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Businesses The Almighty Buck

IT Outsourcing Need Not Threaten Our Future 647

Xeo writes "The topic of the moment in a lot of people's minds is the outsourcing overseas of 'white collar' jobs. While many people are perhaps rightfully worried about this, there's an editorial on the subject that tends towards the other direction. It makes some very interesting points on the whole idea of outsourcing and what it means for the US at least."
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IT Outsourcing Need Not Threaten Our Future

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  • by manavendra ( 688020 ) on Friday May 14, 2004 @06:57AM (#9149610) Homepage Journal
    Well yes, as I have maintained in the past, outsourcing does not present a strategic long term concern for the US. Sure, there are certain jobs that shall be relocated or executed from remote locations, but even if one looks at the current trends - anything that remotely involves creativity or innovation is not going anywhere
    • Obviously then you would approve of the Twice Convicted Monopolist, or the SCOundrel, moving to India, as nothing they have done involves creativity or innovation.

      The US would be much better off without people like that, they are truly un-American, but I don't think that any other part of the world would want them either.

    • by Roger Keith Barrett ( 712843 ) on Friday May 14, 2004 @07:14AM (#9149743)
      What do you mean that there is no strategic long term concern?

      I'll tell you just one, a big one... when there is absolutely no reward for going into a technical, I.T. or engineering career then no one is going to go to school to learn these professions.

      Then you really WILL lose creativity, innovation, and have a REAL lack of in-country talent.
      • by offpath3 ( 604739 ) <{pj.oc.oohay} {ta} {4htapffo}> on Friday May 14, 2004 @07:24AM (#9149804)
        I'll tell you just one, a big one... when there is absolutely no reward for going into a technical, I.T. or engineering career then no one is going to go to school to learn these professions.

        Have you forgotten that learning and working with what you like is reward in and of itself for many people? I think job prospects would have to get pretty darned bleak before I'd do something other than computer science...

        • by Roger Keith Barrett ( 712843 ) on Friday May 14, 2004 @07:37AM (#9149888)
          Have you forgotten that learning and working with what you like is reward in and of itself for many people?

          And I enjoy working with and learning about classical literature, but there are so few job opportunity as a classical literature reader that I decided not to go on and get advanced degrees in that area. So it turns into a hobby.

          Practicality has to kick in at some point. I think you will eventually be shedding people that really have talent and won't go into it just because they can't make a living out of it. The number of good people will go down.

          Maybe it will, however, improve the quality of the people left because they really want to be there.
          • by Anonymous Coward
            It seems as though the core argument of the piece rests on the idea that "America = diversity; diversity = good; engineering in America is therefore diverse and therefore good."

            "I believe a good part of our creativity comes from our inherent cultural and ethnic diversity. Americans are used to working with people of different attitudes, cultures, and racial and ethnic backgrounds".

            While this is a nice and politically correct viewpoint, it is quite divorced from reality. The majority of US engineers (of al
      • by unformed ( 225214 ) on Friday May 14, 2004 @07:31AM (#9149847)
        No, when that happens you're just going to stop having people go into these fields simply to make money. The people who have creativity, who actually like this kind of stuff, will still go, and though there will be less people in the fields, they will be far, far more knowledgable than those right now. The market right now is flooded with "programmers" who can barely write in java, let alone anything else.

        If you don't believe me, look at fields like Mathematics, which offers barely any jobs at all. Yet, there are quite a few people studying for it, most going for their PhD's. I do believe they're doing it for the love of mathematics rather than that excellent paycheck that they're going to get (which they probably won't anyway).
        • You're missing the point. If only a few go into "creative" positions, how is this a solution for an evaporating job market?

          150 million working age americans can have jobs that by definition number in the thousands? I'm all for creativity, but some people just need a job to put food on the table.
        • by SmackCrackandPot ( 641205 ) on Friday May 14, 2004 @08:23AM (#9150315)
          Mathematics was my favorite subject at high school, and it was my first choice to study at university. However, following the advice of an mathematics teacher who had a "pure mathematics" degree, was on a low salary and couldn't find employment anywhere else, I chose to study Computer Science instead. Also, at that time, the UK government responded to the number of unemployed "pure subject" graduates, by insisting that universities focus on applied subjects. Now we have a shortage of mathematics and science teachers (I believe just above every teacher who had a pure degree, ended up going back to university to do a Ph.D. and become a lecturer/professor).

          Bottom line is: people are only going to study a subject if they can see that the people ahead of them are doing something they enjoy and can afford to live somewhere they like.
          • Math degrees (Score:4, Interesting)

            by Anonymous Brave Guy ( 457657 ) on Friday May 14, 2004 @11:41AM (#9152764)
            However, following the advice of an mathematics teacher who had a "pure mathematics" degree, was on a low salary and couldn't find employment anywhere else, I chose to study Computer Science instead.

            I was given the opposite advice, by a mathematics teacher about to retire who knew me well. She recommended I take my maths as high as I could, and then transfer it into whatever field I wanted to work in. That turned out to be some of the best advice I've ever received: an undergraduate degree in maths and a post-grad CS diploma later, and I'm more qualified than most of my peers. More importantly, I understand maths and can apply it in new contexts, as well as having easily enough CS to work in software development specifically (where a lot of people don't have any formal CS background anyway).

            I'm also curious about this idea that mathematics opens no career paths. My peers now work in finance, IT, bio-tech, engineering R&D, and numerous other interesting and/or well paid fields. A few did go on to do PhDs, but certainly not the majority.

        • Most of the PhD's I know of in Math are working as Actuarials or some such.

          They aren't doing anything "innovative" or "creative". They picked up the degree because they like math.

          Now, not every field can be handled with a notebook and pencil. Chemical engineering. That takes some money for research (and without research, you don't have "innovation" or "creativity").

          If those engineering jobs go overseas, where will the people who will make the "innovative" or "creative" discoveries learn?

