
wireless web will probably turn out to be a niche market. It will increase business at places where people sometimes like to spend an hour to do real work-- like Starbucks, maybe McDonalds (if you're in high school). These people have laptops.
Not many people want to carry around a laptop. It's also hard to do real work on PDA's/Palm's unless you get a keyboard attachment. But that's more stuff to carry around.
Look at GPS stuff for cars. I think it's pretty cool technology, but how many cars come standard with it, and how many people go to CarToys to buy a setup? You have to remember you are not the typical consumer. My guideline for a boom invention-- will my mom want it
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.
your arguement is a tad flawed skippy (Score:1, Interesting)
Manufacturing is THRIVING? I DARE YOU to find a pair of shoes, jeans, a motherboard, a dvd player made in America...I DARE YOU! I HAVE TRIED, they are EXTREMELY hard to find! You are probably some rich moron, listen if you come from a working class neighborhood where most families USED to work as manufacturing labor then you KNOW IT IS NOT THRIVING!
Maybe you took management 101 course in college, but if YOU HAD A CLUE ABOUT LABOR HISTORY, you would know that manufacturing in America is a tiny fraction of what it once was. Why would IT industry be any different? It's really HARD TO MOVE A FACTORY but it is EXTREMELY EASY TO MOVE CUBICLES. It's very expensive to SHIP TONS OF PHYSICAL GOODS around the world but it's very very cheap TO SEND SOURCE CODE AROUND.
Oh ya, maybe Bumfuck, Idaho doesn't have the same labor pool as say NEW YORK CITY? GEE, WHAT A FUCKING CONCEPT. But since universities in india, china and the philipines are churning out CS grads like crazy and Asian cities are GIGANTIC they will be quite juicy to businesses looking to slash costs.
Hmmm, and then how many startups ARE FUCKED right now because they signed leases in downtown SAN FRANSISCO because they wanted to be in the center of the action? Well all the employees are laid off and the fucking company is toast.
Don't take my word for it, just watch as the jobs disappear and never come back...
Re:Estate of the Nation (Score:3, Interesting)
I don't think that's true at all, of public companies at least. The cool thing about a public company is that you have anonymous shareholders to "protect", regardless of their individual or collective political beliefs. The number one (and most accurate) assumption that an executive makes of her shareholders is that they want as much money back as humanly possible. This anonymous will to maximize profits gives the executive a justification of "if I won't do it they'll just find somebody else to". This is how people can sleep at night, laying off 30,000 workers and pocketing $6M in bonus from successfully cutting costs.
In other words, unless greed is no longer the operative assumption in a business investment, capital will flow to the place with the lowest expense like water flows downhill. At an individual level, it means rethinking the common assumption that your retirement portfolio will grow at 8% annually.
It'd be interesting to see a company required by its by-laws to make a fixed percentage of money only, dividing any extras evenly among employees or charity or whatever. :)
NO restrictions on immigration (Score:1, Interesting)
The best reform of immigration policy is very simple: let any one who can work come to America, after rigorous security screening.
America, as you say, will be much stronger for it. Good workers can only help the country.
It's not that bad. Quit whining. (Score:2, Interesting)
Things are never as bad as they seem during a recession, and never as good as they seem during a boom.
Certain programming jobs will go offshore, but not all. Embedded systems don't need GUI or Language skills, so those will go. Programming jobs that require human interaction skills will be less successful offshore because the cultural literacy of the U.S. isn't very good in India. That will drive up the costs of their production.
System integration will not go offshore at all, because many times you physically need to be on site to integrate the system.
During the past 10 years we (programmers) have been making an Economic Profit. Economic Profits only last until other competitors (local college grads, h1b folks) come in and compete for jobs, lowering the salaries to an equilibrium point. It isn't greed, it isn't mean-spiritedness, it isn't anti-patriotic, it is economics. Adam Smith defined the basic movement of the "Invisible Hand" over 200 years ago. As salaries go down, h1b folks leave the country, people change careers, and in general the supply of tech folks drop as people look for other ways of making money or acquiring skills.
When another boom starts, as it will, salaries will go up as demand outstrips supply, and then the big bucks will be rolling in again.
