[Hari Seldon]

Tarrifs on companies that outsource to anywhere but NAFTA countries. If our politicians had a spine this is the obvious solution. If you want to be protected by US foreign and military power, then you better have your fucking employees at least in NAFTA countries.

Also, this outsourcing does kill the economy. It makes a few people richer, but hurting everyone else. It is in the national interest for the politicians to curb this race to the bottom.

[demon]

As long as US companies are subsidized by the US government (in other words, american tax payers) people will have the right to bitch about said companies offshoring their jobs.

[HarryHengst]

Tarrifs on companies that outsource to anywhere but NAFTA countries. If our politicians had a spine this is the obvious solution. If you want to be protected by US foreign and military power, then you better have your fucking employees at least in NAFTA countries. Also, this outsourcing does kill the economy. It makes a few people richer, but hurting everyone else. It is in the national interest for the politicians to curb this race to the bottom.

But its not in the politicians personal interest, because corporations pay good money to bribe them, i mean lobby for their interest, and expect results for their money.

[Riggs]

But its not in the politicians personal interest, because corporations pay good money to bribe them, i mean lobby for their interest, and expect results for their money.

Exactly the problem w/ our entire country : (

[Ponn01]

They're not paid less than minimum wage.

Bullshit, don't be disingenuous. You know I mean by American standards since these are american companies. ATT outsources at $6 or below an hour and we aren't even talking about foxconn. Some of the higher grades may be getting above American minimum wage but they are not getting what their American counterparts make. If they were, what would be the point of outsourcing. Cheap labor, thats what outsourcing is, plain and simple. And the problem with the government stepping in and trying to do any type of tariffs or punishments against these companies is they and the conservatives will parade out the blackmail ultimatums. Heck, we got the ultimatums at my work point blank "Stop complaining, your jobs will be shipped overseas. Take it, like it and be glad you have a job" Our union was neutered over this thinking.

And unfortunately it will continue till these countries being outsourced to grow some balls and demand humane working conditions and pay to bring them up to U.S. levels. Until then its like what was said before, the race to the bottom. Which unfortunately is what Americans are being bullied into embracing and brainwashed into believing by voting against their own interests to abolish Unions.

[ced]

It still amazes me how these stock/shareholders and top of the chain at corporations can be such scum and have zero ethics and morals.

You can still have your elite life and millions / billions of dollars and keep your work in the country that gives you that money.

This is one of the reasons I left Apple corporate a couple years ago, as a company they take too much and give so little back to the people who have put them where they are. My corporate job (not to be confused or compared to Apple retail) paid very well, but I just couldn't keep supporting that crap.

[RustyNails]

I laugh at folks going bububu Uruguay and Indian jobs! Who gives a flying shit? If Uruguay and India want their workers to be employed, create an industry in your own country. Don't rely on US, Canada and UK to employ your workers. Your governments are far too corrupt and lazy to care about workforce.

[HarryHengst]

It still amazes me how these stock/shareholders and top of the chain at corporations can be such scum and have zero ethics and morals. You can still have your elite life and millions / billions of dollars and keep your work in the country that gives you that money.

But without morals they can have more dollars, and you got to have more than your other rich as shit friends, else you are a loser. Who cares that your bonus is enough to feed, cloth and house 10 families for a year!

Im starting t believe that literally every CEO at a large corporation is a sociopath. It seems the only way to get to the top of multinationals and stay there.

[LevelNth]

Outsourcing as a result of globalization is and will be proven to be the achilles heel of capitalism, and is the chief reason today it is beginning to show serious signs of failure in its most lauded about country, the United States.

The inherent problem is that capitalism is built on the idea of individual accruement, be it person or corporation, in all manner of things (most notably of course, wealth). Thus, globalized outsourcing was first seen as not only logical, but also genius. Why not take advantage of superior cost benefit structures? Capitalism demands it in fact.

The problem is, with a system designed around individual accruement, the bigger picture begins to get fuzzy and muddled up, and eventually lost in the thing that capitalism does it damnedest to ignore more than anything else: the future.

