page: 1 · 2  |
 
Niarlan
Excelsior
Premium
join:2002-11-09
Manville, NJ | Ahh...so that explains it No wonder we get such crappy tech support from all those firms, they neither train nor require skills of the support personel they hire. Makes perfect sense now...sheeshhh...
Nia | |
|  | 
johnny_t
Premium
join:2004-03-21
Palo Alto, CA | Every1 Will Read Every Tech will B reading from computers NOW
all this over-seas @#$% So every1 must self-educate
them self from now ON
--
Gamertag=Aladar | |
| | 
technick
Premium
join:2000-12-16
Loganville, GA | Washington Post username / password.. I hate reg. Use this username / password.. I hate signing up for these things..
user: cheetos@lunchmeat.net
pass: smartypants | |
| | | 
BigDaddyChud
join:2002-11-16
Gladstone, OR
 ·Comcast
| Re: Washington Post username / password.. I hate r Here ya go.. Credit Washington Post
Discussion Transcript
Outsourcing's IT Impact
Harris Miller
President, Information Technology Association of America
Tuesday, March 30, 2004; 11:00 AM
Harris Miller, who heads the influential Information Technology Association of America trade group, was online to take questions about the impact of outsourcing on the nation's technology sector. Miller, whose organization represents a number of major technology players, takes issue with the mainstream press presenting a doom-and-gloom, distorted picture of the outsourcing trend.
A new ITAA report predicts that the trend will ultimately lower inflation, create jobs and boost productivity in the United States.
washingtonpost.com technology reporter Cynthia L. Webb moderated the discussion. A transcript follows.
Editor's Note: Washingtonpost.com moderators retain editorial control over Live Online discussions and choose the most relevant questions for guests and hosts; guests and hosts can decline to answer questions.
________________________________________________
Cynthia L. Webb: Good morning (and early afternoon)! We are about to get started with our Live Online discussion on outsourcing with Harris Miller of the ITAA. Thanks to all the readers who have submitted questions already. Please keep your queries coming.
_______________________
Cynthia L. Webb: Good morning, Harris. The debate about the outsourcing of jobs and its impact on the tech sector and economy overall is heating up and shaping a lot of discussion these days in Corporate America and the political arena too. Indeed, your organization has been active in the debate and today is releasing a study, which has found longterm benefits of outsourcing for the IT software and services sector, including cost savings and job creations for U.S.-based companies. This is a controversial conclusion, since there are many critics of outsourcing who think the trend costs jobs. What is the main argument you make to counter those who believe outsourcing is leading to job cuts and undercutting the tech sector?
Harris Miller: The study we are releasing today done in part by Nobel Prize winning economist Dr. Lawrence Klein dispels several myths: Myth #1: Global sourcing of IT jobs will reduce the overall number of US jobs. Fact #1: Global sourcing increased US jobs by 90,000 in 2003 and will add more than 317,000 new jobs in 2008. Myth #2: Most of the decline in the number of IT jobs since the start of the recession is due to global sourcing. Fact #2: Most of the lost IT jobs were because of the bursting of the telcom and dotcom bubbles. Only about 35,000 jobs per year were lost to global sourcing. Myth #3: There may be more jobs in the future, but they will be lower paying. Fact #3: Global sourcing will raise the buying power of American workers. Myth #4: The number of US IT workers will continue to decline because of global sourcing. Fact #4: The number of US IT workers will continue to increase.
_______________________
Cynthia L. Webb: I excerpted various coverage of the ITAA study today in my daily tech column Filter. Here's a link: »www.washingtonpost.com/wavy/arti···r30.html
_______________________
Terre Haute, IN: Do you think a major contributor to outsourcing is a lack of skilled scientists and engineers? If, so how would you suggest the educational system me modified to remedy this problem? And do you think it is possible to use outsourcing to replace unskilled jobs in high-tech industries with more skilled jobs?
Harris Miller: While our educational system is one of the top in the world, it does not stack up well on several counts. For instance, our high school students test poorly on math and science tests in relation to their counterparts in many countries that are competing with us. As another example, in many of our top schools, over half the graduate students in math and science are foreign born, indicating a lack of interest on the part of US students in getting these advanced degrees. We believe that governments at all levels need to treat global competition much more seriously and invest much more in training students at all levels in math and science. It has been almost five decades since the US government last focused on global competition in high skilled areas--namely, when the former USSR sent rockets into space and created an intense focus in this country on improving our education in math and science. We need that same focus now because our competitor countries--India, China, Korea, Taiwan, and many others--are putting substantial resources into educating their own students to compete.
_______________________
Cynthia L. Webb: The ITAA will officially release the results of its study later today. Here is a link to the ITAA's Web site: »www.itaa.org/
_______________________
Cynthia L. Webb: The ITAA's new study on outsourcing found that double the number of jobs are created versus displaced due to outsourcing. The Wall Street Journal today noted as a follow-up to that finding, however that the study focused narrowly on the outsourcing of computer services jobs, but did not address the impact of the outsourcing of call center or manufacturing jobs. Why did these sectors get left out, since they are a big piece of the IT sector as well? And any plans for a follow-up study that addresses this?
Harris Miller: Neither the US government data analysts nor ITAA classifies call center jobs as IT jobs. They do not require any technical skills or training, as do software engineering or computer programming jobs. Therefore, it made no sense to classify them as IT jobs for our study. As for the impact on the economy of manufacturing jobs moving overseas, that is a study I will leave to organizations that consist primarily of manufacturers. ITAA represents IT companies, and much of the recent concern about global sourcing has to do with IT jobs moving overseas, so that is where we asked the economists to focus their research.
_______________________
Bolton, MA: This is the beginning of a well-funded corporate trade association blitz. I invite you to visit the towns of metro-west Boston, the 128-495 high tech corridor. Thousands of manufacturing, engineering, quality and other professional jobs are gone. Office buildings and technology parks, once the home of Agilent, HP, Nortel, Motorola, Stratus, etc. and the contract manufacturers who supported them, are vacant because the jobs went to Ireland, Mexico, India, China, and former USSR republics. The "official" unemployment rate of 5.9% is WRONG because thousands of highly educated professionals who are working in survival jobs for close to minimum wage are counted as employed. Offshoring works only when an equal number of more of high-quality positions are created; the only jobs being created are in government. U.S. Department of Labor reported ZERO new jobs in February in the public sector.