          This article rea
        • by sql*kitten ( 1359 ) * on Friday May 14, 2004 @09:38AM (#9151217)
          If you don't believe me, look at fields like Mathematics, which offers barely any jobs at all.

          In financial services, there are lot of mathematics and physics PhDs and most of them are well paid. They're in high demand anywhere that complex models are in use, from derivatives trading to reinsurance. Granted that's not pure mathematics, but still, if you have the qualification, it definitely does open up some very well paid possibilities that aren't available to those without.
        • by NDPTAL85 ( 260093 ) on Friday May 14, 2004 @09:39AM (#9151243)
          Ugh I really hate this line of thinking. A lot of the people in any industry who are in it "for the money" are orders of magnitude better at whatever job they're in than those who are there just "for the love of it".

          An emotional attachment to something does not equal intellectual apptitude.

          Those who desire to make lots of money however tend to focus their intellects on whatever it is they do best and then they go out and do it.
      • Actually, it has very little to do with rewards. According to the NSF enrollment in engineering dropped by 20% from 1983 to 1999 (a period when engineering was a very secure and renumerative career):

        http://www.nsf.gov/sbe/srs/seind02/c2/c2s2.htm#en g ineering

        My personal theory is that the enrollment drop is due to a combination of declining quality in K-12 education and laziness among American college students. Engineering is a lot harder major than English or Elementary Education. I have no evidence

      • OMG, those dirty foreigners are stealing all of our yucky gruntwork jobs!

        Think about it. There's no way to outsource some tech jobs to another continent. There is no affordable way to replace the guy who runs around replacing busted mice with someone sitting in Rawalpindi. Some jobs require physical presence. We'll still have those.

        Some jobs are so specialized that it'll be hard to save any money by shopping more widely. The top-end jobs are probably fairly safe. Only so many artists are born to any
    • by markxsd ( 718350 ) on Friday May 14, 2004 @07:26AM (#9149820)
      anything that remotely involves creativity or innovation is not going anywhere

      Creativity is not necessarily a big part of a job in IT though. For example, a DBA may have needed to be creative when the shXt hit the fan 10 years ago, but these days things shouldn't go wrong that often, and if they do then follow the backup and recovery plan that was probably written 5 years ago by someone creative. OK you need to know what you are doing, but the chances are you aren't the first DBA to have encountered this problem. Call the vendor for support. Push the buttons they tell you to. I'm not saying it's easy - you'll need to know what you're doing - but let's face it, innovation and creativity may not be the key skills you need here.

      The same goes for many other white collar jobs out there. Does a lawyer need to be creative when drawing up a contract on the sale of house? Does a claims assessor have to be creative when looking at documentary evidence after a car accident?

      There are a lot of jobs out there which have an inbox and an outbox, and a series of logical questions. Those that haven't already been automated, are exactly the kind that could be outsourced. And that does have the potential to affect any Western economy.
      • IMHO, if your job doesn't require some sort of talent or hard-to-learn skill, you shouldn't expect any security. If all your job requires is knowledge/education, why should we expect that job not to be automated/replaced by someone who will work for less? I'm not trying to argue that it's fair that all these educated people are now screwed but IMHO, it should be expected. A lot of IT work simply requires mediocre intelligence and familiarity w/ the system (standard disclaimer holds, this is a broad gener
  • by dsanfte ( 443781 ) on Friday May 14, 2004 @06:58AM (#9149617) Journal
    Outsourcing need not threaten your future, there are plenty of new opportunities for aspiring programmers within the food service sector. Dare to dream!

  • Again... (Score:3, Insightful)

    by Roger Keith Barrett ( 712843 ) on Friday May 14, 2004 @06:58AM (#9149627)
    The assertion that jobs are being outsourced because there aren't enough people in the USA that have technical credentials is BULL SHIT.

    Try telling the guys with PhDs that can't get jobs that there is no talent in this country.
    • Re:Again... (Score:3, Insightful)

      by Anonymous Coward
      People with PhDs aren't necesarily the right people to be commercial programmers.

      In fact, they're probably exactly the worst people.
    • Re:Again... (Score:5, Insightful)

      by ffub ( 322605 ) on Friday May 14, 2004 @07:12AM (#9149718)
      People with PHDs are over qualified for most commercial programming jobs, and will demand a far higher pay.

      They should stick to research, commercial programming is not just about theoretical know how. I know good commercial programmers that don't even have A Levels, that have learnt on the job and at home, and I know graduates who can't get a good job. The latter cost more and expect more.
      • Re:Again... (Score:3, Insightful)

        They [PhDs] should stick to research, commercial programming is not just about theoretical know how.

        With the current PhD oversupply, that's not always a valid option.

    • Re:Again... (Score:3, Interesting)

      by beacher ( 82033 )
      "Engineering education needs to emphasize not only technical skills, but also teamwork, global awareness, entrepreneurship, cross-disciplinary thinking and other non-technical skills needed in a global economy."

      Yeah.. really bone up on those non-technical skills so you can manage your offshore help. Make sure you've taken Xerox Machine Repair 101 so you will have some "added value" in the office. Take some medical classes so when your help complains about eating and sleeping disorders, you can help out
      • Re:Again... (Score:3, Insightful)

        by JayAdams ( 779194 )
        Offshoring coders is utter bullshit

        Nope, just economics. The internet has just provided another source for employers to find employees (Global contractors). The employer's job is to get work done for the least amount of dollars and maximize shareholder or owner value. Guess what? You charge more for the same product. Think you're innovative and better than offshore coders? Prove your value or take a hike. Can't stomach a pay cut? Sorry, but Home Depot is looking for cashiers, maybe you'll have bet
    • PhD!=talent
    • I am under the impression that what compmanies that are outsourcing are looking for are reasonably qualified and capable programming drones that don't demand high pay to cut costs.

      They may find that now but wait until the state of the programmer in India and other places change. As people's standard of living increases, their demands increase until one day they will not be cheaper anymore.