When you take all of these companies' outsourcing and combine it, you see two things: a massive reduction of income generated for the lower and middle classes in a country (due to lack of jobs) and an increase in income inequality, with rich upper management getting richer, and lower positions getting fired due to outsourcing.

Why will (and has) this become a system crushing failure? Because it is the purchasing power of these countries that make these companies who they are, and its reduction affects everyone. IBM outsources jobs? Less purchasing power for Americans to buy Apple products. Exxon outsources? Less spent by American's at McDonalds. Etc.

Why do you think the massive financial collapse of purchasing power in the United States has so greatly affected the entire world? Because globalization has made this a domino world, and America, like it or not, is the biggest piece on the board.

[Hari Seldon]

But its not in the politicians personal interest, because corporations pay good money to bribe them, i mean lobby for their interest, and expect results for their money.

Yeah I know :(

[Crazylegs]

I've been loathe to post in this thread, but what the hell.

I'm an IT guy - almost 30 years now. For the past several years I've been the lucky bastard that designs the technology solutions that supports my company's offshore endeavors. I've offshored hundreds of call center seats, hundreds of backoffice seats, and a handful of development shops - all in India and all doing work cheaper than our staff in North America.

Case in point, a call center agent onshore costs us something like $50/hour all-in (wages, benefits, etc.). That same position in India costs us about $16/hour all-in. It's hard to argue the economics.

However, after several years in this world, we've learned a few things:

- Say what you will, but offshoring anything customer-facing has been a mistake for us. Despite the very best training of our offshore staff, our customers were quick to recognize when they were dealing with India and they did not like it. Furthermore, we found productivity in our offshore call centers is much lower than in N.A.

- Sending backoffice (admin) jobs offshore was more successful. You can get people in India with accounting backgrounds who will happily do clerical financial work much cheaper than onshore. They do a good job for us at lower cost.

- Doing offshore development has a ton of hidden costs and problems. Management believes outsourcing means lower cost and the ability to add/remove development capacity with minimal lead-time. It's bogus in my experience. You have to have people onshore writing VERY VERY clear specs and they need to bench-check code (and sometimes correct it) when it comes back onshore. As well, the logistics of supporting anything beyond unit-testing are too complex. Given that coding only represents about 20-30% of the typical development cycle, I don't see the big savings.

While providing the technical direction to support offshore solutions has been a fascinating professional exercise, it leaves me cold as an employee and shareholder of my company. My basic perspective is that no ethical company should be outsourcing jobs to a place it does not already have customers. Example: don't send you jobs to India if you have no Indian customers. Maybe that sounds dumb...

[Riggs]

I've been loathe to post in this thread, but what the hell. I'm an IT guy - almost 30 years now. For the past several years I've been the lucky bastard that designs the technology solutions that supports my company's offshore endeavors. I've offshored hundreds of call center seats, hundreds of backoffice seats, and a handful of development shops - all in India and all doing work cheaper than our staff in North America. Case in point, a call center agent onshore costs us something like $50/hour all-in (wages, benefits, etc.). That same position in India costs us about $16/hour all-in. It's hard to argue the economics. However, after several years in this world, we've learned a few things: - Say what you will, but offshoring anything customer-facing has been a mistake for us. Despite the very best training of our offshore staff, our customers were quick to recognize when they were dealing with India and they did not like it. Furthermore, we found productivity in our offshore call centers is much lower than in N.A. - Sending backoffice (admin) jobs offshore was more successful. You can get people in India with accounting backgrounds who will happily do clerical financial work much cheaper than onshore. They do a good job for us at lower cost. - Doing offshore development has a ton of hidden costs and problems. Management believes outsourcing means lower cost and the ability to add/remove development capacity with minimal lead-time. It's bogus in my experience. You have to have people onshore writing VERY VERY clear specs and they need to bench-check code (and sometimes correct it) when it comes back onshore. As well, the logistics of supporting anything beyond unit-testing are too complex. Given that coding only represents about 20-30% of the typical development cycle, I don't see the big savings. While providing the technical direction to support offshore solutions has been a fascinating professional exercise, it leaves me cold as an employee and shareholder of my company. My basic perspective is that no ethical company should be outsourcing jobs to a place it does not already have customers. Example: don't send you jobs to India if you have no Indian customers. Maybe that sounds dumb...

