Two Reviews of Yourdon's 'Outsource?' 511
| Outsouce? : Competing in the Global Productivity Race | |
| author | Edward Yourdon |
| pages | 227 |
| publisher | Prentice Hall |
| rating | 10 |
| reviewer | Ben Rothke, Jason Bennett |
| ISBN | 0131475711 |
| summary | Excellent discussion about outsourcing and what you can do to save your job |
Ben Rothke (continued)
For those Americans who would hope their representatives in Washington would get involved and pass laws to stem the flow of jobs overseas, there is little that Washington will likely do to help knowledge-based workers whose jobs are in danger of being offshored. While the loss of jobs is a crisis to many of us, Yourdon makes note of the oil crisis of the early 1970s and a speech that Jimmy Carter made in April 1977. Carter said "If we fail to act soon we will face an economic, social and political crisis that will threaten our free institutions." Nearly 30 years after Carter made that speech, oil is at an all-time high and nothing has been significantly done to reduce our dependency on oil; or to find a better solution.
If Congress is apathetic when it comes to an effective energy policy that affects an entire nation, it is clear that preserving the jobs of C and Java programmers is likely to be at the bottom of any congressman's to-do list. In 2005, national security, Medicare and Iraq are just a few of the issues that seem to be far more pressing to the nation than the loss of programmers.
The book is written about outsourcing in general, but has a heavy slant to programmers whose jobs have been outsourced to India. The prime advantage India has over other countries with cheap labor is a large base of workers that speak English. While the salaries in China, for example, are even lower than in India, the language barrier is significant.
The main claims of proponents of outsourcing are of increased productivity and major cost savings. Whether these claims are real is to a degree immaterial, as the perception among CIOs is that outsourcing has an immediate cost savings. This is primarily due to the fact that the salaries and benefit costs of overseas programmers are radically less than those of their U.S. counterparts.
From a productivity and efficiency perspective, many Indian firms are CMM level-5 certified, something that their U.S. counterparts can't attest to. At the end of the day, is better and cheaper code produced in Bangalore and Mumbai? Yourdon states that it is hard to find hard and fast answers. But with outsourcing the rage, there is the perception that Indian firms are more productive, formalized and efficient than their US counterparts is being accepted as fact. For many, perception is reality, and the reality is that jobs are being sent overseas by the thousands.
Outsource:Competing in the Global Productivity Race is written for (and beneficial to) anyone who feels that his job may be in danger of being outsourced. The book is well-written and pragmatic, and Yourdon notes that there are no simple answers to be found, nor are there any obvious choices. The book guides the reader who is working in a knowledge-based position to better determine where the trends in outsourcing are going and how to best save their job and simultaneously prepare for the inevitable. It is not that every knowledge-based job will be outsourced, but rather that the potential exists that every job could be outsourced. With that, it behooves everyone to get make sure they are prepared.
In 1992, Yourdon wrote Decline and Fall of the American Programmer. In the book, he predicted that U.S. programmers would "suffer the fate of the Dodo bird" as companies shifted jobs from American workers to those overseas to take advantage of lower pay, less labor regulations and higher productivity. Yourdon admits his prediction was partially incorrect. U.S. programmers have not gone the way of the Dodo bird and hiring is resuming; but in spite of everything, huge numbers of jobs are being sent overseas.
While Decline and Fall of the American Programmer was focused exclusively on technology workers, Yourdon writes that every knowledge-based job is vulnerable to being outsourced. From radiologists to tax preparers, telemarketers to architects, and more.
Perhaps the biggest benefit of Outsource is the composed manner in which Yourdon writes. Outsourcing is a controversial, political and extremely emotional topic, and Yourdon provides a balanced view of the outsourcing phenomena.
One of the solutions suggested to stemming the flow of jobs overseas is protectionist federal regulations. Yourdon believes that such measures are doomed to fail, in that you can't protect knowledge-based worked in the same way that steel and agriculture products can be protected. Yourdon admits that there might be some short-term benefits to a protectionist strategy, but will fail in the long-term. His view is that protectionism is simply blaming someone else for the existence of competition; and such an approach does not solve the problem. His solution, and the overall advice in the book, is to make each and every American knowledge worker more prepared to face competition from overseas.
Of the books 10 chapters, the most compelling is chapter 6, which provides seven strategies in which to deal with the threat of outsourcing. The first is to be proactive, with the last being to consider a career change. Yourdon does not promise and secrets or miracles in the chapter and attempts to provide some common, yet often overlooked, sense.
Outsource ends with the following quote: "I was taught very early that I would have to depend entirely upon myself; that my future lay in my own hands." This book shows you how.