How can I be so certain? I am, because Tech is a boom & bust cycle with a period of roughly 4 ears. The headlines in the early 80's read "Silicon Valley is dead! The Japanese stole all our jobs!" In late 80's, PC's were the rage, the "Savior of the Economy". In the early 90's, George Bush (Senior) was blamed for wrecking "The Economy, Stupid!" In the late 90's, "The business cycle is dead, the New Economy is here!" Now they read "Silicon Valley is dead! The Indians stole all our jobs!"
Give it a couple of years, after the war costs have been absorbed and growth returns to the U.S. economy. That will spur demand at home for tech positions, and demand will ripple throughout the world for goods and services. The good times won't be far behind. Demand will outstrip supply, salaries will rise, and everyone will be yapping about the new "Economic Miracle".
Re:So what's the solution? (Score:3, Interesting)
Our theory is that it's because the market has been flooded with shitty wannabe programmers, and we're just having a hard time filtering the real programmers from the dreck. Or it could be that the real programmers are the ones who are still working?
Either way, there's a lot of people out there who CALL themselves programmers but aren't. Until they get a clue our industry will continue to be in the shitter.
Re:Yourdon: "Decline...American...Programmer" (Score:3, Interesting)
The fact is that these things go in cycles. One year it is that Japan is going to replace the US as the leading economic power, a few years later Japan is in a terminal recession.
What will happen is that American programmers will find niches and work practices that can't be outsourced, and foreign programmers will be in so much demand that they will be able to raise their prices.
Already there is word [zdnet.co.uk] from India that they are starting to see shortages of senior level programmers, and are pirating experienced people from each other. Clearly this will lead to increased prices.
In the meantime we have the Bureau of Labor predicting that there will be a world wide doubling in demand for IT professionals over the next 7 years.
$10/hr after 4 years college? Make more at 7-11 (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:Recessions (Score:2, Interesting)
Actually the economy is very close to the late 1930's towards the end of the depression. The stock market has been down 3 years in a row and has not recovered.
The stock market was not the single root cause of the depression. There were several. There were a huge number of bank failures around that time. Back then, when a bank failed, depositors lost their money, so quite a bit of capital was destroyed, this led to deflation, you can't hire workers if the money no longer exists? Also the Fed at that time kept a tight money policy, when it should've loosened. This only made things worse. And you had Smoot-Hawley tariffs which killed overseas demand for your products. Today you only have stock market malaise. Fed policy is very loose, and banks are quite solvent, and FDIC would back them up if they weren't.
This only happened once during the 1930's in American history. Unemployement is rising near %10 and is alot higher for IT workers.
It's an extended bear market. The stock market was similarly crappy in the 70's. Maybe the loses weren't as big. And where is unemployment at 10%?
The Efficient Economy (Score:2, Interesting)
Well, now we are being told that the company is looking to outsource software jobs. In essence, we are being asked to train our own replacements. Not a huge surprise, but it will be interesting to see how well it is done. This is a very niche industry, with much communication and industry specific knowledge needed to do the work I'm not at all confident that outsourcing abroad is an appropriate solution for our needs right now.
When this happened in manufacturing, the pundits said that the America of the future was going to be an idea based, value added economy. It was argued that the high paying jobs created by our superior educational system would maintain our dominance in the future. Now the same thing is happening with these high requirement jobs. America is becoming a nation of investors, marketers, and sales people.
I'm not quite what, if anything, should be done about this.
VA Linux used H1Bs (Score:2, 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
Customer-centered design TOO HARD to outsource (Score:2, Interesting)
IMHO, much of the really interesting work will stay in the US (and Europe) because it requires people to be close to their customers and do innovative problem solving and design. For instance, if your company/team is trying to create a new product to solve problem X for customer Y and the problem is poorly understood and poorly described, you are best off visiting the customer, spending time watching how the customer works, learning what the customer's tasks are like and how you can support them, and involving the customer in tight-loop interative design. This type of work is SO much easier when you are in the same or similar time zone as the customer. The power of being able to hop in the car to drive to their site or take a short flight to the next state (and be home in the evening) means a lot to the management of both the customer and provider.