Nope, sounds about right to me man. Good read also thanks.

[spwolf]

Tarrifs on companies that outsource to anywhere but NAFTA countries. If our politicians had a spine this is the obvious solution. If you want to be protected by US foreign and military power, then you better have your fucking employees at least in NAFTA countries. Also, this outsourcing does kill the economy. It makes a few people richer, but hurting everyone else. It is in the national interest for the politicians to curb this race to the bottom.

I always laugh when I see Americans complaining about foreign workers.

Here is the deal - USA is 3rd biggest exporter in the world. Most profitable global corporations come from USA.

USA has thrived on global free trade.

My and 200 other countries would actually be much better of if we taxed the shit out of American products (and all other imported goods), forcing them to produce locally if they want to sell their wares to us.

So please cry me a river about globalization and how bad it is. 30% of Global 500 list come from USA. Boo hoo.

[otake]

This is why I left IT. Once Bank of America started outsourcing it's unix sys admins it was over. Specialize or leave the industry.

[Riggs]

I always laugh when I see Americans complaining about foreign workers. Here is the deal - USA is 3rd biggest exporter in the world. Most profitable global corporations come from USA. USA has thrived on global free trade. My and 200 other countries would actually be much better of if we taxed the shit out of American products (and all other imported goods), forcing them to produce locally if they want to sell their wares to us. So please cry me a river about globalization and how bad it is. 30% of Global 500 list come from USA. Boo hoo.

So mature. When you or family and friends get outsourced please don't complain. I am sure you won't since you have such a mature and open minded view on the world.

[BladeoftheImmortal]

No, the only thing machines aren't better at is creative stuff. Not adaptable? The language barrier is nearly gone, you have functional virtual assistants and software winning game shows now. The cloud gives you access to supercomputers on your cellphone. And don't forget: with software, once you build it, you can replicate it for free.

i could just turn the machine off...unless it's skynet.

[Lyte Edge]

No don't tell them that. But when they lose their job due to them being outsourced, prepare to hear the same shit that I said. Read back a page, some guy got a job via outsourcing. Then they outsourced him and his crew. Also try watching Outsourced. Awesome movie w/ super cute chick to boot. And the ending .... so relevant to this topic.

I had no idea that Outsourced was originally a movie! I enjoyed the TV series. Too bad it only ran for one season...

[Riggs]

Yep I believe so very enjoyable movie :)

[ronito]

I think we're missing another big issue here.
We all talk about "globalization is just reality now. It happened to manufacturing now it's happening in other places"
And I get that but here's the thing, these aren't necessarily manufacturing jobs. They're jobs that practically require a 4 year degree plus. We're talking engineering, programming, computer science, finance, HR, quality assurance etc.

So here's the thing, we're currently in a place where we've essentially got a very tiny manufacturing sector. The way we dealt with that was to up the education level and go for jobs that needed higher education. Now those jobs are going away too. If we keep on sending those jobs away, exactly how are we supposed to keep a sustainable market?

I know the argument is made "now you're spreading the GDP around the world!" But again, it's just a race to the bottom. I've seen it in companies I work for like I've mentioned, "Hey things in India are cheap! We'll set up an office there!" 3-4 years later, "Hey things in China are cheaper than India. We're closing our office in India." Now, "Hey things in philines are cheaper than china. Let's close our offices there and open a new one in the philipines."

Personally, I don't see how having a large, educated, experienced and unemployed section of your workforce does any good for the country's economy.

[Drek]

they are employing US citizens...in other areas. If you can do something for cheaper, why should you not? It makes you more competitive, gives the company more money, and in turn creates more growth down the road. Seriously...outsourcing is not the "evil" here. Btw, those Indians that are being hired in India? Guess what they're buying with their money? American products.

1. They are employing only a small fraction of their workforce within the U.S. while reaping the full benefits given by the U.S. government, marketplace, etc.. Its an almost entirely parasitic relationship.

2. I don't feel like my tax dollars should be used to help a multinational company be "more competitive". If they want all the benefits being handed to them they need to earn it by putting U.S. workers first.