Jason Bennett's take:
Information technology outsourcing has been a hot topic of discussion for many years now, but Ed Yourdon has, with varying degrees of success, been writing on the topic since 1992's Decline and Fall of the American Programmer. His initial prophecies were somewhat early and off the mark, however, prompting his 1996 sequel The Rise and Resurrection of the American Programmer. Now, eight years after his mea culpa, Yourdon has returned to the issue with what can best be described as The Decline and Fall of the American Worker.
Am I overstating his thesis a bit? Probably, but such exaggeration seems to be a Yourdon stock-in-trade (see his Byte Wars or especially his Time Bomb 2000! for some over-the-top predictions of doom). Overall, his thesis is fairly standard: the Third World (namely, Eastern Europe, India and China) has a lot of very educated people who, thanks to the Internet, can now do your job for your company from their country, and for a lot less money. This makes you expendable and them employable. Since there are a lot of them, unless you're really good, there's a decent chance your job is at risk. Yourdon expands his reach beyond the typical programmer or sysadmin to encompass all types of knowledge work, from reading (and diagnosing) x-rays to accountants and tax preparers. Eventually, he concludes, 10%-15% of current Western knowledge worker jobs may be lost to outsourcing, depending on various factors, including salary and productivity.
Yourdon's main solution to the problem can be summed up as "more productivity," by which he means business process changes as well as better measurability (CMM is mentioned several times in conjunction with Indian outsourcing firms). His point being, if you earn five times more than an Indian programmer, but are ten times more productive (and can prove it), then your job is safe. If your productivity is not up to snuff (or you can't measure it), you're more likely to be caught up in the rush. If you can't be more productive, (or not productive enough), he has various suggestions for making yourself less vulnerable to outsourcing. He also goes on at length about how companies can do offshoring, if need be, and what he sees as good national strategies to invest in education and job training to keep workers well-tuned to what the economy needs. In general, Yourdon sees offshoring as inevitable (and impossible to stop via protectionist means), but also as a challenge that can be met if we face it head-on.
Overall, while the book may be informative to someone who hasn't thought about the issue of offshoring much, or who has a fairly shallow understanding of the issue, I didn't feel that Yourdon addressed the problem in a particularly deep or thorough way. Offshoring, like any kind of trade, has broad implications for economies that are difficult to perceive. For example, will India's domestic demand for software increase as Western jobs are outsourced and its economy improves, and will that redirect programmers from offshoring positions? In his discussion on medical outsourcing (both of diagnostics, as well as actually traveling to other countries), Yourdon neglects to mention the legal implications of this trend. If an Indian doctor misreads your x-ray, how do you go about suing him? Finally, Yourdon does not address whether these productivity measurements are truly meaningful: A CMM level 5 shop can produce bad software just as well as a CMM level 0 shop; it just means that it can produce it badly in the same way each time.
In sum, this book is a good first read on the topic for someone who has not had extensive exposure to the issue, but for anyone who has been studying the problems for some time, the issues raised and solutions presented may seem elementary.
You can purchase Outsource: Competing in the Global Productivity Race from bn.com. Slashdot welcomes readers' book reviews -- to see your own review here, read the book review guidelines, then visit the submission page.
How to avoid being outsourced v.1.0 final (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:How to avoid being outsourced v.1.0 final (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:How to avoid being outsourced v.1.0 final (Score:2, Interesting)
Well, not everyone wants to be in management. Not everyone wants to be in sales. Not everyone wants to be in marketing. Believe it or not, SOME people actually enjoy working. Not organizing other people's work.
"grow in your own career" also typically means "sell out".
Re:How to avoid being outsourced v.1.0 final (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:How to avoid being outsourced v.1.0 final (Score:5, Interesting)
Grunt coding or tech support may be tedious, but such jobs are a good place for someone just out of college and with no practical experience. A tedious and low responsibility job gives junior employees a chance to learn how things actually work as opposed to how they are supposed to work. Internships and temporary hires can handle this apprenticeship role to a certain degree, but I don't think it is sufficient.
Re:How to avoid being outsourced v.1.0 final (Score:4, Interesting)
But it doesn't have to be. I did telephone tech support for almost a decade before my call center was outsourced, and I'd love to be doing it again. If you like talking to people, like solving puzzles and like knowing at the end of the day that there are people who's days are better because they spoke to you, tech support is great. It all depends on your attitude toward your work.
Re:How to avoid being outsourced v.1.0 final (Score:3, Interesting)
Would you care to explain your reasoning behind that "obvious" solution?
Is the idea that with lower taxes - and therefore either massive public debt, or inadequate government services - our standard and cost of living will eventually fall to that of India, or what?
Re:How to avoid being outsourced v.1.0 final (Score:5, Insightful)
The obvious solution is: less taxes on companies and workers, as well as lower salary expectations of unqualified or unexperienced labour.