Cynthia L. Webb: Harris, there are a lot of questions and opinions that readers have submitted along these lines. How do you respond?
Harris Miller: No one is denying that US employment is lower than it was three years ago and that unemployment is higher. According to government data, approximately 2.8 million manufacturing jobs have been lost over the past four years, while 500,000 services jobs (including IT jobs) have been created, for a net loss of 2.3 million jobs. What the study shows is that in the IT sector, at least, most of the lost jobs have been because of several factors: the bursting of the telcom bubble; the bursting of the dotcom bubble; the US and global recessions; and the moving of IT jobs offshore. The study indicates 104,000 IT jobs have moved offshore, approximately 35,000 per year. Obviously, for workers who have lost those jobs, we must focus on getting them back to work which is why, for instance, the study, and ITAA, recommend further government assistance for training and educating and retooling for those workers.
_______________________
Denver, Colorado: Even if offshoring does create some new jobs: Given the labor cost differential, what incentive is there to create those new jobs in the United States? (And why should we trust that these jobs won't be offshored also?)
Harris Miller: Relative hourly wages are not the sole determinant of whether IT and other jobs move offshore. When companies decide whether to send work offshore, they have to look at the TCO--total cost of offshoring. And when they do, they often decide that sending work offshore makes no sense. The study indicates that only about 2% of IT jobs have moved offshore and projects that only 6% will have moved offshore by 2008, far from the tsunami that one might believe by reading the headlines. What are the elements of TCO: they include challenges in communicating with employees in a different culture and sometimes different language; knowledge of lack thereof of the customer needs; training costs; need for guaranteed quality of service. When businesses are making real decisions about moving work offshore, they do not look at simple charts that show workers in the US make X dollars an hour and workers in another country make less and therefore all jobs should move offshore.
_______________________
Columbia, MD: If everyone agrees that the nation needs to refocus on job training and education, why aren't outsourcing proponents amenable to collecting data on jobs and skills outsourced overseas?
Don't we need to study the economic impact on those who are negatively affected by the loss of jobs overseas?
The government does not collect this data (hence the proliferation of Lou Dobbs of CNN's list of outsourcing companies).
Shouldn't we at least understand the cost of offshore outsourcing to the same level of detail as the benefits?
Harris Miller: I would love to have more government data on jobs and skills outsourced overseas. One of the reasons ITAA had to pay for this study is that such government data do not exist in the format that makes analysis possible. Our study does determine that approximately 104,000 IT jobs have been sent offshore over the past four years, approximately 35,000 per year. The analysis also indicates that an estimated 272,000 additional IT jobs will move offshore over the next five years, approximately 50,000 per year. And that the US will create an additional 244,000 IT jobs in the US over that same period, again, approximately 50,000 each year.
_______________________
Amsterdam the Netherlands: Why do CIO's always think that outsourcing contracts are easier to manage then there own department?
Cynthia L. Webb: A good question. As a tech trade group, you must provide feedback to a lot of tech executives on outsourcing. What pointers has ITAA given about the management of sending work abroad? I know there are a rash of new MBA programs, for example, that address this.
Harris Miller: I do not think it is true that CIO's always think that outsourcing (which is a more generic term than offshoring) IT work is easier to manage than in-house resources. We at ITAA meet with CIO's from a wide range of corporate and government customers regularly, and we find mixed results. Some are strong outsourcing advocates generally, believing that IT firms have the most up to date technology, training, resources, etc., and should be handling the IT functions. But we also find many that continue to believe that their internal management of the IT function works best. Most seem to be in the middle, believing that some functions need to be kept in house for various reasons, while others, especially in "back office" areas, should be outsourced. IT companies have to work hard to convince those skeptical CIO's that they can do the job just as well if not better than their in house resources.
_______________________
Herndon, VA: Let's inject a little reality into the discussion here--lagging science and math education in this country isn't the reason why computer scientists are being laid off. High-paying white collar jobs are going overseas because companies want programmers and system architects who are willing to work for five bucks an hour. What do you say to the college students who see what is happening and are fleeing from computer science like the plague?
Harris Miller: ITAA is disappointed in the drop off in computer science majors in traditional four year colleges and universities that have occurred over the past 2-3 years, though we have seen strong enrollments for computer related degrees and training in community colleges and proprietary educational institutions. As you know, during this country's last recession, starting in the late 1980's and running into the early 1990's, we saw a similar downturn in computer science BS degrees, which contributed to making the IT job market so very tight in the late 1990's when the boom was underway. I urge young people to continue to pursue IT degrees. Our study clearly shows that the number of IT jobs in this country will continue to increase. Other studies done by demographers at Harvard and the ETS show that there will be a wave of baby boomer retirements in the IT field starting later in this decade that will open more job opportunities also.
_______________________
Roseville, CA: Mr. Miller: If you are so certain that offshoring jobs is so "good for America" then this will be easy: Simply tell us what industry or industries are ramping up right now that will replace tech as an innovative American job creation engine and or very soon will be looking for people to fill jobs at least equivalent in terms of salary and benefits to those jobs leaving our country. Be very specific - do not insult us with vague economic jargon. If you cannot point to specific verifiable data such as company names, numbers of open positions, associated salary levels, etc. explain why you are unable to do so. Again, this should be easy if your argument is accurate and by "good for America" you don't really mean "good only for American CEOs."
Harris Miller: Our study does not indicate which particular companies will be adding employment, but it does indicate which industry sectors will be growing and breaks that down by states. You will be able to get a copy from our website after 1:30 PM today, www.itaa.org.
_______________________
Cynthia L. Webb: As president of the ITAA, you must rub elbows with a lot with powerful tech leaders and politicians alike. How big of an impact do you think the public debate on outsourcing will have on shaping the presidential race? Just today in fact, the Bush administration gave outsourcing a nod. Treasury Secretary John Snow in Cincinnati said that outsourcing is an aspect of trade and that trade makes the economy stronger.