      It might take years to happen, but I suspect that those jobs will one day make their way back here due to simple econ
      • Re:Again... (Score:3, Insightful)

        They may find that now but wait until the state of the programmer in India and other places change. As people's standard of living increases, their demands increase until one day they will not be cheaper anymore.

        What you describe, is somethign along the lines of "after it all averages out". Sorry, but I don't want the job back after my pay is averaged against the per capita of Buttfuckistan ($346 per year).

        300 million americans, 1 billion indians. We're at the high range. They're the low. Averages, "even
  • Basic premise (Score:5, Interesting)

    by Black_Logic ( 79637 ) * <wintermute AT gmail DOT com> on Friday May 14, 2004 @07:01AM (#9149639) Homepage Journal
    The articles author makes decent points, but what it all boils down to is that, usually, change doesn't lead to disaster. Which is essentially true. I'm sure that whatever the econimic trends, some sort of equilibrium will be found. But as someone getting ready to leave a university with a CS degree in a year or so, I'm pretty worried about the interim. Although I suppose I'm in a far greater position than someone whose got a family to support. I'm sure many /.'ers would agree that money is a distant second to having enjoyable, challenging work.

    After all the doom and gloom about the tech industry I'm happy to hear a positive viewpoint, true or not. :)
    • Re:Basic premise (Score:5, Insightful)

      by Anonymous Coward on Friday May 14, 2004 @07:12AM (#9149720)
      Most people argue that "when we outsource one sector of work, the country advances and most of our people go into a greater field of work, above what they were doing before".

      In other words, we outsource production/manufacturing jobs and then we become a service and information based economy. But the problem with this NOW is that you're not talking about putting a bunch of assembly line workers out of jobs and making them go to school and learn something. You're talking about forcing educated, professional people who have often gone into debt to acquire their educations or people who have technical skills but no on-paper-degree out of their work as the work is shipped overseas.

      It's one thing to tell a guy who runs the bottle-capping machine at 7-UP that his job is being shipped overseas and he's going to have to go back to school and persue college toward some sort of office job or higher technology job. It's quite another to tell someone who has spent a decade or three building their white collar career or a person who spent four or more years in college, then building their career and dedicating themselves to a particular field that now they're going to have to go back to school all over again (sometimes after just having graduated and gone into debt a first time) and learn something new...

      Sure, maybe it's great for the country overall... but it sucks ass for individual people in the meantime. It fucks a whole generation over.
      • Sure, maybe it's great for the country overall..

        What ever gave you this idea? Look at our economy. Even the talking heads have trouble describing it as the end of the recession, and they usually like lying to us.

        And everyone seems to forget that their are no new fields to go into.
      • Not only that, but you have to have lower level jobs in every country.

        If you follow the logic that pro-outsourcing folks use that "people are going to move up the job ladder" eventually everyone will have to have a Phd and 20 years of experience to get a job in any field. It's become a big pyramid scheme: there are only so many places at the top and innovation can't open up an infinite number of new fields.
      • Re:Basic premise (Score:5, Interesting)

        by apoc.famine ( 621563 ) <apoc...famine@@@gmail...com> on Friday May 14, 2004 @08:19AM (#9150282) Journal
        If you've got that four year degree, and don't have a job, invest an additional 1.5 - 2 years into becoming a certified teacher. With the certification requirements of NCLB, and the average age of teachers somewhere in the mid to high 50s, the USA is heading into an ever-greater teacher shortage. As one hell of a benefit, a fair number of school districts are desperate enough for teachers, that they will pay off your student loans, if you sign a multi-year contract.

        The hours aren't bad, the benefits are great, and the job security is near 100%. While you have to jump through some *very* assinine hoops to prove that you know what you know, the end result is worth it. And quite frankly, the poor teacher salaries of the last few decades are becomming more and more competitive, especially if you have a higher degree and a few years on the job.
        • Re:Basic premise (Score:3, Informative)

          by drudd ( 43032 )
          I agree. My wife graduated with a Bachelor's degree in Computer Science and Math, but without any programming experience, was unable to find a job.

          So when I went off to graduate school in Astronomy (no real life for me thank you very much), she went back to school to be able to teach CS at a high-school level.

          She's now finishing off her student teaching after only a year of classes, and she'll have a Masters in Education after just a few more classes (which she'll take concurrently with teaching).

          Of cou
  • Actual content (Score:5, Insightful)

    by kahei ( 466208 ) on Friday May 14, 2004 @07:01AM (#9149642) Homepage


    This is an article about how Americans see themselves -- or rather, about how the author would like them to. It does not appear to actually touch on the economic realities (good or bad) of outsourcing.

    Yay for fluff.

    However, it is quite interesting in the American self-image that it pushes. While Americans are indeed diverse and tolerant, I think the remarks on innovation (which I hear often) could do with a little consideration.

    • I'd say Americans are a lot more innovative than tolerant.
    • Re:Actual content (Score:3, Interesting)

      by GOD_ALMIGHTY ( 17678 )
      Very true. I'm tired of this puffing up people in this country do when words like innovation and creativity come up. It's utter BS!

      Most of those innovative and creative Americans came from other countries. They came to this country because it was a land of oppurtunity. It was a land of oppurtunity because it was a pioneer country. After the Euro viruses wiped out 95% of the Native American population, there was a lot of resources for a few people. Americans were innovative because they were no longer bound
  • by virtualone ( 768392 ) on Friday May 14, 2004 @07:01AM (#9149643)
    i worry about.. being replaced with a shell script
  • Flamebait (Score:4, Informative)

    by mccalli ( 323026 ) on Friday May 14, 2004 @07:04AM (#9149662) Homepage
    From the article: Indeed, when you consider the greatest engineering achievement of the 20th Century as reported on the National Academy of Engineering website--innovations such as human flight, refrigeration, electrification, the telephone, automobiles, television, computers, space travel and the Internet--you see that almost all of them were either invented by Americans, or had some crucial American link that helped turn a fledgling technology into a major boon for human kind. What is it about our economy that nurtures innovation, and how do we support it?

