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The Human Side Of Offshoring
from the impacts-people-on-both-sides... dept
A great set of articles from the latest issue of Wired takes a look at the outsourcing issue by taking a closer look at some of the people it impacts on both sides of the debate. It's absolutely true that the offshoring process is a terrible thing to go through for those who lose their jobs. There's simply nothing you can say to make the situation better for them while they go through that process. However, if their companies can't compete, then they're going to end up losing their jobs anyway. As one of the additional articles points out, the anger against outsourcing is no different than the Luddite anger against computers taking away jobs. However, as always, whether outsourcing to cheaper labor or automation, the end result has been a net positive - opening up plenty of new job opportunities. In fact, the article profiles one "angry programmer" who is pushing for protectionist policies. However, even he found a new job relatively quickly that appears to have more challenges, more responsibility and will be a lot harder to offshore.
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"As one of the additional articles points out, the anger against outsourcing is no different than the Luddite anger against computers taking away jobs"
The anger many people face is that there is no where to go. When manufacturing moved offshore people were able to retrain themselves with technology. Now technology is moving offshore. I guess I can forget about a degree in higher education and get a plumbers license.
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... why, why, why
If my boss (or his boss) told me to train my Indian replacement (or anyone else for that matter), I'd tell my boss he'd better spend some time searching for all the easter-egg bombs I've placed throughout the network which will go off if I don't reset them.
Then I'd key his car on my way out the door.
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For the Meta Group's view of the "Top 10 Risks of Outsourceing" see:
http://www.metagroup.com/us/displayArticle.do?oid=44398
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The anger many people face is that there is no where to go. When manufacturing moved offshore people were able to retrain themselves with technology. Now technology is moving offshore. I guess I can forget about a degree in higher education and get a plumbers license.
Nope, just become a lawyer. Lots of demand for that right now.
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Actually, some of the anger about outsourcing is that a lot of people perceive it as not increasing competitiveness.
In many companies, moving their software development from Silicon Valley to Bangalore will just let them fail cheaper. If these companies really wanted to succeed, they'd fix their managerial incompetence and hire smaller teams of higher-level developers. It costs more but it also gives a far greater return on investment.
Also, there's an impression that executives aren't actually returning value to shareholders or reducing prices to their customers by sending projects offshore, and are instead just lining their own pockets. That's a huge source of resentment, particularly when you're talking about giant companies where the executives are making millions of dollars a year.
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