Harris Miller: There is no doubt that the slow creation of jobs during this recovery is a hot political topic. I find politicians on both sides of the political aisle bemoaning the "jobless recovery." And I also find that it is easier to blame factors such as "offshoring"--where you can point your finger at someone or some country--than to blame general economic notions such as "business cycle" or "telcom bust." It is hard for a television station to show a picture of an economic cycle. It is easy to show a picture of a Filipino or Indian or Irish IT worker. So I expect that unless we see a quick, dramatic drop in unemployment--which no one is projecting--that the offshoring issue will be a major topic between the parties right through November and beyond.
_______________________
Tallahassee, FL: Your answer to the question of off-shoring the new jobs seems a little weak: while companies certainly don't go solely on hourly wages in making that decision, it is not true that other countries are weaker than us in other areas. India, for instance, uses English as Lingua Franca. India's educational system is also very good, and there are already many facilities in India with the technology to do the work. In a world in which the same quality of IT worker can be found in the US or India, but where India maintains a currency advantage, why would a company choose the US over India?
Harris Miller: If your logic were accurate--and hourly labor costs are the only factor in determining where IT work is done--then we would have 50 or 75 or 90% of IT work done outside the US. Yet the study shows only 2% has moved offshore the last three years and only an additional 4-5% will move offshore the next five. The reasons it is only 2%, as I said, is that offshoring decisions are much more complex than just looking up hourly wage rates on a chart. I do not mean to minimize the reality of the competition from abroad. I have been talking about this global challenge since I first came to ITAA nine years ago--though few would listen. But neither is it helpful to be simplistic or fatalistic and think that all of the US IT industry is going to slide into the Pacific Rim because their hourly labor rates are lower.
_______________________
Princeton, NJ: What about the indirect transference of knowledge skills, intellectual property, intelligence and so on when a U.S. company outsources their work? Aren't we leveling the competitive field when in fact, we should be trying to stay ahead in one way or another. Doesn't that make the hurdle that much higher for a U.S. company that attempts to have a competitive advantage over others via a proprietary good or service?
Harris Miller: The reality is we live in a global economy, and companies that operate globally must protect their IP wherever they operate. I know there were people in Japan who objected when the Japanese car companies decided to open factories in the US expressing the same concern about giving too much knowledge away to their American competitors. But, in retrospect, those doomsayers have been proved wrong many times over. Foreign Direct Investment in the US has almost doubled over the past few years. Those non-US companies that choose to operate here need to protect their IP, too. Clearly, when a company chooses to operate globally, one of the first elements they look at are the IP laws of the country in which they will be operating. Countries like China continue to come up short, for instance.
_______________________
Cynthia L. Webb: Harris, outsourcing sparks a lot of heated, emotional reaction (as a number of the reader questions convey). Despite your study and its findings that show outsourcing will be a benefit to the economy overall, the practice of outsourcing still makes quite a strong psychological impact on tech workers (many of whom have stories of getting a pink slip due to a position lost to outsourcing). How do your organization and the tech sector overall work to overcome this disparity? There still appears to be an overwhelming sense that jobs are being lost and that the tech sector is in danger because of the trend.
Harris Miller: Educating people with facts is the answer. I hear from unemployed tech workers every day expressing their understandable frustration. The typical IT worker has never experienced a recession, the last one occurring over a decade ago, and impacting IT workers almost none at all. In the late 1990's, IT workers just out of school were getting unbelievable signing bonuses, including free cars. So they ask, how can those halcyon days of 1997-2000 have turned so disastrous so quickly for the 5-6% of us who are unemployed? Again, the answer is a combination of factors, one of which is more global competition. But the study clearly demonstrates that global competition is already creating and will continue to create more jobs. I know it probably will not make people feel much better, but I urge them to read Gregg Easterbrook's recent book The Progress Paradox: How Life Gets Better While People Feel Worse, in which he tries to explain the frustration people feel.
_______________________
Cynthia L. Webb: Readers, thanks for all of your questions today. Harris Miller has agreed to stay on for about 10 minutes past the hour to take some additional questions.
_______________________
Washington, D.C.: Good Morning:
Thank you for taking my question.
Do you feel this outsourcing debate is nothing more than a politicized event in an elections year?
If you look during the Clinton years, outsourcing was occurring in all sectors, including those traditionally shielded from competition. With the way in which we communicate being so efficient, outsourcing provides a cheaper, more efficient way of doing business. And this ultimately leads to lower prices for the consumer. I feel all these arguments against outsourcing do not really know the history surrounding this not-so-new 'phenomenon'.
Harris Miller: I only partially agree with your conclusion. Yes, the issue of global competition has been heavily politicized because it is an election year and both parties know that voters actual employment situation and how they feel about their future can be, in many cases, the single most important issue in deciding which candidate they support. And, yes, IT work has been globally sourced for many years. In fact, for many years, it was globally sourced TO the US, which many other countries resented. And even today, the US runs a substantial surplus with the rest of the world in IT software and services, which means we create more jobs selling to them, than they create by selling to us. But having said that, the frustration and fear that many unemployed workers and even some employed workers and even some companies feel about the growing global challenge is real. The amount of IT work going offshore is small--2%--but it is not negligible. In addition, certain media types have hyped the issue also.
_______________________
Los Angeles: For years we in the middle- and upper-middle class yawned with lower-wage jobs were shipped off to China and other third-world countries. We happily went along shopping at the likes of Wal-Mart because prices were cheap. Now, OUR jobs are being shipped off and people are finally starting to wake up. The fact is greed is the driving force behind outsourcing. I am not a left-wing liberal by any means but people need to dismiss the propaganda put forth by the right-wing "Free Traders" who say that shipping jobs overseas is good for this country. It isn't. It's good for senior management and a hand full of investors. As for me, I'm willing to pay a tad more for toilet paper and take a tad less in investment returns rather than exploit people in India and China and fatten the wallet of some VP.
Cynthia L. Webb: Harris, you must get a lot of reaction along these lines. Your thoughts?