    OK then - human flight, disputed. Refrigeration - I don't know (benefit of doubt to America then). Automobiles - Germany. Television - Britain. Computers - Britain. Space travel - Russia (or more accurately, competeting sets of Germans working in Russia and America after WWII). The Internet - America.

    Perhaps a tad more humbleness might be in order from the writer of this article? A bit more recognition of the fact the rest of the globe does work as well? That final 'or has some link with Americans' is a get-out clause - "we claim it as ours even if we didn't invent it, so there".

    As for the final question "what is it about our (the US) economy that nutures innovation" - that's easy. The US economy is the largest homogenous market, so all suppliers will tailer their goods for that market. It doesn't mean to say the goods themselves have to be either invented or produced in the USA though.

    Cheers,
    Ian

    • Re:Flamebait (Score:4, Informative)

      by cperciva ( 102828 ) on Friday May 14, 2004 @07:22AM (#9149791) Homepage
      Refrigeration - I don't know (benefit of doubt to America then). Automobiles - Germany. Television - Britain. Computers - Britain. Space travel - Russia (or more accurately, competeting sets of Germans working in Russia and America after WWII). The Internet - America.

      Don't forget the Telephone - Canada.

    • Re:Flamebait (Score:4, Interesting)

      by sql*kitten ( 1359 ) * on Friday May 14, 2004 @07:23AM (#9149794)
      US economy is the largest homogenous market, so all suppliers will tailer their goods for that market.

      Emphasis mine. The crucial thing about the US is that it is a market system. If you need investment, you can get it, from someone who has the authority to make a decision there and then. If you have an idea, you can sell it without waiting for a central planning bureacracy to factor it into their 5-year economic plan. The old Soviet Empire couldn't innovate because it centralized its decision making. The US works because of the feedback inherent in a market system: the better you are at satisfying the demands of the market, the greater the resources placed under your control. If you fail, your resources will be depleted and you'll get no more. And who is this market? Everyone to participates in any way in the economy gets to spend or invest their own money how they please.
    • OK then - human flight, disputed. Refrigeration - I don't know (benefit of doubt to America then). Automobiles - Germany. Television - Britain. Computers - Britain. Space travel - Russia (or more accurately, competeting sets of Germans working in Russia and America after WWII). The Internet - America.

      Credit where credit is due of course but sometimes it's not who invents an idea that counts in the big picture, it's who is able to take that idea and run with it.

      Henry Ford didn't invent the automobile but
    • Corrections (Score:4, Informative)

      by div_2n ( 525075 ) on Friday May 14, 2004 @07:45AM (#9149952)
      According to wikipedia.com:

      Automobile -- France via Nicolas-Joseph Cugnot

      Television -- Germany via Paul Gottlieb Nipkow

      Computers -- Britain, sort of, via the Colossus. It was not very programmable though. ENIAC post-date's it but was a true computer in the modern sense that it was designed to be Turing complete.

      Space Travel -- Germany was actually the first to send an object into space in 1942. The U.S. was the first to send a living organism into space in 1946. Russia was the first to achieve an orbital launch in 1957 and subsequently send the first animal up one month later. They also sent the first human up in 1961

      Internet -- US via DARPA.
  • Innovation (Score:5, Insightful)

    by pubjames ( 468013 ) on Friday May 14, 2004 @07:04AM (#9149665)
    America's technological strength is based on innovation.

    I would say it is partly based on innovation.

    One huge advantage that the USA has in most areas of business is a huge, practically borderless, single market containing almost 300 million people. The benefits of this can't be understated, and it's something that other countries can't completely emulate (although in Europe we're trying to create a single market, we'll always have the issues with different languages and cultures).

    I think commentators often overestimate the advantage that the USA has in terms of the greater capabilities of it's people, and also are blinkered if they think that other countries can't achieve greatness as well.
    • Indeed, the USA claims pretty much all inventions for itself, and the people who invented them, and because of it's size when it compares itself to the rest of the world, it looks like it's the only place innovating.

      But a fairer comparison would be to compare, say, the USA with the whole of Europe. I expect if we were to look at, say nobel prizes and group together all of the European ones and then compare that to the USA, the USA wouldn't look so rosy any more.

      Also, I think Europe needs to reclaim some o
    • Re:Innovation (Score:5, Insightful)

      by swb ( 14022 ) on Friday May 14, 2004 @07:33AM (#9149866)
      (although in Europe we're trying to create a single market, we'll always have the issues with different languages and cultures).

      I'm sure many will mod me into oblivion for saying this, but in the U.S. we're working on accomplishing this, too. Instead of encouraging our immigrants to learn English and assimilate, we instead promote bilingualism under the misguided notion that it promotes diversity, when it actually discourages assimilation and limits immigrants opportunities to the lowest end of the economic spectrum, since without a "push" to learn English they never do become bilingual.

      A friend's grandmother was an immigrant from Poland. She said that she learned English not because it was around her, but because it was seen as a badge of honor to speak English. As a teenager when she's shop with some of her older sisters, she would occasionally try to ask them questions in Polish at the counter with a salesperson. Her sisters would either ignore her or tell her to speak English.

      Like it or not, there was a strong social pressure to become an English speaker. Diversity and bilingualists have attempted to eliminate this pressure (it's alternatively xenophobic, racist, or just simply bigoted). If they continue succeeding, we'll end up like Europe, or worse, a Balkanized country divided by language. History demonstrates that nations do not stay healthy divided by language and culture -- the term isn't called "Balkanized" for nothing. Switzerland is the only country I can think that's made it work, everywhere else it always leads to division at best and bloodshed at worst.

      I plan to have my son learn Spanish at the earlist possible age, since even in Minneapolis, it's impossible to hold even a basic functional conversation with many service workers, since they don't speak *any* English. I don't understand how non-Spanish speakers even manage in Southern California, but not living there I don't have a great feel for the Anglo/Latino cultural divide.
      • Re:Innovation (Score:3, Insightful)

        since without a "push" to learn English they never do become bilingual.