3. Outsourcing isn't evil, I agree. Outsourcing while lobbying the U.S. gov'.t to heap favors upon you is wrong however. It is the corporate equivalence of collecting welfare and food stamps while working a $20/hr. under the table full time job.

4. They aren't buying products made in America. They're buying products made in China, Mexico, India, etc. that are the property of U.S. based corporations. Again, if I'm supposed to care about these corporations selling their products abroad they need to return the favor with some good ol' U.S. first employment practices.

Any corporation has the right to outsource their workforce. But the U.S. gov't. needs to take away the privilege those companies live off of if that is their intent.

If Apple thinks they're so much better off outsourcing almost all manufacturing jobs to China then lets see how they'll feel when they're forced to pay full freight on their income taxes instead of the greatly subsidized rate they currently pay (consistently less than 10%). Lets also stop giving them handouts from an incredibly loose patent law system for U.S. based companies that has allowed for their litigious war against Samsung.

Then lets see how they feel when they're paying 25-35% income tax on all those extra profits garnered by employing sub-living wage labor in China, or how it feels to have patents actually turned down for being spurious bullshit.

Do that and about the time the iPhone 6 and iPad 5 are ready to come out they'll be assembled in Flint, Michigan.

[JzeroT1437]

I work as a production editor at a 600 year old University press. The company is swiftly transitioning from Hybrid project management--that is, management where most of the hiring and typesetting is outsourced to an overseas supplier, while a single "Project Manager" juggles 30 or so titles being outsourced at a time in the US office, correcting mistakes where they arise on the supplier end--to Total Project Management--IE, where titles are entirely handled by outsource groups in India. ENGLISH BOOKS QAed by people whose native tongue isn't English.

Because of this, I'm now being forced to learn XML and double up my workload, acting as a Data Controller/XML QA, with no payraise and no legitimate assistance within the company.

This is a small part as to why I'm going back to school to become a DVM. It'll be a long time before people in this country start mailing their dogs to India for medical treatment.

[Jason's Ultimatum]

Apply for govt agencies. There a lot of IT jobs spread throughout the govt, though you may go through a poly or long background check to obtain a security clearance.

[Agent Icebeezy]

From 1999 to the end of 2006, I worked for Ford Motor Company. I left with an educational buyout. I went back to school in 2004. I saw the writing on the wall for manufacturing then. I now have my BBA in Marketing and MBA in Healthcare Management. I had to look at the way of the world and adjust.

[The Abominable Snowman]

I've been loathe to post in this thread, but what the hell. I'm an IT guy - almost 30 years now. For the past several years I've been the lucky bastard that designs the technology solutions that supports my company's offshore endeavors. I've offshored hundreds of call center seats, hundreds of backoffice seats, and a handful of development shops - all in India and all doing work cheaper than our staff in North America. Case in point, a call center agent onshore costs us something like $50/hour all-in (wages, benefits, etc.). That same position in India costs us about $16/hour all-in. It's hard to argue the economics. However, after several years in this world, we've learned a few things: - Say what you will, but offshoring anything customer-facing has been a mistake for us. Despite the very best training of our offshore staff, our customers were quick to recognize when they were dealing with India and they did not like it. Furthermore, we found productivity in our offshore call centers is much lower than in N.A. - Sending backoffice (admin) jobs offshore was more successful. You can get people in India with accounting backgrounds who will happily do clerical financial work much cheaper than onshore. They do a good job for us at lower cost. - Doing offshore development has a ton of hidden costs and problems. Management believes outsourcing means lower cost and the ability to add/remove development capacity with minimal lead-time. It's bogus in my experience. You have to have people onshore writing VERY VERY clear specs and they need to bench-check code (and sometimes correct it) when it comes back onshore. As well, the logistics of supporting anything beyond unit-testing are too complex. Given that coding only represents about 20-30% of the typical development cycle, I don't see the big savings. While providing the technical direction to support offshore solutions has been a fascinating professional exercise, it leaves me cold as an employee and shareholder of my company. My basic perspective is that no ethical company should be outsourcing jobs to a place it does not already have customers. Example: don't send you jobs to India if you have no Indian customers. Maybe that sounds dumb...

Thanks for the post. It was as frightening as it was enlightening.