Harris Miller: Again, I urge those involved in this discussion to read the report when it is issued this afternoon. The starting premise of many of those asking this type of question is that global sourcing is a win/lose proposition--the foreign country and a few "fat cats," win, while everyone else loses. The data show otherwise. That global sourcing is a win/win. Global sourcing creates more jobs in the US. With better wages. It brings down costs for consumers. It increases our GDP significantly. That does not mean than we can ignore global competition. We must break down existing trade barriers so our companies can export more to the 96% of the world that lives outside the US. We must reform our global tax laws to be competitive. We must offer more training, educating, and retooling to displaced workers. We must focus more resources on IT R&D.
_______________________
Corrales, NM: This is a comment:
During the dot-com boom, my 20-person company faced a catastrophe: 5 of my programmers, including my VP of technology quit to join the dot-com offerings. Fortunately, we had an off-shore operation in India helping us in our R&D and I was able to bring 6 of them into the US immediately to offer continuity in support to our clients. I could not possibly create and run a parallel organization in the US but I can at India's affordable rates.
As a small software company the only way we can produce state-of-the-art application packages is by using off-shore developers. US development would be unaffordable to us. But our main development staff remains in the US - just the tedious coding and documentation is assigned to India. I don't think of off-shore as "losing jobs," I look at them as a reason for our existence - our 20 person office in the US would be out of business without them!
Thanks
Cynthia L. Webb: Thanks for your sharing your experience, Corrales, NM.
Harris Miller: We are hearing more stories like this all the time. It is a myth that only large firms have a global sourcing model. This contributor is a perfect example of the win/win I just discussed in my previous answer.
_______________________
New York, NY: Having worked steadily for 10 years in the IT field, and seeing the "facts" put forth here, I have to wonder if the information being used considers only full-time salaried employees in the IT industry. This I think skews the data significantly, considering that, a large portion of IT workers have been contract workers and consultants who have been severely displaced within the past 3 years.
Harris Miller: The study looks at IT workers generally, regardless of whether they are employees or contractors and whether they work for IT companies or non-IT companies.
_______________________
Herndon, VA: When your study says outsourcing will create jobs, what kind of jobs are you referring to?
Harris Miller: The study being released this afternoon details the sectors and also gives a breakdown by state.
_______________________
Jacksonville, Florida: I would like to know if outsourced IT is a modern form of trade goods, then why do we allow our trading partners to maintain high tariffs and market barriers to our goods and services? Trade should be a two way street yet your organization has not to my knowledge addressed this issue.
Harris Miller: We should not allow barriers to continue. The US must be as aggressive as possible in promoting trade agreements that force countries to eliminate both tariff and non-tariff barriers. We also must move aggressively against countries that violate agreements, which is why I am pleased the Administration just filed a complaint against China for a discriminatory taxation system on computer chips. China is being difficult in other areas involving IT, too, and I have made numerous representations to the Chinese government on these issues and have encouraged the US government to do the same. I am hoping the so-called Doha Round of negotiations will get restarted this summer, because the US IT software and services industry has a lot to gain in that round.
_______________________
Washington, D.C.: Just after the Tech Bust, there was a backlash against H1-B work visas, the permits that allow foreign tech workers to live and work in the U.S. It was thought that reducing the number of H1-B visas would increase the number of jobs available to U.S. workers. The reverse has happened though, as companies have simply moved the job to the employee through outsourcing rather than moving the employee to the job through H1-B status. Do you anticipate there will be an increase in H1-B visas in the years ahead, or does the current arrangement where employees live and spend in their home countries through outsourcing work better for everyone?
Harris Miller: The future of the H-1B program remains uncertain. As you know, the usage of the H-1B program dropped dramatically in 2002 and 2003 as the economy slowed. This year, the annual ceiling for admissions was lowered to 65,000, and that cap was reached already, so no more H-1Bs can be admitted to the US until the next federal fiscal year begins October 1. This is hurting companies currently recruiting for computer scientists and engineers on college campuses that may be foreign born because they cannot offer them a job right now. My educated guess, however, is that in a global economy, we will continue to have some work done outside the US by nationals of that country and also continue to admit some highly skilled foreign workers.
_______________________
Cynthia L. Webb: Thanks for taking the time to talk about this important issue today, Harris. We'd love to have you online again soon to talk about outsourcing again. There were many more questions than time to address all queries, which suggests that there is a lot of interest in this topic and room for more discussion. Thanks again and readers, thanks for your participation.
Harris Miller: I appreciate the opportunity to participate, and thanks to all your readers for submitting their thoughtful questions.
_______________________
Cynthia L. Webb: We are out of time for today. Thanks, readers, for your participation. Please join me online this Friday at 11 a.m. for another outsourcing discussion. Have a great day! | |
| | zmike2
join:2004-02-16
92680
1 edit | Re: Ahh...so that explains it Call center employees: 'no skills or training' No Shit, Sherlock..... they higher Tham fore the Peppel skills not there tech skills. | |
| | dougdonovan
join:2003-12-30
Phoenix, AZ | i guess that if ya don't know it by now, good luck. | |
| 
dadkins
Can you do Blu?
Premium,MVM
join:2003-09-26
Hercules, CA | 'no skills or training' Ya think? The only skills they seem to have is reading from a card(and they don't even have that mastered). | |
| | jaseliu
join:2004-02-05
Anaheim, CA | Re: 'no skills or training' !!!!!! | |
| Chachie0
join:2004-03-31
Canada | So all the Telco's can outsource to India now Is this true? Anyone who works on the phones is not IT?
In this case I can see an influx of ILEC pole climbers categorized as IT. | |
| | 
Corvus
Flaming Tards Since 2003
Premium,VIP
join:2003-11-26
| Re: So all the Telco's can outsource to India now said by Chachie0  :
Is this true? Anyone who works on the phones is not IT?
Right! I work as a monkey tech support and we are not recognize by the company as IT or techs, only as "counselors". This way, they don't have to pay us like techs.