Many of the largest companies in the U.S. pay no (U.S.) taxes. Some have reached corporate Nirvana with negative tax rates (corporate welfare). Please explain how lowering corporate taxes is going to help. Given the failure of constantly lowered corporate taxes to help, perhaps the solution is higher taxes? Personally, I think the solution is to make CxO compensation fixed and give management a reason to pursue long-term success rather than short-term. If some don't like it, a thousand others will step forward to take those positions.
Going to school for four years doesn't automatically qualify you a salary of $100K a year.
Having the right parents and an MBA from an east-coast school shouldn't automatically qualify you for millions of dollars per year in *compensation* while you destroy companies and the workers who built those companies - but it does.
Comment removed (Score:4, Interesting)
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:How to avoid being outsourced v.1.0 final (Score:2)
Don't be a cog. Cogs get outsourced. Cog == bot.
What happens when your CEO doesn't know a cog from a diamond? All s/he knows is that the financial analysts in the press like outsourcing. Top management has no idea who you are, what you do, or how good or productive you are (nor do they care). Your job is in the way of their next bonus.
It doesn't make any difference whether they save or lose money as long as they are perceived as doing something. If you think your immediate line manager is going t
Sally Struthers and India. (Score:2)
Sally Struthers is always asking for money for poor countries. How about export some grunt jobs and let them fix their own economy and we will have someone to export to.
I use to fear shipping jobs but not anymore.
Solution (Score:5, Funny)
So, if you want to avoid being outsourced, find a job that requires no knowledge. Management, marketing, PR and McDonald's come to mind.
Re: (Score:2)
Re:Solution (Score:5, Insightful)
If you're implying that manufacturing doesn't require knowledge, you're wrong. It doesn't require a college degree, but then again neither does programming. Most jobs require knowledge. Some more than others, but manufacturing and software are actually pretty similar in how much knowledge they can require... For the die hard perl-speaking techies, they've got their match in the gruffy old guy who can diagnose and repair any machine on his 3-mile long automobile production line.
The person who can be taught to work the paint machines in an assembly line could just as easily be taught to maintain the current events page on a company's web site.
Re:Solution (Score:3, Insightful)
You joke, but it's becoming increasingly difficult to find a job that doesn't require knowledge. Manufacturing jobs have left this country at a staggering rate.
Whoa, that's a bit elitist, isn't it? Manufacturing jobs require not only knowledge but skill and practice. Try precision sheet metal fabrication, printing, or machining sometime, and see how far you get. I'm sure the same holds true for many other manufacturing jobs. This current wave of outsourcing is only noticed because of the collar color
Re:Solution (Score:2, Funny)
read this for me.
Thanks
Re:Solution (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Solution (Score:5, Insightful)
It's funny because it's true. Management might get downsized, but I can't conceive of it being outsourced. At least, management above a certain level. So, to be safe, find a job that requires neither knowledge or ethical compunctions. Like PR, marketing, or the executive suite.
Re:Solution (Score:2)
Personally, I can- because as near as I can tell, management isn't worth the money investors are paying for it, it's just a big con game.
Eventually, it will. (Score:3, Insightful)
It won't be "outsourced" as such, but the jobs will go overseas.
The people doing the cheap labour in India right now will gain experience. They will move up the ladder.
There's nothing stopping them from getting an MBA.
So, in 10 y
Re:Eventually, it will. (Score:3, Insightful)
Offshoring is a hype. And the big multinationals follow hypes like sheep. Yourdon is just selling the current hype.
Due to the rise of extravagant CEO salaries, most western companies are now led by salesmen. These salesmen are good at selling themselves, following hypes and doing everything to make their stock options more valuable. There are a lot of short-sighted business decisions that will come back to ha
Those Wishing Gov't Solutions (Score:3, Insightful)
Do you want to get rid of insourcing? Those Toyota and BMW plants in America?
Outsourcing allows some companies to add more workers in other areas or even stay afloat.
Do you not think that other companies (overseas or otherwise) will not avail themselves of that labor market?
Re:Those Wishing Gov't Solutions (Score:4, Informative)
Re:Those Wishing Gov't Solutions (Score:3, Insightful)
Ah, dumping. It's so evil for people to sell things at less than cost, thus making themselves poorer and us richer.
Better prevent that.
So you featherbed the US steel industry over decades (and, yes, it was decades), leading to higher steel prices, and so higher ma
Re:Those Wishing Gov't Solutions (Score:4, Insightful)
Those Toyota and BMW plants in America were placed there because Reagan put a quota limit on auto imports. However, no limit was put on cars produced in America, so foreign producers set up shop there.
Ironically, you are using the results of a protectionist policy to argue against protectionism. However, I prefer to call it fair trade.
Do you not think that other companies (overseas or otherwise) will not avail themselves of that labor market?
I'm sure some countries will. However, if all of the first-world countries come together to enforce fair trade rules, then it wouldn't matter.