In my companys case, they're getting rid of the customer service divisions in the East Coast. We offer service to hospitals in the US, Canada, and 4 or 5 European countries (Spain, Portugal, U.K, Italy, France), we offer service to employers in the US and Canada, and to members in the 50 US states and US territories. However, our customers will all be serviced by a vendor located in Uruguay and they're shifting upper level support (I.E. when things are effed up in the backend) to Amsterdam, India, Bangalore (?) and another country I can't remember offhand.

Because the decision came from those who 'judge' and not those who 'do', the managers of the people we're giving our jobs to are being flown here for a month long training process, where we're expected to treat them nicely and teach them lots of stuff in limited time. We are to ignore the fact that our training lasted many (in my case, 3+) months and we still did not get it 100%, ignore the language barrier, ignore the fact that most of their backgrounds don't come from tech support, and etc. Once their month of training is done, they will be shipped back to their areas and themselves train a small team, they have about a month to get rolling and start taking calls. After a month of getting their crew members "Acquainted" our jobs will end. Also ignoring the fact that the offshore teams will likely transfer a great number of calls back to us as they will encounter problems due to our shoddy tools and their haphazard training.

[Drek]

From 1999 to the end of 2006, I worked for Ford Motor Company. I left with an educational buyout. I went back to school in 2004. I saw the writing on the wall for manufacturing then. I now have my BBA in Marketing and MBA in Healthcare Management. I had to look at the way of the world and adjust.

There is very high demand for manufacturing in this country, the only problem is what companies are willing to pay for it ($15-$25/hr.) doesn't attract the kind of employee they need.

A factory worker of yesteryear needed to know a very narrow set of skills, primarily of the mechanical aptitude variety. The contemporary factory worker needs to have good hands on mechanical aptitude just like his predecessor, though frequently with a broader base and a bit less specialization. On top of that he needs a sound understanding of skills found higher on the educational ladder like basic trig. and algebra, basic IT, coding, and automated systems interfaces, at least passable office software capabilities, etc..

Instead of doing your part in the assembly process you now need to know how to run the machine that does what your job used to be, how to know when it's not doing things exactly to spec, and how to fix it when it's out of spec.

Its a very interesting path for the "new labor" field to be going down, but it requires a jack of all trades type, most of whom are good enough at any one thing to turn it into at least an associates degree if not even a bachelors. If those companies would step up and pay what they used to for floor supervisors (as that is what these people effectively are, just instead of supervising other people they supervise machines) they would see a much easier time filling employment deficits in U.S. based manufacturing.

My father just recently changed jobs for the third time in the middle of the economic down turn. It's never taken him more than a few weeks to find another job. Its because other than being a touch weak on the office software end of the spectrum he's an incredibly versatile trades worker who can do everything from run a boiler (has his boiler engineer's license) to run an end loader. He barely got out of high school because he couldn't handle the more liberal arts end of education even in high school, but his math and science acumen was top shelf and he was a standout in both wood and metal shop. Worked out great for him.

Meanwhile I have a younger brother and a cousin the same age as myself who have these exact same skills yet struggle to keep employed. My younger brother because he was always told he needed to go to college and had just enough brains to make it in but not enough to go into a real career field. My cousin because he, much like my father, could barely get through high school level liberal arts courses but had far less vocational programs to draw on and develop skills from for future employment.

There is a path to having a blue collar job that pays well, but you've got to be just as talented as your college grad peers, just with a different set of tools. Our educational system fails to teach that and to that.

[Drek]

I always laugh when I see Americans complaining about foreign workers. Here is the deal - USA is 3rd biggest exporter in the world. Most profitable global corporations come from USA.

1. I don't care about how profitable those corporations are. They don't view themselves as American unless it is convenient to do so, so why should I care about where their owner happens to reside?

USA has thrived on global free trade.

As has many of the nations that jobs are being outsourced to. Remove global free trade and the U.S. would still be an economic powerhouse. Mexico, China, India, etc. would revert back to damn near 3rd world status however.

My and 200 other countries would actually be much better of if we taxed the shit out of American products (and all other imported goods), forcing them to produce locally if they want to sell their wares to us.