--
Jesus saves, but only Buddha makes incremental backups. | |
| | | 
Devils Advocate
@209.36.x.x | Re: So all the Telco's can outsource to India now Yes....and by doing so, your job is not counted when is shipped overseas ! | |
| | | | MotoVT
Vonage User Since Jan 2004
join:2002-12-03
Butler, PA |  Re: So all the Telco's can outsource to India now
said by Devils Advocate:
Yes....and by doing so, your job is not counted when is shipped overseas !
How clever!
--
Part time Vonage Phone man. | |
|
technick
Premium
join:2000-12-16
Loganville, GA
| Bottom Line There's a bottom line to this, JOBS. Weather it's IT, or Automotive, or even Lawn Maintenence. Shipping Jobs oversea's does have a overall impact in America. It does not take a degree to see this. The more jobs we ship oversea's, the less we have open here in the United States. Duh!
Get a freaking clue!!!
--
"Our greatest glory consists not in never falling, but in rising everytime we fall." - Confucius - - - - - - - - - - - Streamfire.net- - AIM - CoNFuCiUsNiCk | |
| | MotoVT
Vonage User Since Jan 2004
join:2002-12-03
Butler, PA |  Re: Bottom Line
Well we will have jobs here, don't be misled.
However, they'll be third level service jobs that have low pay and benefits.
Gosh, don't you just love free trade? | |
| | nutcr0cker
join:2003-04-02
Chandler, AZ | Harris Miller....why not outsource him...would save his company a lot by shipping this clueless moron's job to a third world country. | |
| | | MotoVT
Vonage User Since Jan 2004
join:2002-12-03
Butler, PA
 ·Vonage
| Re: Bottom Line For that matter, we could outsource our entire government.....recall RR said "Government is too big and it spends too much"
Just think of the tax savings if we could move the likes of EPA, CIA, FBI, defense etc all to India and China.....get the same if not better level of service at a fraction of the cost.
After all, what's good for the goose is good for the gander right?
This would be a perfect opportunity for the mouthpieces of free trade to put their money where their mouth is.
Start with editors of businessweek and fortune.....move their jobs to India for less money. After all, its about comparative advantage right?
--
Part time Vonage Phone man. | |
| z1y2x3w4v5u6
Eeeek A Trackball
join:2004-02-16 | Offshore support sans training Harro? Dis id tech supposter.
You skleweed it up--even I can tell dat!
hee hee
lefolmat everything and start over. Thanks you for carring adn have a nice day, dum dum. | |
| | 
Varangian
join:2002-12-08
Collinsville, IL | Re: Offshore support sans training I believe I was speaking with that gentlemen yesterday.
Don't hold it against him, it's probably the first non agricultural job . | |
| 
Absorbine_Sr
1 In The Hood
Premium
join:2003-02-13
Schererville, IN
clubs:
| Needs convincing Though I personally don't work in a call center, my wife does, and so do many others that I know. They are highly trained professionals who do a marvelous job of helping people who buy the software our company sells. Maybe Mr. Miller needs to be convinced that these people are not just untrained chimps reading from a card. Maybe a hundred thousand or so emails might help convince him? Contact address from the ITAA site is hmiller@itaa.org. Spread the word.
--
I'd give my left hand to be ambidextrous... | |
| | 
LegoPower77
Abecedarian
Premium
join:2002-08-03
Arlington, VA
2 edits | Re: Needs convincing Call centers? oh Please. . .
I don't know, I've worked in them before, if you are gonna cry a river about them, you should be up at arms about the Federal Do not Call list.
But you admit, this hits close to home.
The fact of the matter is that the free-flow of labor allows areas to take advantage of comparative advantage, an iron-clad law of economics. The MSN article illustrates as much by mentioning the repatriatiton of workers. So the eeevil company realizes it's a loss to outsource after all.
Perhaps we should attack the root of the problem and address the onerous taxes and regulations eeevil companies are faced with (not to mention the ever-present threat of litigation thanks to our trial-lawyer friends). Currently, the US taxes eeevil corporations at 40%—that means 100% lost, 60% gained on a 50-50 toss. . . .(gee, India looks more attractive now).
But what is a corporation but a collection of people? I should point out, that the government taxes the eeevil corporation's earnings many many times, the people who get paid by it get taxed, the shareholders that own stock or the eeevil small business owner pay taxes on the residual income, and then there's the various add-ons like payroll taxes, health bennies requirements, etc... (And again, India looks more attractive.)
And this doesn't even begin to address the robust economic theory that the ITAA is talking about when it points out how newer—more advanced jobs typically open up here at home. The fact of the matter is, there are gains to trade: both countries are better off as they perceive it ex ante and if they come to think their perception was wrong, they take steps to reverse the situation (well, you can't always do things like just take your new car back but you get my drift).
Again I stress, what are "countries" trading with each other, other than individual action (again, people. Thus any restriction on trade no matter how casuist the intention is always a restriction on people and thus a barrier to their "right to happiness" as they see it.
Q.E.D.
{edit}
Dangit, I meant to add an eeevil partisan note being that it's an election year, and all. John Kerry calles eeevil outsourcing companies "benedict arnold" corporations, his wife, heiress of the Heinz fortune decries walmart as "breaking up rural communities". Well, as it turns out, the company her daddy owned outsources 2/3 or so of its manufacturing and Teresa owns $1 million in Wal-mart stock. Too rich (pun intended!  )
--
"Government's view of the economy could be summed up in a few short phrases: If it moves, tax it. If it keeps moving, regulate it. And if it stops moving, subsidize it." —Ronald Reagan | |
| | 
amenite
The Soylent - It's People
Premium
join:2002-11-21
Ridgewood, NJ
clubs:
 ·Verizon Online DSL
1 edit | Reclassify your economy, the numbers look better Sounds like that news blurb from a month or two ago where someone was proposing re-classifying fast food jobs as assembly jobs or something to that effect, because of the way a burger is put together. Too bad Wendy's doesn't provide UAW style benefits though.
--
Time is an abstract concept invented by carbon based life forms to monitor their constant decay.