Re:Those Wishing Gov't Solutions (Score:2)
Actually, it's largely the first world countries that are responsible for unfair trade, not the third world countries. They are the ones that are suffering more as a result of it.
Made up example: If the Windward Isles - impose a 100% tariff on US cars, that will cut US car output by three cars per year
Re:Those Wishing Gov't Solutions (Score:2)
Where's your proof? The US is known worldwide for it's free market economy. It is at the forefront of promoting and encouraging free trade. The US set up free trade agreements with several countries. They started with Canada and Mexico in NAFTA back in the early 90's. The US was also a founding member of the World Trade Organization.
China and India have some of the most protectioni
If the Dollar continues to weaken... (Score:5, Funny)
Of course, there will be complaints about our funny accents being hard to understand.
Quality Loss = temporary profit boost. (Score:3, Insightful)
I used to work for Symantec, well an outsourced call center anyway, and all too often after my introduction when a caller on the line I'd hear "Oh thank god, you speak English!"
Stockholders love offshoring because of the temporary boost it gives them, but doesn't it just really alienate the customer base eventually?
Well at least it helps developing countries...
I wish you were right..... (Score:2)
Shakeup and shakedown. (Score:2)
What we are likely seeing is increasing globalization causing a long overdue correction in the equity of global wealth distribution. Developing nations grew by an unprecedented 6.1 percent real GNP [indystar.com] in 2004. Globalization is having an vital beneficial impact on the bottom part of the world population. For those of us who have been used to rare luxuries like indoor plumbing and vaguely reliable electric power, it's going to suck.
Of course, it would be nice if
One way to face it head on (Score:2, Flamebait)
Yes, yes.... (Score:2)
Of course, Santayana doesn't hurt either: "Those who do not study their history are doomed to repeat it." Such tactics are sometimes short term effective, but long term... probably useless. If the current US administration's attitudes on corporations, terror
Re:One way to face it head on (Score:2)
Re:One way to face it head on (Score:2)
India may be an ally of the United States, but they are a deadly enemy to US-born knowledge workers who are too poor to emigrate to India. The government, by forming an alliance with the enemy, has become a traitor. Diplomacy has failed to protect our jobs- we tried it and got the WTO
Re:One way to face it head on (Score:3, Interesting)
its not an able-body vs. able-body. its a body with no expenses vs one with US style expenses.
its an unfair fight from the get-go. if I had control (clearly I don't) then I'd tax the hell out of any company who outsources to countries that don't meet minimum human rights and health standards. force them to compete on a fair footing. that's all people really want - a FAIR CHANCE to compete. not a gift given
Swell, my job is safe for sure. (Score:2)
Oh yeah, I can be an order of magnitude more "productive" than other people and prove it. Right, I'll just be a "shock worker".
Some projects, not others (Score:4, Interesting)
The problem comes when you try to mix outsourcing with in-house development. It gets real hairy when you have to guess what was changed overnight.
Also, if there's a mistake or a weak implementation (band-aid), then it takes 3 days to go back in forth through emails explaining what's wrong with the implementation and how to fix it. Often when it's time to upgrade the band-aid, the outsourcing contract has already ended and it becomes your job to fix it. There's a sense of ownership that you lose with any form of consulting, regardless of whether it's from an international or a local consulting firm. I doubt any cost-benefit analysis made by non-programmers ever incorporate this kind of work.
While outsourcing may look good on the surface, and as TFA says CIO's perceive it as a cost savings, there are many other factors that have yet to be analyzed.
this guy is a cook (Score:2)
Anyone making a statement like this is a koo
Re:this guy is a cook (Score:2)
Hmm, let's test that statement. In 1974, oil was considered high at $20/barrel. It's now $60/barrel and on it's way up. 300% inflation over 30 years. 10% inflation per year is what you are claiming?
Re:this guy is a cook (Score:2)
And I think you'll agree that 3.7% is a pretty reasonable number for inflation - and as an average over a set including the runaway inflation of the late 70s, actually pretty optimi
Re:this guy is a cook (Score:2)
Re:this guy is a cook (Score:2)
Re:this guy is a cook (Score:3, Informative)
It's nowhere near the inflation-adjusted high, but it has been much cheaper. See here [fintrend.com]; as of today it's at around $41/barrel.
Re:this guy is a cook (Score:3, Insightful)
Ed's an Idiot (Score:5, Insightful)
I mean, he's had to reverse course and say he was wrong so many times that when we writes about something, doing the exact opposite of what he recommends is almost a sure bet.
Yourdon's working both sides, as usual (Score:2)
Every three or four years he finds The Next Big Hysterical Issue, promotes the hell out of it, and takes his profit.
Re:Yourdon's working both sides, as usual (Score:2)
Yourdon has Zero Credibility (Score:5, Interesting)
Y2K came and went, Yourdon's predictions fell flat, and now he's trying to scare you out of your money to buy a book on something else that he doesn't really know about.