As would the U.S.. Far better off in fact, as a huge portion of global disposable income is still held by U.S. consumers.

So please cry me a river about globalization and how bad it is. 30% of Global 500 list come from USA. Boo hoo.

Again, I don't care about the success of corporations themselves. The nation of origin isn't relevant. This is something the emerging markets will soon learn.

Consider the major oil companies. Exxon-Mobile happens to be a U.S. based company. A good part of their business is actually still directly tied to U.S. land leases from the federal gov't. despite that they have ZERO national pride or loyalty unless it's in a lobbying approach that benefits them. Recent journalism has even pointed out that within Exxon-Mobile they view themselves as a sovereign entity working within the borders of other nations, and that includes the U.S.. So if that is how Exxon-Mobile views itself why do American taxpayers funnel a huge amount of money into subsidizing their already incredibly profitable bottom line?

[daCuk]

As a worker for an Outsourcing company, I admire the chances to reinvent yourself you have in the USA.
Countries where outsourcing jobs go are still quite limited in the variety of tasks and roles you can perform for a external company.
I hope that all US GAFers that have lost or are in risk of losing their jobs have the chance to get the opportunity to reinvent themselves, as I think USA is the country where you have the better possibilities of doing it.
This environment of innovation is something you can not outsource to another country.

[demon]

As a worker for an Outsourcing company, I admire the chances to reinvent yourself you have in the USA. Countries where outsourcing jobs go are still quite limited in the variety of tasks and roles you can perform for a external company. I hope that all US GAFers that have lost or are in risk of losing their jobs have the chance to get the opportunity to reinvent themselves, as I think USA is the country where you have the better possibilities of doing it. This environment of innovation is something you can not outsource to another country.

what a sunshine and rainbows way to look at it.

[daCuk]

what a sunshine and rainbows way to look at it.

Maybe, but where I live is not easy to look for other careers, or jobs as we are a too little country, and our R&D industry is still on its baby steps.

[ronito]

Maybe, but where I live is not easy to look for other careers, or jobs as we are a too little country, and our R&D industry is still on its baby steps.

It'll suck when those careers move to the next country then.

[GungHo]

Time to move to India.

They don't need expats except for a couple of people to watch the store. Really... in India and China, they're just as educated as you are.

Don't worry, as soon as they lower taxes on your employers that will encourage them to start hiring inside the country again. I still have never heard a good explanation for the mechanism by which this is supposed to happen

The only thing that will bring the positions back is the cost of living being high enough, the job market to be competitive enough, and/or the hiring laws being restrictive enough for the outsourcing to not be worth the trouble. We've run into this in a few countries and we've either shuffled to other countries or pulled some things back, particularly jobs where having a lot of organizational knowledge is required and it's too expensive/time consuming to constantly re-train people. Knowledge management is really something the brass didn't start putting dollars on until they saw they weren't keeping flat to down and when they dug into it, they were in sticker shock. When you were originally using one guy to do something and now it takes three guys overseas twice the amount time, it doesn't matter any more that you got the overseas guys at 1/4 the cost. You're further in the hole and you have no way of getting out without spending even more money.

We've also hit some serious problems with customer-facing functions... despite the clients making billions of dollars, they're still pretty redneck when their directives aren't translated properly or they can't understand people on the phone. They have no patience for "they're new" or "English isn't their first language". They, rigthly, will go right to our management (or now me) and say "not my problem, you un-fuck this, you're costing us money, and if you don't fix this in a week, we're going to HQ and we're going to demand your ass."

[Erasus]

This worries me as I want to study IT.

Already have a Sociology degree.

Fuck

[Byakuya769]

OP's lying! I keep hearing that we don't have enough qualified people to do these sorts of jobs. No way they would continually lie about that and just make it all about labor costs!

[BigWeather]

Honestly, to the global economy, an American job is likely more important than an Indian one, or Chinese one, or Uruguayan one. Not that the person is better, or more important, or more productive, but because culturally Americans are the least likely to save, most likely to spend on goods, and have a risk and debt tolerance that very few, if any, other cultures can match. Americans are an absolutely vital part of the global economy through their extreme consumption (funded largely through their paychecks). An American is, on average, more likely to take a dollar earned and shove it back into the economy as soon as possible. It all works great... until it doesn't and all that debt collapses. Eeep.