-Thunderclese | |
| | | | | jaseliu
join:2004-02-05
Anaheim, CA | Re: Reclassify your economy, the numbers look better last time i heard they were payin those people in india with 1/9th the salary here..... how you going to compete with that.. thats like the salary of working at MC | |
| | | | kcjames1138
join:2003-04-25
Olathe, KS
| Do the Math, People!!
I also love quotes like, only unskilled jobs are being outsourced that will eventually be automated, like coding and testing. Coding? Really, who is going to write these programs that write programs? Testing, automating testing will only test for what the author of the program could think to test, what about all the millions of posibilities he couldn't think of, that you only uncover through real human interaction?
The second quote I loved was jobs least likely to be off shored are those requiring direct customer interaction. When's the last time you called dell, covad, cisco, or any other major tech company and didn't get some indian rep who refused to tell you the location you are actually calling?
Corporate greed is going to kill our economy and our future. Studies last week reported enrollment at the college level in math, science, tech and engineering fields have dropped 20-30%. This is in less than a year since offshoring has become an issue. What do you think news like this job study will do? Drive enrollmetn down even further.
We are in for a big surprise when the only jobs our children have to look forward to are in government, litigation, or health care. With high end tech and science jobs going to India and low end manual labor jobs going to mexico and china, what fields do you think we will actually all be employed in?
Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on me. In the 80's as manufacturing jobs flew overseas the so-called experts told us to go back to school and retool in skilled technology jobs. Now tech jobs are being sent overseas and they once again are telling us to go back to school and retool in skilled jobs. What's the difference? This time they can't tell us what these skilled jobs are.
This is nothing more than the elite class creating more decisive economoic classes by destroying the middle class which continually threatens their reign. It's truly a shame our corporate leaders don't have the moral values to see the results of their actions past next quarters stock prices. | |
| | 
bistro777
Donuts-Is There Anything They Can't Do?
Premium,MVM
join:2002-02-07
Englewood, CO
| The New Math "March 23, 2004 Arlington, VA - The Information Technology Association of America (ITAA) today expressed disappointment in Michigan Governor Jennifer M. Granholm for signing executive directives seeking to erect barriers to the global sourcing of state business.
According to a statement issued by the Governor's office, "Directive 2004-2 prohibits state departments and agencies from spending state or federal funds to provide a financial incentive to induce a business located in the United States to relocate out of the country, if shifting production offshore will reduce jobs for U.S. workers."
ITAA President Harris N. Miller said, "This is a unilateral act that ignores many reasonable voices in Michigan's political and business communities. The executive directives whisk away the welcome mat for foreign investment in Michigan, and will make overseas sales of products and services that much more difficult for Michigan companies and their employees."
Huh????? Keeping jobs in America for taxpayer-funded entities/agencies is bad?!? And that'll also keep foreign investment away? Que? And offshoring IT while putting those displaced people to work at McDonalds is a good thing? Huh?
And how many of those folks will no longer be able to afford the very projects generated by offshoring everything from IT to manufacturing? Of course, when someone like this - who should know better - calls tech support "unskilled labor," I guess we should look with a jaundiced eye at whatever else he says...
Where do IT people drink? Offshore bars. | |
| | jdir
join:2001-05-04
Santa Clara, CA | Re: Do the Math, People!! What we need is a degree in CEO or CFO | |
| | | kcjames1138
join:2003-04-25
Olathe, KS
| Re: Do the Math, People!! We have that, its called a harvard mba. Then any idiot VC will throw money at you. Problem is, if youa re stupid in math and science, you won't be coming up with any good idea in order to warrant VC capital.
What we really need is removal of all tax break incentives on offshoring. We need taxes put in place to require offshoring companies to contribute equivelant dollars into social security, fed taxes, unemployment insurance, and health care. All of which are hidden costs people neglect to mention when discussing the problems of offshoring.
We already have a social security crisis. Our dollars are going to pay for the social security of our elders. By the time we can draw on SS, it will be gone. If companies are going to eliminate jobs that would normally pay into such funds and pay into our federal & state taxes and pay into our unemployment, which more and more people are having to draw on as these companies send jobs over seas, then we need to be sure they are replenishing what they are taking away.
That creates a fair and balanced landscape for competition. Same taxes same fees. Compete on knowledge and wage. Yes we still lose on both, but perhaps the increased costs or rather decreased savings would discourage haphazard offshoring.
Out sourcing is a great thing, when done responsibly. Out source to other U.S. companies. Off shoring is bad and creates far more social problems than anyone wants to admit.
IBM says in their most recent ads that its a new economy, an expert economy where businesses can focus on what they do best and outsource the rest. In theory that is true, but why does IBM not follow their own propaganda? They are in the business of making computers, yet they are the leading proponent of off shoring by selling HR contracts to the various telecom companys like SBC, Verizon, Qwest, and Sprint. | |
| | | | MotoVT
Vonage User Since Jan 2004
join:2002-12-03
Butler, PA
·Vonage
| Re: Do the Math, People!! THis being a good thing depends on who you are.
IF you are joe blow worker, it sucks. IF you are stuffed shirt CEO or rabid shareholder wanting instant ROI, then its good.
Depends on where you are on the food chain.
--
Part time Vonage Phone man. | |
| 
Varlik
Without Honor You Will Never Be Free
Premium
join:2002-01-06
Anderson, SC
| And fast food jobs are manu "Neither the US government data analysts nor ITAA classifies call center jobs as IT jobs. They do not require any technical skills or training, as do software engineering or computer programming jobs. Therefore, it made no sense to classify them as IT jobs for our study."
Yes and the Bush Administration considers McDonald's and other Fast food business to be manufacturing jobs. It's called spin doctoring.
--
"Sir SIR! We don't use DHCP servers. We only use IBM & Microsoft servers." From there my call to tech support went steadily downhill.-- | |
| |
Varangian
join:2002-12-08
Collinsville, IL
| Re: And fast food jobs are manu I've been trapped in the call center nightmare for approaching two years.
I would have cheerfully and immediately resorted to cable pulling when my long haul network support and mainteneance job was eliminated- but ILLEGALS have that work now.