Scheduling phone conference calls with India is a really pain in the backside. Everyone I know who has to do it gripes and bitches. Flying to India takes a long time, is very expensive and requires way more planning than driving or flying in the US/CA. Finally, if I want to be in regular communication with a customer, complete with multiple site visits, even the distance between the east and west coasts of the US can become a really pain in the rear. The distance between the US and India (the OTHER SIDE OF THE EARTH) is just too damn unbearable. I watched on company attempt to divide innovative design between India and the US and it was an unmitigated disaster, resulting in the company entering death throws.
Re:Where do you live? (Score:1, Interesting)
The median pre-tax U.S. income in 2001 was $42,228. About 60% of households earned less than the average.
http://www.census.gov/prod/2002pubs/p60-218.pdf
Re:Fuck you. (Score:1, Interesting)
It's been idiotic for 30 years or so, or have you not been watching US manufacturing capacity go down the tubes?
I find it absolutely fascinating that people use the graph of the percentage of society in manufacturing as proof of off-shore production, when it proves nothing of the sort. Take a look at a factory floor 30 years ago, and take a look at it today: It's called mechanization (and it's the utopian vision of many years back) and the move to an information society. Jesus I wonder if people like you were crying doom when the horse shit picker-upper profession was on the downswing.
I wish you all the best, I truly do, but it is a competitive market and it always has been. Be your own person and go out and be an entrepreneur. It's ironic that so many immigrants do so well in North America: It's not because they're smarter (they aren't), but simply because they are motivated and self-driven - They aren't sitting in a dark room yelling at the man and looking for a mommy corporation to take care of them.
Re:Estate of the Nation (Score:3, Interesting)
ostiguy
Re:The US has ALWAYS been third world (Score:3, Interesting)
Um... what? Says who? Sources? Links to related journals? Those numbers you conveniently don't provide?
"I won't provide statistics, but check out (a) Literacy rates (b) Infant mortality (c) Homicide rates (d) % of population below the poverty line, and (e) the gap between the rich and poor."
And I suppose this has absolutely nothing to do with the way we accept more immigrants than any other country in the world hands down? I don't know about you, but I would tend to expect a few Third World tendancies when we're busily accepting people from said Third World.
Of course, I'm sure our numbers would be "better" if we simply took a "Not just no but Hell No!" approach to immigration, much like they seem to do in the EU. I suppose Third World problems are best dealt with at arm's length. Where's Joerg Haider when you need him?
Those "literacy rates..." Are they a count of literacy in general or just literacy in English?
"A large middle class running in hamster wheels does not a First World country make."
How about an economic environment that fosters self-entrepenuership, allowing just about anybody to hang their own shingle? How about a political environment that has virtually no distinctions between "citizenship by choice" and "citizenship by blood?" How about a social environment that prizes hard work and self determination above all else?
"And in pure opinion, I believe it has less to do with Democratic myopism and more to do with some extremely rich people pulling the ladder up after themselves."
You mean like "limiting the numbers and sources of immigrants that can come into the US?" You mean like "unions that both require membership to work and deny membership to non-citizens?"
Switch sides (Score:2, Interesting)
The real answer is promote yourself and stop being a worker-bee. Join the management team and keep your job!
Seriously, if you recognize the simple rules of supply and demand and how they affect the labor market and, furthermore, you see that protesting in front of the IMF and the World Bank is not going to stop the tide of globalization, then take action! Don't sit on the sidelines as the world acts upon you. Find a service -- service is key -- that US businesses are willing to pay for and setup shop in India or Sri Lanka! You handle business development and front as the CxO here in the US, and get one reliable person in your third-world location to oversee your own worker-bees. Know how to use PowerPoint?! You've got the skills to do this. All of the Dell, AOL, HP, etc. call centers in the third world are run by small business people who started just like this.
If any of you have co-workers or friends with family in the third world, ask them about contacts back home that you could pursue. I promise you that no matter how many times you post on Slashdot about how furious these trends make you, you're not going to stop it. Best you can do is recognize the trend and make the best of it.
P.S. I'm was laid off last winter because my employer was hit with an FTC lawsuit for telemarketing fraud. If any of you have contacts in the third world, please e-mail me. I'm interested in creating jobs and providing rich opportunities for people you know!
War with Pakistan? (Score:3, Interesting)