That he's getting any attention after Y2K is amazing to me.
Re:Yourdon has Zero Credibility (Score:2)
Iraq is (somewhat) outsourced already (Score:2)
and the US government has even outsourced Iraq [washingtonpost.com]. If something as important as "national security" can be outsourced, where, in the importance of things (according to gov't anyway), do the development jobs rank?
Outsource this... (Score:2)
Here's my Guide To Stopping Outsourcing:
1) Cut H1B, L1 Visa laws
2) Stop rewarding companies for outsourcing
3) Lower corporate taxes
4) Big f'ing tax breaks for companies that keep work here
Or, we could just outsource
Re:Outsource this... (Score:2)
5) $1/mile/container tax on shiping figured at the incoming port, to pay for all that new scanning equipment to make sure terrorists don't ship nuclear bombs into our cities.
This will restore the manufacturing jobs because it's basically a tarriff on EVERYTHING coming across the border at 1.2 million shipping containers a day.
Re:Outsource this... (Score:2)
Not bad. However, I like the recent change that requires some H1-B's to be graduates of US schools. It provides an incentive for foreign students to come here and subsidise our schools, giving domestic students lowered tuition. If we keep H1-B's around, I say make this a requirement for all of them.
Re:Outsource this... (Score:4, Insightful)
The foreign students are a big part of any technical graduate school; foreign students are the clear majority in engineering, physics, math, and even in the non-MBA portions of business schools. For those few jobs which require the sort of knowlege you get in those schools, no work visas means almost no workers. Those few jobs are the ones which are most likely to lead to the creation of new wealth, so we don't want to see them disappear from the U.S.
Also, one of the most effective things we can do to defang aggressive nations like Mainland China (short of a nuclear first strike) is to bring their best and brightest over here, educate them at China's expense, then employ them here. It makes them and the U.S. better off, at China's expense.
For the U.S., those work visas are a mixed blessing, at worst.
Re:Outsource this... (Score:2)
I don't care for the H1B program, but I can't come up with a rational reason for denying someone from another country work that doesn't boil down to "I don't want my job at risk.". I don' like that as a reason either. So rather than eliminate the H1B/L1 program, change it so those visas belong to the worker and not the company bringing them in. That way, when an H1B worker gets a better offer from the competition, he can walk under no more restriction than any US worker and take his H1B along with him. That
Re:Outsource this... (Score:3, Informative)
I think you ask the wrong question. The proper question should be "Why do we need to import labor?" The real answer is "to drive down wages." There is no shortage of technical talent, indeed I recall that earlier this year the unemployment rate among engineers was higher than the general rate. And even if there were a shortag
Re:Outsource this... (Score:3, Interesting)
No. Corporate taxes have been on the decline for a long time [cbpp.org].
Corporate tax rates have nothing to do with the issue of outsourcing.
Outsourcing=the way of the rich to be even richer. (Score:2)
Carter quote is an example of economic ignorance (Score:2, Interesting)
Uhh, you're as economically ignorant as Carter was.
Once you control for inflation, you see that gasoline is far less expensive now than it was under Carter.
See graph here. [chartoftheday.com]
The main problem d
Re:Carter quote is an example of economic ignoranc (Score:3, Informative)
Outsourcing is not inevitable! (Score:3, Insightful)
Outsourcing is not inevitable. Capitalism, all of economics, is a function of our choices - the choices of our leaders, the choices of consumers, the choices of businessmen. Somewhere along the line we decided to ignore morality in making choices, and capitalism has degraded to nothing more than the merciless exploitation of the environment and workers. Even knowledge workers, though it appears that every non-outsourced /. reader assumes that they can never be outsourced.
The decision to "outsource" is made to save money. Nothing more. Not to improve quality - who has proof that outsourcing has rescued any project? Not to save consumers money, nor to save the third world. Not even to benefity "shareholders", but pretty much to benefit upper-management. As competition increases between firms, they are desparate to keep profits growing eternally. Profit growth can occur due to an increase in revenue, or cutting costs. Increasing revenue is damn difficult. Cutting costs makes you a hero - to your shareholders, and you bear no responsibility for the laid off workers, nor the society you betrayed.
We must recognize that those who transfer jobs, knowledge, and the technology of our country abroad for quarterly profits are not captain's of industry but profiteers. Why do we accept the destruction of our factories, our labs, our research traditions? How do those who destroy entire towns sleep at night? I'm from North Carolina, and saw what happened when the textile factories went to China, when the equipment was packed off to Shanghai. Who benefitted - the American public, the managers, or the shareholders?
Outsourcing is not inevitable. We can reverse the trend. But we must first challenge the concept that free trade is beneficial to all parties. How, precisely, has free trade benefitted the US or the Western world? Our trading partners - India and China - do not believe in free trade - why should we?