[gatti-man]

OP's lying! I keep hearing that we don't have enough qualified people to do these sorts of jobs. No way they would continually lie about that and just make it all about labor costs!

Not enough it people? Lmao. There may not be enough of a certain special type but in general no.

[Juice]

Is there such areas in IT?

Yeah, real application development. Most of my US clients are hiring me after deciding to undo previous off-shoring attempts.

Off-shoring only works well when you have predictable, consistent units of work that don't require a lot of communication or discovery along the way. That means any software endeavor that gets off-shored is either so boring as to be self-evident or is doomed to failure under the tremendous cost of communication. The feedback loop is just too slow.

As a result, I can't think of the last time a client of mine (in web or mobile or enterprise software development) considered off-shoring it.

Tech support is utterly predictable, easy to optimize on a Kanban wall with relatively little ongoing elaboration/learning. So tech support will continue to be outsourced offshore when cost matters more to a company than customer delight--and often it does (for rational reasons).

Edit: and to the above posters, absolutely it's tremendously hard to find decent developers these days. If you're a developer and want to chat, PM me.

[FieryBalrog]

I laugh at folks going bububu Uruguay and Indian jobs! Who gives a flying shit? If Uruguay and India want their workers to be employed, create an industry in your own country.

They did. Outsourcing is, believe it or not, an industry, and not the only one in these countries.

Don't rely on US, Canada and UK to employ your workers.

They're not, companies are. It's called "free trade", you may have heard of it. Americans might just have benefited from it massively over the past century, why all the crying now? PS Americans are still benefiting from it, guess foreign countries should tariff the fuck outta US products, right?

Your governments are far too corrupt and lazy to care about workforce.

lol OK

[RibbedHero]

Just want to point out one thing, outsourcing is different from offshoring.

Outsourcing can be, and is most often found, within the same country. It is contracting tasks to an outside company. My employer outsources the security of the building, the cleaning, the catering, etc. Outsourcing is very important, it relies on specialisation and division of labour.

Offshoring is relocating tasks to another country.

You can also have offshore outsourcing.

Just wanted to clear that up as it was irking me that everyone was using the wrong terms.

[empty vessel]

They're not, companies are. It's called "free trade", you may have heard of it. Americans might just have benefited from it massively over the past century, why all the crying now? PS Americans are still benefiting from it, guess foreign countries should tariff the fuck outta US products, right?

You understand the US historically employed tariffs to protect its industries, right?

[Raonak]

Makes me glad theres a big IT shortage in NZ.

[ascii42]

One of the times I'm glad I work for the Department of Defense. No chance of them offshoring stuff.

[Johnlenham]

I know. But Hindi is the biggest non English language, but only half the population speaks Hindi. My point is that if there was an official language, it would be English. And that gives them a big heads up over other potential off shoring countries, like China.

Dont know if anyone has said this yet but most Indians speak their states language, then Hindi THEN English.

[Shadowhaxor]

@OP sorry to hear about your situation. Being in IT this is always a thought in my mind, luckily I've been employed in the IT field for about 16 years now in both the government and private sectors. Currently I'm involved with a company that is a service provider, actively dealing with technologies such as the "Cloud" and security. Thankfully the company mantra is "USA" and that we don't have to worry about the "Outsourcing monster" to come our way.

Though this topic has come in a lot in the past few months on several boards / websites that i frequent regarding the world of IT and while it seems somewhat bleak, as it was mentioned companies are starting to see that outsourcing it's always the best and it can cause huge issues in regards to quality of work, customer relationships and security.

Edit - this is one of the articles I was referring to: http://www.techrepublic.com/blog/10t...urcing-it/3016

Hang in there and brush off your IT skills, maybe get a cert or two (Check out the new cloud certification from Comptia), get involved with Linkedin.com, update that resume and if you don't already check out some of the more IT friendly job boards;

www.simplyhired.com
www.dice.com
www.computerwork.com
www.indeed.com

Lastly! If you can get a job in the government, do it... even if it takes a while to get your clearance, it's definitely worth it!