        Well since we're trading anecdotes here, let me inject one. The cleaning crew for a building I work in is all Spanish-speaking Mexican immigrants. I learned that most (if not all) of them are illegals. I speak passable Spanish and was surprised to learn that their supervisor spoke fluent English. Where did he learn it? Here in America. Why? Because, in his own words, "you have to if you're going to get anywhere." Most people that make

  • by Jukeb0x ( 678229 ) on Friday May 14, 2004 @07:04AM (#9149667) Homepage
    Five years ago: "So, do you want me to install a scsi interface too?" Five years from now: "So, do you want cream and sugar in your coffee?"
  • by stry_cat ( 558859 ) on Friday May 14, 2004 @07:06AM (#9149672) Journal
    A similar article can be found here [freetrade.org] Here's a brief quote from it.
    A fundamental mistake made by the critics of outsourcing has been to confuse the passing pain of the IT recession with an alleged long-term decline in the sector. That mistake is compounded when current output and employment levels are compared with levels at the frenzied peak of the boom in 2000 rather than with more normal levels from the late 1990s. A more accurate and less alarming picture of the industry emerges if we compare the state of the industry a few years after the bubble burst with its state a few years before.

    Beginning in the early 1990s, with the takeoff of Windows-based computing and the Internet, employment in the IT industry surged. Employment in software and related services grew by one million between 1993 and 2000, before dropping by 166,000 between 2000 and 2002. The story has been much the same across other IT sectors: stupendous growth throughout the 1990s, then a pullback in employment of 10 to 20 percent during the recession. In the IT industry as a whole, employment levels even after the recession were still no lower than in 1998. During the past decade, annual employment in the industry has still grown at a rate twice as fast as employment in private industry in general.(emphasis added)

    It's really not as bad as one might think
    • In the last four years, there have been 1,004,000 new and renewed H1B visas awarded [uscis.gov], and approximately 602,000 of those were in the IT/CS industries.

      Obviously the industry is growing, but industry leaders are using every trick in the book to manipulate labor costs.

      Sure, there are thousands of new jobs being created in the US, but Americans are not even given a shot at filling many of these positions.

      I agree, it's not as bad as one may think, it's actually alot worse!

      www.displacedtechies.com [displacedtechies.com]

  • The Obvious (Score:5, Interesting)

    by kpogoda ( 580939 ) on Friday May 14, 2004 @07:06AM (#9149677)
    The guy is a President of an Engineering University. Is enrollment is down between 20-50% based on nationwide trends. Of course he is going to push a positive forecast to push enrollment up. But the kids are not buying it. I wonder what a good field is these days in the US?
    • 1) HVAC work 2) Carpenter, Electrician, Plumber. The rise of HGTV, This old house, etc has created a demand( artificial?) to do $10,000 remodeling jobs. People spend more money redecorating than our parents did. 3) Painter 4) Ceramic tile/ carpet Hmm do I see a trend?? We, in the "High Tech" are in a big trough. The "next big wave" hasn't started yet. Lets face it . The transistor is 50 years old.We are a silicon based industry. Silicon has become a commodity. We are all in a commodity business. , not u
      • None of those jobs listed involve a lot of "innovation" or re-education to move up to a higher level on the job scale.

        For most people that read slashdot, it would represent a couple of steps down.

        The idea that people can retrain and actually improve their lives in the short term is a joke.
  • Modern day Ford? (Score:5, Interesting)

    by lingqi ( 577227 ) on Friday May 14, 2004 @07:12AM (#9149716) Journal
    Regardless of how much Ford (the original) made cheap cars, he knew that it would mean jack if his employee's can't afford them. He hence paid his employees very well.

    There is no point for a company to be cutting costs if all it does is starve the consumers - it will create a vicious cycle whereby the more you cut costs, the smaller your market.

    Granted, you are opening a new market in the countries where you now do most of your hiring - BUT then it's still a comparative small market because your prices are aimed at consumers with assumed income several times that people in whose countries the products are made.

    Isn't this just another great example of the great human fault of discounting the future?
    • There is no point for a company to be cutting costs if all it does is starve the consumers - it will create a vicious cycle whereby the more you cut costs, the smaller your market.
      The employees of Ford were also the customers of Ford. The employees of IT companies are rarely the customers of IT companies.
      Therefore, your logic doesn't hold true.
      • So, you're saying they're not indirectly customers?

        I mean, if Oracle's direct customer is Ford, and Ford's customers are these IT workers... why will Ford need database software after there is no one left to sell cars to?
  • by I8TheWorm ( 645702 ) on Friday May 14, 2004 @07:14AM (#9149734) Journal
    A point I think the article misses on, and a fairly important one, is the current education system in the US. While problem solving (vs. memorization) is still the focus of education here, it's not as enforced as it was in the past.

    I have family in several states in education and most agree that we're turning out fewer problem solvers than in the past. None seems to have a solution, outside of parenting (or lack thereof), which I think is the leading killer of a solid education.

    What used to draw innovators from other countries was the freedom and opportunity found in the US. Both of those seem to be dwindling. Where does that leave us?

    I think we're also in for a lull in innovation in the US, which is scarier to me than the trend in offshore outsourcing. I've been a professional developer for 13 years. Although I haven't been affected yet, I have to assume it will affect me sometime (hopefully later than sooner).

    With three children, I am the math and science homework helper in the house. What I find is my children are taught tricks and workarounds rather than an understanding of the fundamental math problems. I'm glad to help my children, and love seeing the light go off in their head when they actually understand the problems they work on. So I have this idea. When I "retire" from development (forced or otherwise) I'm going to become a math teacher, preferably at the middle school ages. I've worked in math my whole career, and have had a wonderful experience with my own children (I know, teaching 25 kids is completely different). I think if more people were to go into teaching towards the end of their career, and in a field that matches their respective career, we would be turning out more innovators and maybe worry less about the future of the working world in the US.
    • When I "retire" from development (forced or otherwise) I'm going to become a math teacher, preferably at the middle school ages. I've worked in math my whole career, and have had a wonderful experience with my own children (I know, teaching 25 kids is completely different).