And for all of the /. members from the States who think that outsourcing doesn't affect them: how much has your salary increased in the last four years? How many extra hours do you accept every week unpaid? How long have your friends been laid off?
The US will become a third-world country if we choose to support outsourcing. Don't shop at Wal-Mart. Write your congressional representatives. Question the leadership of the companies that you own shares in. Don't accept the destruction of our country to make the rich richer.
Learn economics (Score:3, Interesting)
By allowing us to buy things we previously had to manufacture ourselves much cheaper from China (clothes & stuff) and India (software). Since it's cheaper we can get more of it (or other things we want), and thus live materially better lives.
Free trade is in large part what made the rich world rich. It's no coincidence that countries with the free
Now that Yourdon has weighed in ... (Score:3, Insightful)
Seriously, I've found outsourcing to be bad business practice for everything but classic, big-iron style waterfall development cycles. (Which is primarily what Yourdon knows about, but enough on that.) Any software that requires an iterative design process is going to be miserable to outsource, whether it's to a company in another state or on another continent.
My experience with Indian outsourcing shops is that the developers can be quite good (although one highly-recommended shop had no idea how to use versioning control systems), but it is not realistic to use them for anything other than software that has been exhaustively documented and architected before development begins. For many projects, especially those in this age of bespoke code, that just isn't a realistic requirement.
Outsourcing is typical CLASS WARFARE (Score:2)
One interesting event would be a new graphical
Someone needs to write these tools and the advantage is back to GOOD ole USA(yeah).
Another situation that might effect this whole 'shipping jobs' to countries with lower wages is that INDIA still has trade barriers from what I understand.
Trade i
Re:Outsourcing is typical CLASS WARFARE (Score:2)
The Decline and Fall of the American Worker (Score:5, Insightful)
American manufacturing is in serious decline, Walmart and Home Depot are driving down prices and manufacturers are moving the jobs overseas.
This is destroying the middle class as blue collar jobs disappear.
This is destroying the upper middle class. The owner of the general store, the drug store, the hardware store, etc. have been replaced by the shift manager at Walmart.
This is not a good thing. Our society (and I lump Canada in here as well) is being pushed to extremes of poverty (McDonalds workers) and wealth (Home Depot shareholders). The only middle class left will be the specialized service industry (police, nurses, teachers).
Re:The Decline and Fall of the American Worker (Score:2)
Not true [economist.com]. The manufacturing output of the US and other first world nations has continuously increased, but fewer workers are needed due to greatly increased productivity. This is a good thing.
why is the obvious answer never mentioned (Score:3, Insightful)
Turn off the lights - it looks bad all around. (Score:3, Insightful)
The engineer up the street works for the State, he now oversees a team of engineers who approve and revise drawings submitted to the state, in India. The state is looking at outsourcing its accounting and auditing review to India and Russia. The company has a nice American name with a headquarters in the state, but the workers are all overseas.
This is all a factor of "free trade" except it lacks fair trade. India is a perfect example of a country willing to take advantage of our laws (an Indian company bidding on state contracts gets a minority owned business score enhancement) while preventing any US company from doing the same in their country. We then have the "free traders" telling us that India will come around. Why should they? They will have the jobs and no incentive to change their business practices. Meanwhile we will have lost most jobs requiring a college degree. We will become the serfs of those with the money, the few elite left in the US and their foreign owners. And they will be owners for once they have the jobs and the money, buying the company makes sense as they will then gain all the profits.
Gloom and doom? Yes. But it is far less naive then the people who say things like "you always have to look out for yourself." It is this mindset that allows foreign companies and workers to take advantage of the cowards. Those unwilling to step up and say, "we made a mistake with manufacturing, but it ends here. We will not be the serfs of the next generation."
It's not a courage I see in this generation. It is far easier to blame the worker than to accept responsibility for how your government cares for other countries at your expense.
Personally... (Score:3, Interesting)
(In the case of America, it makes no sense for each State to expend vast amounts of resources to compete against the other States, because that leaves far fewer resources for anyone to compete against outside interests.)
In the case of "outsourcing" as it is currently practiced, I see a LOT of problems. Far from moving jobs to people who can do them better, companies are moving jobs to people who can do them cheaper.
This is about as useful as building a car out of tissue paper. Sure, a given piece of tissue is going to be cheaper than the same amount of high-quality steel, so you've "saved money". But the results are crap. Even if you can solve the strength issue, it's still going to dissolve in the first rain shower.
People are often either "for" outsourcing (which is stupid, because it's being done wrong), or "against" it (which is also stupid, because it could be done right).
Instead of looking at "outsourcing" as a single thing, it should be looked at as a collective term for a whole bunch of different methodologies. Most of those methodologies should be hung, drawn and quartered, and their proponents forced to watch endless re-runs of Jerry Springer. Without the benefit of anaesthetic. The few - the very few - that would actually make sense and improve quality, without hurting anything, should be actively encouraged.
