Damned Scary Article About 'Outsourcing'
 

Y'know, it's shit like this that causes me to have no qualms about working on the web. This outsourcing shit is such a stab in the back to the American workforce that it's something I saw over 20 years ago coming down the pike.
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More Stealth As Outsourcing
Rapidly Picks Up Speed
12-30-3

(Reuters) - US corporates are shifting more jobs abroad but attempting to keep the practice quiet, according to analysts

US corporations are picking up the pace in shifting well-paid technology jobs to India, China and other low-cost centres, but they are keeping quiet for fear of a backlash, industry professionals said.

Morgan Stanley estimates the number of US jobs outsourced to India will double to about 150,000 in the next three years. Analysts predict as many as 2 million US white-collar jobs such as those filled by programmers, software engineers and applications designers will shift to low-cost centres by 2014.

But the biggest companies looking to "offshoring" to cut costs, such as Microsoft, IBM and AT&T Wireless, are reluctant to attract attention for political reasons, observers said this week.

"The problem is that companies aren't sure if it's politically correct to talk about it," said Jack Trout, a principal of Trout & Partners, a marketing and strategy firm. "Nobody has come up with a way to spin it in a positive way."

This causes a problem for publicly traded companies, which would ordinarily brag about cost savings to investors. Instead, they send vague signals that they are opening up operations in India and China, but often decline to elaborate.

Moreover, on the threshold of a US presidential election year, job losses are a hot-button issue. A company that highlighted a major job transfer could wind up in the campaign debate.

Multinationals find that when they trumpet expansion overseas, they cause problems at home. When Accenture executives in India this month announced plans to double their staff to 10,000 next year, they triggered a flood of calls to the company's US offices about US job losses.

Offshoring companies "are paying Chinese wages and selling at US prices," said Alan Tonelson, of the US Business and Industrial Council, a trade group for small business. "They're not creating better living standards for America."

The US sales director for one of India's top computer services providers said his company has won business from customers such as Walt Disney, Time Warner's CNN and the Fox division of News Corporation -- none of which wants public disclosure.

In India, some technology companies have recently adopted lower profiles. Microsoft has been removing its name from minibuses used to ferry engineers on overnight shifts. Major Indian beneficiaries of US business such as Infosys Technologies, Wipro and Satyam Computer Services have stopped identifying new customers.

While there have been reports that IBM intends to ship 4,700 high-end jobs to India and China next year, they mark a rare instance when figures "have been reported in black and white," said Linda Guyer, president of Alliance+IBM, a union that has tried to organise IBM employees.

Those numbers were not released by IBM, but rather disclosed by The Wall Street Journal, which had obtained an internal memo. The company has declined to comment.

Guyer believes as many as 40,000 of IBM's 160,000 US jobs will be transferred overseas by 2005, a figure that she says was gathered from phone calls by IBM employees.

Previously, IBM has pointed to a report by the McKinsey Global Institute that concludes the US economy ultimately will benefit. The report was commissioned by Nasscom, a group made up of Indian tech companies as well as IBM's Indian services unit -- showing an effort by those invested in offshoring to sway public opinion.

Recently, AT&T Wireless told the US Securities and Exchange Commission that it would lay off 1,900 employees this year. Communications Workers of America members obtained an internal memo prepared by Tata Consultancy Services of India that discussed how it would assume those US jobs.

Subsequently, AT&T Wireless officials acknowledged it was exploring the job shifts but didn't offer details.

While some companies, such as Electronic Data Systems, CAP Gemini Ernst & Young and Sapient, acknowledge they shift jobs abroad to exploit cost advantages and around-the-clock work, IBM asserts that it is not moving jobs but creating new ones.

"It's a business strategy, period. You cut costs. You revamp. You look at what your mission statement says and try to turn a profit," said Sylvia Thomas, who was laid off by chipmaker Agere Systems after declining offers to relocate to headquarters in Allentown, Pennsylvania -- or to Singapore.

Yep. Pretty sad.

I completly agree that shipping IT Jobs Overseas is totally anti-American.

Job exports may imperil U.S. programmers
http://www.cnn.com/2003/TECH/biztech...s.offshore.ap/

U.S. tech workers training their replacements
http://www.cnn.com/2003/TECH/biztech...placements.ap/

Slowdown sending tech jobs overseas
http://www.siliconvalley.com/mld/sil...ey/4332783.htm

Gartner Says Tech Jobs Will Continue to Move Overseas
http://www.internetnews.com/bus-news...le.php/2241641

Well shit, let's ruin their productivity and make lots of money by flooding the emerging market with Indian porn!

Damn, get on the capitalism boat. If you can't beat them, make money off them. :thumbsup

:)

yep..dell computers cut all the homebased sales department, and sent it over to india as well

well the cdn part anyway

I can't say I blame them considering the average, lazy, U.S. employees.

Americans are lazy???

Fool, we feed the world, clothe the world, defend the world, doctor the world, nurse the world, police the world and entertain the world and we're 'lazy'???