Telling the customer " we don't support that", or "Call your OEM", or "reinstall the disk" or any of the other scripted cra*p does not take training.
Actually trying to help these poor b*stards across a telephone requires an intimate knowledge of computer architecture and operations.
No matter. Im getting out of this high stress, low pay dead end cr*p the very first day it becomes possible to do so without donning a paper hat or taking a pay cut. | |
| | | 
atuarre
Here come the drums
Premium
join:2004-02-14
Lake Charles, LA
clubs: | Re: And fast food jobs are manu That won't happen as long as Bush is in office.... | |
| | | | MotoVT
Vonage User Since Jan 2004
join:2002-12-03
Butler, PA | Re: And fast food jobs are manu Just remember, liars figure and figures lie......you can make numbers tell any kind of story.
Just ask the guys who ran Enron!:o
--
Part time Vonage Phone man. | |
| 
99664227
Heavily MODerated
Premium
join:2002-11-21
USA
| Typical........ That's so funny. I just got a renewal credit card in the mail the other day and had to activate by phone. Low and behold I get some guy from India reading strictly from a script. The guy couldn't speak very good English to save his life. Man this is getting out of hand. | |
| | MotoVT
Vonage User Since Jan 2004
join:2002-12-03
Butler, PA
·Vonage
| Re: Typical........ Call Delta airlines if you want an adventure in lingustics. I had to have Habib repeat himself and finally I just gave up and said, email me what you tried to say to me.
It worked. I got a very nicely written email regarding my problem with an e ticket and the solution.
--
Part time Vonage Phone man. | |
| russotto
join:2000-10-05
Collegeville, PA
| Yes, you CAN polish a turd This article is total BS -- when you follow the links, you find the situation IS just as bleak as everyone thinks:
Software engineers have been particularly hard hit. Researchers at Global Insight Inc., which prepared the report for the ITAA, predicted that demand for U.S. software engineers would shrink through 2008.
Mr. Miller and the ITAA are putting a happy-face spin on it, that's all.
Yeah, the jobs which stay will be in positions involving direct interaction with the customer -- which means face to face, not phone. Which means sales guys who know how to schmooze and glad-hand and all the rest are safe. So, of course, are the managers who will be managing the sales guys and the outsourced engineering teams. People with technical skill but not schmoozing and managing skill with be out in the cold. Situation normal, AFU.
The next step is for the Indians and Chinese to take what they've learned working for foreign (to them) firms, ditch their foreign bosses, and go into business for themselves. Then the managers will be out of work too. Probably not the salesguys, though; somehow they always come out on top. | |
| |
See 6 replies to this post | |
Theo25
@attbi.com | Makes Me Wonder This makes me wonder where the future of the U.S. tech dominance resides, with all the jobs leaving the brighest kids will avoid this field and move into other fields, before you know it our entire military will depend on the chinese. | |
| | MotoVT
Vonage User Since Jan 2004
join:2002-12-03
Butler, PA
·Vonage
| Re: Makes Me Wonder You are probably right......we'll "think up" the designs, hand them off to india for R&D, then over to China for manufacturing.
Wow.......what a good way to keep your military strong and resilient.....by relying on a cadre of third world america haters.
--
Part time Vonage Phone man. | |
| | | 
DSLTech
join:2000-12-30
San Jose, CA | Re: Makes Me Wonder Indians aren't america haters, silly. | |
| | | | MotoVT
Vonage User Since Jan 2004
join:2002-12-03
Butler, PA
·Vonage
| Re: Makes Me Wonder said by DSLTech :
Indians aren't america haters, silly.
I wouldn't be so sure! | |
| 
rklein
God Among Hogs
join:2001-01-18
Worcester, MA | The media are just the tip of the iceberg I hear a lot more about offshoring in the IT industry from people who actually lost their jobs to foreign workers, or who get tasked with training people at "the new office in Bangalore" than I hear from the media.
--
-Rich | |
| | MotoVT
Vonage User Since Jan 2004
join:2002-12-03
Butler, PA
·Vonage
| Re: The media are just the tip of the iceberg All I can say is, Stay tuned. Some estimates put the outsourcing figure at over 3 million jobs in the next 10 or so years.
All I can say is, walmart and taco bell better go on an expansion spree to absorb all these MBA's and PHd's who will be looking for work.
--
Part time Vonage Phone man. | |
| jdir
join:2001-05-04
Santa Clara, CA | Maybe that's why AOL laid off CA development group From CNN news - AOL had laid off 450 software engineer in Ca since December and now opening a software center in Bangalore, India. I guess it is cheaper to move overseas - or maybe AOL wants to carpet mailing India with those AOL subscription CD. | |
| | MotoVT
Vonage User Since Jan 2004
join:2002-12-03
Butler, PA | Re: Maybe that's why AOL laid off CA development group My question....does this mean AOL will drop their service fees since they are saving soooooooooooo much money?
Hardly!
--
Part time Vonage Phone man. | |
|
DSLTech
join:2000-12-30
San Jose, CA
| Its not "IT", its far more than just IT .. This report by ITAA is pretty meaningless.
Since it only focusses on IT jobs, and not all jobs in the technology fields, it really does not provide much information.
IT is only one sector. There are the ISPs and Telecom sectors that should be included in the focus as well. The majority of IT support needs to be local. Network implementation, administration and support will naturally stay in this country, so right off the bat that narrows the amount of possible positions that can be offshored.
What would really be valuable is research on how many CALL-CENTER or phone support positions are being lost. This should be the focus. With today's worldwide networks, its the ability to route a phone call to any part of the world that is killing us.
It does not matter that these are "unskilled" jobs, as they say. I would agree that pretty much anyone can be trained to do most call-center jobs, and that there is good enough talent in India to employ technical support folks that actually speak english (OK so its not perfect).
Lets face it, though, these call-center jobs will NEVER come back (ok there may be some exceptions) to the US. Companies will attempt, at every turn, to outsource their work to other countries or states that cost less to employ. I experienced that when our tech support jobs were moved from California to Oregon. The pay they had to dish out to us Californians was about $5/hour more, so it made perfect sense. Its no different in this case, where jobs are simply being moved to a location slightly farther off.