This isn't happening in Europe (Score:4, Interesting)
An hour's worth of work in France or Germany now buys more than an hour's worth of work in the US. The US is ahead on per capita income only because of longer working hours. And it's not ahead by much. US per capita income was 2x of that in France in 1980. Now it's about 1.2x, and when the dollar drops a little more...
The head of Germany's Fraunhofer Institute was over at Stanford a few weeks ago, chewing out Americans for letting the Government lose all the manufacturing jobs. Germany didn't let that happen.
Congress can turn this around any time it wants to. Never forget that on election day.
Forget Yourdon. Listen to your friend Phil. (Score:5, Insightful)
First, let's consider "the problem":
A large portion of traditional "IT" jobs are/were in corporations. But corporations' black-hearted owners (rich guys who invest in the stock market, which BY THE WAY is a VERY small segment of the population) have decided that American workers are too stubborn about silly issues like "a living wage", "time with their families", "decent benefits", "workplace safety", and "job security". Consequently, they have created the worldwide job market. Now, the rich can look to countries that don't have pesky workers-rights laws, occupational safety regulations, environmental laws, and other annoying little peccadillos they had to struggle with in First World nations. They don't have to worry about a "living wage" either, because in SOME countries, a living wage is an executive's COFFEE MONEY. And they get to have a nice, deep belly laugh at the expense of all those annoying technologists they USED to have to keep on staff.
Considering this situation, the problem should be clear: How does a smart technologist make a living and find happiness when a huge chunk of his job market has effectively gone down the toilet?
Let's begin. Let's "Work the problem".
PART 1: Filter out unsuccessful approaches to dealing with the problem, and discard them.
FIRST: Never, EVER work for a corporation, even if for some strange reason they start trying to hire Americans again. They were never great employers to begin with. They'd make you sign noncompetes, IP agreements, nondisclosures... And they expected you to work sixty to eighty hour weeks with no overtime, and pretend you were happy to do so. One place where your buddy Phil used to work actually said on orientation day that if the job wasn't the most important thing in your life INCLUDING YOUR FAMILY, you didn't belong there (TRUE STORY). Corporate jobs are worse than anything. Just say "no".
ALSO: Don't keep racking up student loan debt to get higher and higher degrees because some idiot talking head says you've got to "move up the food chain". This strategy is NOT going to work. IBM and several other corporations are already doing research and development in India with Indian Ph.Ds. There is nowhere else to go up the food chain; the ladder has ended and the hatch is welded shut. Save your money.
AND: Don't count on becoming some kind of analyst. Everybody and their mother is already calling themselves analysts. That sort of thing isn't going to last any longer than R+D did. You know who's going to be doing analysis? THE ANALYSIS TEAM AT THE INDIAN OUTSOURCING FIRM. Yep. They've already got one. Don't waste your time.
PART 2: Having discarded worthless approaches, identify viable approaches to pursue.
PRIMARILY, CONCENTRATE ON IT JOBS AMERICANS STILL HAVE A SHOT AT.
Best: Civil Service. The pay is lower than the old corporate jobs were, but those are mostly gone now anyway. And the 50-60k you'll end up with is STILL about double the national average salary. You'll have REAL job security (UNION membership!), excellent benefits, and a nice, nine-to-five schedule so your family will actually be able to call you by name without referring to a cheat sheet. Your boss will actually (gasp!) be NICE to you, your working environment will be civilized, you won't have to sign any scary contracts, and in general you'll be happy. Pick your choice: federal, state, county, city. It's all good. And, generally, you've got to be a citizen of the city/state/whatever to apply for a position.
Second Best: Get a job in the IT department of a university, college, community college, or high school. This is actually very similar to civil service, although not quite as nice (for example, maybe you get a 401K instead of a full pension). Still, it's pretty good.
Lagging slightly: Academics. If you can stay in college through at lea
Re:Forget Yourdon. Listen to your friend Phil. (Score:4, Informative)
Twenty years ago, roughly when I went to work for the federal government, I would have agreed with you. Nowadays, things are different. For a variety of reasons that don't bear listing here, civil service protections are under assault by everyone from middle managers to the political appointees who run agencies on up the food chain. Civil service rules are being abandoned quickly and savagely. The Department of Homeland Security and the Department of Defense are leading the charge but the bottom line is that fairly soon (in government time) government hiring and firing practices will mirror the same old crap that happens in private industry.
Hell, even the Internal Revenue Service, the one agency that makes so much money for the government that you'd expect every employee to have not just guaranteed lifetime employment but gold-plated office furniture to boot, has gone through multiple rounds of layoffs over the last couple of years.