      Good luck. What'll actually happen is that they'll make you do 2 years of teacher training, they'll send inspectors around to watch you teach, then if you don't use their methods, they'll fire you. The purpose of teaching in modern-day
      • Actually, my sister-in-law just went into teaching last year (math as well). She was an office manager for 3 years after college. She took 3 classes to meet her requirements, taught with an observer for one semester, and is now a teacher in the Houston area (though not in HISD).

        Her description of the reason for the observer was so they could determine, outside of testing her, that she knew the material well, and could apply that material in a classroom in reaching children.

        I'd never suggest I could go
      • by arkanes ( 521690 ) <arkanes&gmail,com> on Friday May 14, 2004 @08:29AM (#9150383) Homepage
        Teaching is hardly a "cushy job" basically anywhere. Maybe at the university level, but certainly not down in the trenches where it matters. Low pay, long hours, huge stress (not least of which from people who assume that you're just in it for a cushy job and deride you for it). Which is not to say that there aren't institutional issues with education, but it's not because teachers are getting a free ride.

        Vouchers are stupid and don't solve any problems. "Performance" based teaching is totally moronic. What are you supposed to do with kids with learning disabilities? We'd be alot better off if we had "performance based" parenting, where you only got to have a say in your kids education if you can prove you won't act like an asshat.

        Give teachers the money the deserve, fund classrooms and education properly, and (especially!) start working on outreach in low income areas and maybe we'll see an improvement. There's lots of problems with public education in the US but privatizing it won't fix it. As a data point - all those countries that totally kick our ass when it comes to the education of thier children don't do it with privatized voucher systems.

    • by Phleg ( 523632 ) <stephen@t o u set.org> on Friday May 14, 2004 @08:15AM (#9150232)

      I have family in several states in education and most agree that we're turning out fewer problem solvers than in the past. No-one seems to have a solution...
      Funny how that works out, eh?
  • Slight problem... (Score:4, Insightful)

    by mizukami ( 141102 ) <{tonygonz} {at} {gmail.com}> on Friday May 14, 2004 @07:16AM (#9149763) Homepage
    From the article:

    Engineering in Germany is known for its precision. Japan is recognized for continuous improvement of products (as American automakers have learned all too well). America's technological strength is based on innovation. Of these three, I'll take innovation for the most enduring competitive advantage.


    Slight problem here. Germany and Japan are certainly not known for their lack of innovation, while in many areas the US is notorious for its lack of precision and continuous improvement of products (missiles and other ways of killing large numbers of people being obvious exceptions).

    America's biggest strength is nothing so vague and ephemerous as "creativity" and "ethnic diversity" (unless by ethnic diversity what you really mean is the disproportionate number of advanced science and engineering degrees given to non-Americans), it's just size of the population and access to wealth (raw materials, energy sources, etc.)

    As global economies and improving technologies make these strengths less important as compared to such things as precision and continuous improvement (not to mention a highly educated populace and a sane top leadership), I think that the future of the US will become a very different one than what happened there in the 20th century.
  • Innovation? (Score:3, Interesting)

    by NoMoreNicksLeft ( 516230 ) <(john.oyler) (at) (comcast.net)> on Friday May 14, 2004 @07:20AM (#9149784) Journal
    Because once a few engineers innvoate, we don't need indians or chinese, or hell, factory robots, to build the actual product.

    Because everyone can be an engineer! It doesn't take 6-10 years of difficult math, chemistry and physics courses to become an engineer, and everyone, and by this I really do mean everyone, say at least half our 300 million population, can not only be an engineer, but a innovative one too!

    Wrong cliche, since they wrote this, rather than saying it aloud, but how can they say this with a straight face? I'll tell you how. Because this asshat is one of the privileged, one of the elite. He gets to write stupid opinions for a living.

    At least this opinion isn't nearly as sickening as some of the nascent, not quite formed opinions I see everywhere else. Ask Joe CEO what he thinks, and if he cares to reply at all, it's something to the effect that we should all be daytraders or the like. Too bad we're all sheep.

    Baaaah! Baaaaah!
  • Innovation? (Score:4, Insightful)

    by Jezza ( 39441 ) on Friday May 14, 2004 @07:23AM (#9149799)
    OK so we're saying that "we're good at innovation so we'll be okay" - but where is the evidence?

    What have we really innovated in software in recent times? Windows? From a user perspective little have changed since Windows95 (from an engineer's perspective little has changed from WindowsNT3.1!)

    Linux isn't an example either (firstly it's non-commercial, second it's a rewrite of Unix - the change is more social than technical).

    I guess the browser is THE standout example - now how long did it take for that to become a commodity item? Not long. In software innovation is hard, but refinement is easy. I don't think that this "innovation" thing is going to protect us (even if we are "better at it" and I don't see any evidence to suggest that we are anyway).

    The real issue here is the massive disparity of wages in the "global economy". American workers (and British, like me) can't live on the wages that Indian workers can, money here doesn't go as far (Indian workers are getting wages that are generous for the region - they are doing well). So we simply cannot compete - what is required is to attack the root cause of this - the disparity of the buying power of money across the global economy, because this outsourcing ISN'T a sign of the health of the global economy it's a symptom a massive distortion in the market.

    Of course how you do this is difficult to see, but THIS is the end that we need to look at. We need to be VERY careful how this is done, because large and rapid corrections would be catastrophic to Indian workers and they deserve protection too. But shipping IT jobs (and hence skills) to off shore locations isn't smart in the medium term. Indians aren't stupid, if they are doing all the technical work, why will they be happy to report to foreign management forever?

    I don't believe they will, Indians can be just as enterprising as anyone - they will have a ready work force of skilled workers, trained by OUR companies, it won't be hard to motivate them to set up on competition with US companies (stock options, maybe?)