Anyway, we have brought this upon ourselves, being a capitalistic society we have nobody to blame but our own greed. And trust me, if YOU were the CEO or decision maker for these companies, you would be doing the same thing, and you'd be getting a big pat on the back for saving the company lots of money.
And you would be happy with your big house and nice car. Who cares about anyone else.
Its all about the money right? | |
| | MotoVT
Vonage User Since Jan 2004
join:2002-12-03
Butler, PA | Re: Its not "IT", its far more than just IT .. "Its all about the money right?"
yes, it is unfortunately.....with little regard to the social costs. | |
|
Varangian
join:2002-12-08
Collinsville, IL
|  They are IT jobs
It doesn't matter what kind of job it it every job offshored further weakens the nation and the national economy.
It's one less consumer in the stores.
It's one less taxpayer on the rolls.
And one more person who can't be fooled into voting for more dictatorship. | |
| | kcjames1138
join:2003-04-25
Olathe, KS
| Re: They are IT jobs You are 100% correct. The so-called economic experts seem to be failing basic accounting when it comes to determining if free trade and off shoring actually is helping American and its citizens.
The fact is there is a finite amount of dollars in the world. We already have a $1 trillion trade deficit, this means we are sending $1 trillion dollars over seas more than we are taking in. This means $1 trillion less ciculating in our economy. Now we are taking jobs and sending them over seas, which means we have to track a new deficit, a labor deficit. This is a monetary value not currently being measured, but if we look at the rough numbers that the average programmer makes $50-60,000 out of school, while the average Indian replacement makes $5-6,000 for the same job. You can see a vast amount of money be sent away. In this study they claim roughly 250,000 IT jobs will be created in Indian with off shoring, that alone is an increase of $1.25 billion over current totals. That also ignores lost tax revenue, social security contributions, and health care costs, which would total many millions more.
As more and more money leaves the U.S. for third world countries we only will decrease our poverty levels while not aiding foreign countries economic levels in any meaningful ways.
Liberal free traders claim moving U.S. doallars over seas will raise third world citizens out of poverty. That claim simply is not true. Take India which has a billion people, 4 times that of the U.S. or what about China, same thing. Do you really think we can move enough U.S. dollars to these countries to make them economic equals to us or the EU? No, its impossible, there just isn't enough money to go around. All you succeed in doing is dragging the U.S. middle-class down.
Pro-offshoring folks argue that bringing U.S. employers to foriegn countries opens up new markets for U.S. companies. Again, this is simply not true. Lets look at the companies who are the primary source of offshoring, telecoms like SBC, Verizon, Qwest all of which are companies who conduct business only in the United States. What about other fields, account for instance H&R block. I can't imagine there is a whole lot of Indians that need help filling out their form 1040, especially since they don't pay U.S. taxes.
World trade is a good thing only when its balanced. Right now our trade policies are so out of skew we are killing our selves. We chould really be looking at china as an example of good world trade policy. Lets give local companies tax breaks and subsidies. Open these tax breaks and subsidies to any company across the world who chooses to produce the products they sell to the U.S. in the U.S. Lets encourage more math and science in schools by insuraning our young will have jobs in those sectors in the future, by protecting our job base now. We need policies that encourage homeshoring and discourage offshoring. | |
| | | MotoVT
Vonage User Since Jan 2004
join:2002-12-03
Butler, PA | Re: They are IT jobs Well said! | |
| | |
Varangian
join:2002-12-08
Collinsville, IL
| Consider how insulting the suit study was
It's laughable. rediculous. They claim that offshoring jobs equal more jobs here.
I don't know whether to laugh - or open fire.
A little more of this cr*p and I will know. | |
| | MotoVT
Vonage User Since Jan 2004
join:2002-12-03
Butler, PA
·Vonage
| Re: Consider how insulting the suit study was Oh it = jobs here alright.
Just depends on your perspective of what a decent job really is.
I'll help you out.
Repeat after me:
"Would you like fries with that" (can't say supersize anymore)
Repeat over and over and over.
Collect your six bucks an hour.
Pay homage to outmoded trade practices that the rest of the world seems to ignore.
Say, how wonderful free trade is. Say, look how well I am doing. | |
| ElGuapo1775
join:2004-03-31
Stafford, VA
|  The Height of Economic Ignorance
The case against free-trade is a simple tactic of focusing on the costs of free trade and ingoring the benefits. When business is able to sustain a level of production using fewer resources, the savings are passed along to the consumer, which means more money in the pocket of the average American (if big eevil corporations simply kept the difference, you'd hear no whining about the need for a "level playing field"). Often times this means jobs in certain sectors are displaced; in fact any time cost reducing methods of production are used, including the use of machines or computers in industry, the result will be fewer jobs in that sector. Assuming consumers and business doesn't burn or eat the money they save from lower priced goods, they're inevitably going to spend it somewhere and thus create employment (or invest it, or put in it a bank which will invest it) in some other sector(s) of the economy. Can anyone explain why our economy didn't plunge into depression after NAFTA, or why our economy continues to expand despite job displacement and a growing trade deficit? Yeah, the big fall is right around the corner...
All this is why capitalist nations, which are free-trade by nature, enjoy an imminsely higher standard of living than those nations that promote domestic production with economically crippling trade restrictions (in economic-speak, policies of "import substitution"). Considering the intense regulatory and litigious business climate, can anyone blame American companies for relocating abroad? No EPA or OSHA breathing down IT companies' necks, no frivilous "discrimination" lawsuits, no obscene corporate taxes or costly employee healthcare benefit requirements to be subjected to. I'm sure you can think of some others on your own. You may think all these things are nice and necessary, but the government forgot that making American workers more costly makes foriegn workers more attractive. Whoops.
--
For every action, there is an equal and opposite government program. | |
| |
See 6 replies to this post | |
rshoch
Premium
join:2003-09-01
Santa Ana, CA | ? I would have asked Harris Milller "Whose money funded this report?" | |
| |
See 9 replies to this post | |
| | |
|
|
ITAA: Offshoring Overblown