I may just be able to reach early retirement and a minimal pension before I get oursourced. I'm the last generation that can count on my government job to actually resemble a government job. For those entering the job market now, civil service ain't what it used to be. It's not a terrible choice, but it's now a decidedly more mixed bag than it once was. Recent college grads, those looking to enter the workforce, should tread carefully.
Re:Whine, whine, whine (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Whine, whine, whine (Score:2)
In the end, outsourcing is a way of cutting costs and/or gaining value (either added efficiency or improved quality). To avoid that, it becomes necessary
Re:Whine, whine, whine (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Whine, whine, whine (Score:2)
Markets not only rise and fall but move as well. Markets can and will move to places like India and China whose individual populations dwarf ours and whose combined populations make us look like, well Great Britian, the super power of another age.
But GB is not dead. It's not even close to dead. It's not a superpower or a particularly strong world leader, but the people get a
Re:Whine, whine, whine (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Whine, whine, whine (Score:3, Insightful)
Let me know which alleyway you're buying your work visas from. How many other countries do you think have an H1B-type plan? One that will accept workers when they seem to have plenty on hand already?
Re:Whine, whine, whine (Score:2)
Re:Whine, whine, whine (Score:2)
While I applaud your honesty, is this lifestyle really one that should be expected, given the state of the world? That's one thing that is going to fuck US consumers: The expectation of a certain level of lifestyle that is so far and above how most of the rest of the planet lives that it's ridiculous. Now, I'm not one to throw stones. I've got a maid, and I go out for a drink or two every night. Granted, I know that that is exce
Re:Whine, whine, whine (Score:2)
NO, it isn't. My big mistake was not being homeless (that is, buying rather than renting when I could afford it, and not getting thrown out on my ass when I lost my job for 26 months due to outsourcing. We don't have a maid, we don't have other luxuries- the kid is enough. During my time unemployed, I did a lot to reduce my expenditures, which helps now. But the fact of the matter is, I'm
Re:Whine, whine, whine (Score:2)
Re:Whine, whine, whine (Score:2)
Re:Whine, whine, whine (Score:2)
What you're doing is why house prices are sticky downwards: when demand falls off, folks just hang onto their houses, and it can take years for the market to clear.
Don't assume that the house prices will magically turn around: unless something happens to bring back the demand, like lots of new jobs, prices won't rise fast or soon. Lots of new jobs would solve your problem anyway, wouldn't it?
I
Re:Whine, whine, whine (Score:2)
That's one of the options I'm currently contemplating. My point though was more to being tied to a single community- renters have more freedom of movement, and there's a lot to suggest in the current economy that local permanent positions in any industry will be a thing of the past. The successfull young person will get mobile and STAY mobile- keep assets portable, and a hous
Re:Whine, whine, whine (Score:4, Insightful)
And yet they are still better off than many of the people in third world countries who may get a chance to make a half-way decent living as a result of jobs coming by via 'outsourcing'.
Re:Whine, whine, whine (Score:2)
Not necessarily. They may be better off on an absolute case (i.e. net income, assets), however to make a standard of living comparison you also have to factor in cost of living. Living in India on 2$ a day is relatively easy. Living on 2$ a day in the U.S. is almost impossible.
You also have to consider being used to a cer
Re:Whine, whine, whine (Score:2)
Re:Whine, whine, whine (Score:2)
Economics is not a zero-sum game. It is possible to improve econ
Re:Whine, whine, whine (Score:2)
Have you seen the slums in India? Or other countries that are "stealing our jobs" (remember the origional post was on manufactoring jobs, not IT jobs that mostly go to India)? Its not just like America except you can rent an apartmentfor $10 a day and a new widescreen TV set costs $20. They really are areas of the world which are poor.
"Basic
Re:Whine, whine, whine (Score:2)
Actually, yes I have. People live in terrible conditions. However, not all people in India live in slums, and those who are likely to get outsourced jobs probably don't (because they need a minimum of education).
Of course, increase in anyone's salary in India will increase tax revenues for the state, so the case can be made that
Re:Whine, whine, whine (Score:3, Insightful)
It is a big deal. You suggest that coders should just pick up and move overseas, and abandon their families, their friends, their churches, indeed their entire culture without a second thought?
We as a nation often stand aghast when cultures are destroyed in the name of profit in other lands. How can we be so cavalier when it happens to us?
Re:Whine, whine, whine (Score:2)
> are destroyed in the name of profit in other
> lands.
Well, no, you don't much. As often as not it's Americans doing the destroying.
Re:Whine, whine, whine (Score:2)
Since when? I've got ancestors in at least one of those cultures (Native American) and I've yet to see Americans renounce profit for mere culture as a whole. Small parts, yes, but not as a whole.
Re:Whine, whine, whine (Score:2)
Re:Whine, whine, whine (Score:2)
Re:Regarding "Productivity", etc. (Score:2)