Most of the US sales force is still based in the US. A lot of customer support is in india.

Also the most productive work force in the world.

This has been happening to local factories for years and it devastates towns when hundreds of high paying jobs just disappear.

I dont understand why anyone thought Tech jobs would be any different.

All I know is this.

As a designer in the US I charge enough to make a living.
A living that is decent enough. Nothing huge and grand. No Vipers, no Ferrari's no Mansion's. I aim to make 4K a month at worse with everything I do.

I charge a $900.00 to 1400.00 for a tour design.

A foreign Designer will do a tour for $300.00.

Service is the same, design up to par with mine.

Everyday many American adult webmasters will choose the foriegn web developer hands down.

Its business.
It kinda sucks for hardworker like myself to compete with global pricing. Its the kind of business that makes me extinct.

Outsourcing for support jobs is becoming more and more common, I know it sucks for our workers but from a business standpoint it's hard to beat :(

Btw,

Alot of adult and mainstream companies outsource there shipping / drop shipping to one of our companies. So if you need products or anything shipped to your customers from our warehouses, please let me know.

24/7 service, fast shipping, great pricing.

shipme.com coming soon.

peace

Todd

lazy and fat. :)

We need a better education system to stay competitive. Educated Americans can create their own jobs.

This thing that is happening accross the board in most all aspects of modern business is literally destroying America's infrastructure.

Osama got nothing compared to the damage thats been done.

the average u.s. small business is in financial trouble - the economy is kicking our asses. we can't pay $25 per hour for skilled labor, and many who try go out of business. and that's also not good for the economy.

my fiance works as a programmer in the manufacturing industry. he has 16 years in that industry and u.s. employees don't even come close to the quality of work that he is now seeing come in from (of all places) china. also china is much faster. and a lot of companies are going under in the local manufacturing industry, too.

there is no simple solution. if small businesses pay less for outsourced work, that's bad for the economy. if thousands of small businesses go under, that's bad for the economy.

I read an article in the Economist 6months or so back on outsourcing.. It's not as doom and gloom as you might think.

A lot of the jobs that go are low skill, or if not low skill are skills that are becoming a commodity. It allows businesses to invest in ideas that in the long run make much more money for the economy.

So what does the Economist say about what to do with the Low Skill'd human trash that remains once jobs move to foriegn territory?
I fall into the "Low Skill" category.
So this is interesting.

They answer that one?

Could you maybe give me the icq number of that foreign designer? I like his rates :glugglug

I'm a dentist for my real occupation -- at least you can outsource dentists.

i highly doubt about low skill. Many of the outsourced jobs have to do with programming, SEO, webdesign and this is only the beginning.

PunkWorld- Sure why not...

www.s2outsource.com - The guy looks like he does good work.

Probably living in Manila and most likely making a killing.
For 300 bucks he can feed his entire family and probly get a few hookers a week if he is that kind of guy.

May as well give em props for not being in the US or he would be just another broke designer like me.

anti-american!!!!!!!

This has been in the works for quite some time.
Stick to your guns and don't give in.. you will only regret it. Search for alternative sources of income, perhaps mainstream design. We have and it is MUCH more profitable.

I'm talking 200-400% profit instead of 10-15%

Its not Anti American.
Its being honest.

Obviously outsourcing is the American way now!
Even if it does ruin our economy and the standards of living on our own homeland!

ok!!! i got it!!!

There are work forces in other countries that are more productive, cost less, have a higher education on average, and don't complain about everything under the sun. The fucking GM workers down the road make $20 to sit on their ass in an office and "supervise" nothing because the Union won't let GM lay their ass off. With the current state don't be suprised when more and more jobs leave the U.S.

welcome to what happened to me 2 years ago.
lost my job as a machinist to India, China and bunch of other countries.
Company I worked for was bought out by a Swedish company and they slowly outsourced all of it over a period of a couple of years.

Bottom line is you are no longer competeing with the guy across town for biz, it is now world wide.

in time these internet jobs you have will go away. others will do it cheaper and faster and you will not be able to compete, its called evolution, like it or not.

you will just have to learn the next big thing to earn a living the best way you can.

I don't like it eighter, but it is just the way it is.

life sucks-----> get a helmet !

This is happening in adult as well. However, the good news is that if you are self-employed (which 95% of the people on this board are) you save costs and can expand your business. Its a win win if you think about it.

That makes a ton of sense. Plus the alarmists saying "this is the end of the american standard of living" are misinformed, the US economy kept growing despite manufacturing and now tech moving overseas. The US will always be ahead because of the global economic structure.

yeah, I just outsourced all my spam operations to a small village in guatamala, paying them 6 cents per day. I love it. thank you god for creating poor people

If you look hard enough, site design for tour can be as low as $100 same quality. less bs.

People have been saying this since the 70's when a large chunk of the US auto market was taken over by the Japanese. Has it come to pass? NO. The US has created larger markets and newer markets.

You hit the nail on the head, man!

:1orglaugh