    It seems that we're underestimating the skills and drive of the Indian people, this is a fundamental mistake.

    If we REALLY want to make the "global economy" work we must correct the distortions within it. I'm sure that the we can compete with India (and other emerging regions) if this is done (it won't kill the outsourcing, but at least we'll all be on a level playing field). Don't think I'm underestimating the Indians, I think they are as capable as any of us, and I think companies that are massively outsourcing either don't understand this OR the decision makers are not concerned with the long term (only short term profits).
  • by leandrod ( 17766 ) <.l. .at. .dutras.org.> on Friday May 14, 2004 @07:25AM (#9149811) Homepage Journal
    >
    When I talk to CEOs about the career paths of the engineers in their companies, they say that many reach a career plateau very early, often after only five years. This happens not because of any technical deficiency, but because of a lack of "people" skills such as communication and teamwork.

    No news here. These are MBA-type CEOs that love to ruin people's lives because they can't lie enough to keep customers happy but screwed. The kinda guy who thinks he's a success because he's filthy rich, and who can't understand he needs people. He can't grok that people want to do something instead of bloodsucking like him. So his company lacks an Y-shaped career path.

    Contrast this to Germany where CEOs are engineers.

  • by syousef ( 465911 ) on Friday May 14, 2004 @07:27AM (#9149825) Journal
    In the words of Homer Simpson "You're living in a dream world...".

    Innovation costs money. Bleeding money off shore through outsourcing until the common guy on the street can't get a job is not going to help scientists and engineers innovate. The more you lower the standard of living in a country, the less people will be concerned with innovation and the more effort they'll need to spend just to stay afloat. Eventually you will simply bring the standard of your own country down closer to the level of the countries you outsource to.

    Outsourcing to another place where people work like slaves for peanuts just to keep themselves from starving is evil. Period. You reap what you sew. This BS WILL come back to haunt us all.

    Everyone who genuinely wants to work should be able to make a living. If they're willing to make a gigantic effort they should be able to expect proportional rewards.

    Sammy
  • by amightywind ( 691887 ) on Friday May 14, 2004 @07:35AM (#9149874) Journal

    When I talk to CEOs about the career paths of the engineers in their companies, they say that many reach a career plateau very early, often after only five years. This happens not because of any technical deficiency, but because of a lack of "people" skills such as communication and teamwork. Moreover, engineers often come up short when they have to deal with people from different fields, such as manufacturing and marketing.

    How enfuriating! This CEO sycophant would have us (engineers) believe if we improved our social skills we could all be executives and all would be right with the world. Bunk. Corporate management structure is about the few controlling the efforts of the many. The structure is not imposed through democratic means - CEO's don't run for office. Neither is the structure merit based. (What do you think about the review process at your company?) It is based on ambition, alliances, and persuasion. Climbing the corporate ladder is considered by some to the the ultimate competition. To me the game resembles musical chairs more than anything else.

    One of the reasons the free software culture appeals to so many in this forum is that those who have reached a "career plateau" can bypass the rigid heirarchy of the corporate world and express themselves professionally though writing software. No management required!

  • by pointbeing ( 701902 ) on Friday May 14, 2004 @07:43AM (#9149933)
    I found the article fascinating and have decided to inflict my own observations on /. ;-)

    As long as the cost of living (and therefore the cost of labor) is higher in the US I believe corporate America will continue to outsource. Anyone who thinks efficiency or innovation is primarily an American product probably has a bit to learn about the rest of the world.

    A subject that hits close to home for me is outsourcing support operations. I work for a fair-sized federal agency and we're currently looking at consolidating Level 1 helpdesk operations from 13 separate helpdesks to one outsourced agency to serve the whole organization.

    Current industry standards say that for an organization our size a helpdesk call should cost the company ~$20. Outsourcing to India would cut that cost in half, so it's easy to see where that option would be attractive to big business.

    Support operations do not generate income, therefore offshore outsourcing reduces operating costs. IM frequently less than HO corporate America's first loyalty is to stockholders and unfortunately altruism doesn't increase the bottom line, so I think companies will continue to outsource until there's a financial incentive for them to quit doing it.

    I don't think code written in the US is necessarily more innovative than code written in India for half the cost - so until third world IT organizations raise wages it's still gonna be more attractive to outsource.

    I think the bottom line is that wages for skilled American IT workers will continue to slip unless they're in a job that cannot be outsourced - I just suggested to my son-in-law that if he wanted a job in IT the place to be was probably in networking - preferably telecom or Information Assurance. Those fields will probably remain for the most part in the good old US of A ;-)


  • Here's a very insightful article regarding this(CAUTION - read till the end):

    Read this story till the last line [mises.org]

    The Nation That Lost Its Jobs, But Got Them Back - ON GOOGLE [google.com]

  • by Anonymous Coward
    India has just a had a federal election with a suprise win by the left. It seems that alot of Indians have not seen improvement themselves despite a hugh growth in there own economy. This is hardly surpising given the level of poverty present in that country - India is a country that is never going to have a standard of living even close to that of a western country. Meaning that outsourcing is here to stay unless these new guys attempt to wind back the clock to what it was like in the the early 90's (ie n
  • Indeed, we think there is something wrong if our neighborhoods and educational institutions do not reflect the incredible diversity of America, and we seek to remedy the imbalance.

    Are we speaking about the same country? Where people drifts to 'hoods with the same economic/cultural/religious background? Is he being sarcastic?

    Or .....

    Is this article really just a big troll?

  • another take on this (Score:3, Interesting)

    by jbellis ( 142590 ) * <jonathan@carOPEN ... er.com minus bsd> on Friday May 14, 2004 @08:04AM (#9150134) Homepage
    By Lawrence Lessig [wired.com], who is widely praised among /. readers for his work in IP law. I wonder if his thoughts on economic protectionism will be as well received. :)
  • by mc6809e ( 214243 ) on Friday May 14, 2004 @08:14AM (#9150219)
    Over the past 10+ years or so, India has seen great economic growth. Many economists attribute this to the adoption of a more capitalist/free market system. Recent elections threaten to turn back these reforms as many rural people feel they have been left out of the boom. Such a backlash might make doing business in India more difficult. In fact, shortly after the elections, the Indian stock market dropped about 4%.

    I'd like to hear the opinion of Indians on these elections and their impact.

  • by reallocate ( 142797 ) on Friday May 14, 2004 @08:48AM (#9150648)
    ...especially if you happen to live where the outsourced jobs are located. It isn't outsourcing then.

    Let things happen. Protectionaism just leads to a workforce stuck making buggy whips.
  • by Doc Ruby ( 173196 ) on Friday May 14, 2004 @12:07PM (#9153210) Homepage Journal
    The editorial says that Americans are more creative than foreigners in engineering advances. And that will remain America's specialty, as foreigners retain other advantages that draw some of the global engineering economy their way. But that creative edge was born in the unique global America of the 20th Century, and is now going the way of that time and its conditions.

    Americans were unusually fortunate in developing a scientific culture, while the rest of the world was still mired in faith cultures: religion, racism, royalty. But those cultures failed, especially when they competed directly with America, most obviously in war, but also in global economics like colonialism. Now American scientism has spread to other cultures, like in Europe and Asia where previously at best a tiny elite indulged. And their share of scientific innovation, and its overachieving younger sister, engineering, is dramatically increasing. Note how many American science papers are coauthored by visiting foreigners. While Americans are increasingly turning to the exact bad habits that kept their global competitors back: complacency, entitlement, anti-intellectualism, faith exclusive of reason, and competition via force rather than excellence.

    Americans, dominating the 20th Century invention scene, stood on the shoulders of foreign giants, some of them immigrants to America. The wave moves on, with the compliance of the medium through which it moves. If Americans keep reorienting towards faith, exclusive of science, and waste all our hard-won opportunities to lead, the wave of innovation will move to where it is more welcome. And many of us, compelled to innovate, will move with it, to foreign shores.
  • by br00tus ( 528477 ) on Friday May 14, 2004 @01:31PM (#9154559)
    This letter is signed:

    Richard K. Miller,
    President,
    Franklin W. Olin College of Engineering

    This is a school that is funded by the Olin Foundation [disinfopedia.org], which is one of the largest funders of anti-labor causes [mediatransparency.org] in the US. The Olin's are multi-millionaires and fund to the tune of millions a year causes that are the most strident in screwing workers and helping millionaires and billionaires. There are not many wealthy American families on the front lines of what they must perceive as a class war as them. The only other ones I can think of are the Coors family, and to some extent Richard Mellon Scaife.

    I read through this article and what is he saying? Nothing but a lot of bullshit. But other people here have mentioned that so I'll just throw up a red flag about who he's connected to (and paid by).

    I should also mention that if there's a "problem" they'll always say it is American workers versus Indian workers. As if we're in a race and have to compete - working longer hours for the same amount of money, improving our skills so we generate more profit for the bosses and so forth. What is not mentioned is overwork [slashdot.org], that if American workers and Indian workers got overtime pay, unemployment would fall (as people would be cut down to 40 hours work per week), and wages would rise, since supply of IT labor hours would shrink, increasing the price.

    I am really tired of hearing the bullshit. The problem is not with the IT workers, we can administrate and program just as well as we could five years ago, if not better. The problem is with the people who control the capital, and their broken-down economic system which has the sole purpose of making profit for them. The only way to fix anything of this for ourselves is to talk to other IT workers who are of a similar mind (which there are many of), organize together and do something together. The sum is greater than the total of all of the parts. There are already nascent efforts out there working towards this, we just have to join up with them and push them along.

  • Why I don't buy it (Score:4, Informative)

    by RomulusNR ( 29439 ) on Friday May 14, 2004 @03:53PM (#9156606) Homepage
    When I talk to CEOs about the career paths of the engineers in their companies, they say that many reach a career plateau very early, often after only five years. This happens not because of any technical deficiency, but because of a lack of "people" skills such as communication and teamwork. Moreover, engineers often come up short when they have to deal with people from different fields, such as manufacturing and marketing.

    This does not explain why companies continue to only hire vertical engineers who have laundry lists of languages, technologies, and certs on their resumes, rather than horizontal engineers who are well-rounded and have better-than-average understanding of a wide range of industries and disciplines.

    The whole statement that we need more "broader" technical talent is bullshit. It clearly has not been communicated down to the people in HR who are continually and consistently denying resumes because they haven't hit enough of the checkboxes on the acronym chart.

    Corporations failed all through the 90s to truly harness and benefit from the diverse interests of broad-minded workers, instead fostering a stovepipe theory of corporate growth which in fact lowered the morale of broad-minded employees because the areas they were once able to branch out into (due to small-company necessity) were yanked from them in the name of territoriality.

    If corporations think they need more broad-minded talent, they need to do two things (well three, but "get their head out of their ass" goes without saying): 1. Un-fuck the unenlightened roboticness of HR resume filtering, and 2. Actually create and promote positions that have broad domains.
  • an axe to grind (Score:4, Insightful)

    by alizard ( 107678 ) <alizard.ecis@com> on Friday May 14, 2004 @04:28PM (#9156962) Homepage
    IMHO, this guy is whistling in the dark. His axe to grind is obvious, he wants people to continue to pay tuition for engineering degrees.

    But what good does it have to add new, innovative engineers to the labor pool if there are no jobs for them and VCs aren't interested in funding *real* innovation that doesn't match the latest set of new/hot buzzwords?

    The other point is that yes, we have real creative artists in the engineering field. However, to develop them to the point where their skills can produce new inventions of the sort which will benefit us all, these people need starting points for their career paths, i.e. entry level programming, electrical engineering, etc.

    These are exactly the jobs that are going overseas.

If the facts don't fit the theory, change the facts. -- Albert Einstein

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