http://www.msnbc.com/news/947478.asp?0dm=s235k With all the outsourcing, should we even get into IT????? Aug. 3 — Looking for a high-paying tech job? Good luck. Offshore outsourcing—the exporting of jobs that were once done in-house—has been on the increase, to the point where a report by Gartner Inc., an information technology research firm, calls the movement of tech-related jobs an “irreversible megatrend.” By 2004, predicts another Gartner study, more than 40 percent of companies will have already shipped some tech-related work overseas or will be testing the idea. Many of those jobs are moving to India, where costs for employee salaries can be significantly reduced. Other countries stand to benefit as well. And, while the tech industry seems to be the most widely discussed thus far, other white collar types of jobs are also at risk. RON HIRA, A post-doctoral fellow at Columbia University’s Center for Science, Policy and Outcomes, has testified before the House of Representatives’ Committee on Small Business on this issue. NEWSWEEK’s Laura Fording asked Hira, a soon-to-be assistant professor of public policy at Rochester Institute of Technology, for his take on what’s happening: NEWSWEEK: How rapidly is offshore outsourcing expected to grow? There has been quite a bit of press about it in recent weeks. Ron Hira: Six months ago, I didn’t think that things were moving that fast. But I’ve been tracking some of the announcements by major U.S. technology companies and almost daily, it seems, they are talking about moving work overseas to cut costs. Forrester [Research Inc.] came out with a study that said that 3.3 million white collar jobs will go overseas by 2015. It’s hard to forecast out one year, let alone 12, so I’m a bit wary of real numbers. But I do recognize that it is real, and is gaining momentum every day. Is cost savings driving the trend? Cost is one thing driving it, but I think there is another aspect: businesses follow what other businesses do. So as more businesses do it, more will be sucked in to thinking it’s the right move. What kind of jobs do you think will be most affected by it? I know most about information technology [IT] jobs and engineering-type jobs, because that’s my specialization. The first moves overseas were call centers, where people handle customer requests or complaints. Or technical support. I know there’s been talk about doing tax returns and processing claims forms and other types of white-collar work abroad. Companies are also considering offshore outsourcing for routine kinds of things that have been done in back offices for years. They’re thinking: “Why do it in Fairfax, Va. when we can do it cheaper somewhere else?” But you can imagine that multinational [corporations] that already have a presence overseas will have occupations that move over more rapidly. My cousins in India tell me that the job market in India has never been so good—the IT market is in a frenzy right now. I’m most concerned about research and development. If you have more and more high level research and development being done abroad, what are then the ramifications here? What does this shifting of jobs overseas mean for the U.S. economy? We really don’t know. One of the problems is that the rhetoric on one side has been somewhat alarmist: “These shops will leave and we won’t be able to do anything about it.” It’s probably not entirely correct but there is some truth to what they say. On the other side, companies don’t really want people to know what’s going on. Policy makers seem to be at a loss at what to do. They may say that this an irreversible trend, it’s just global capitalism at work, free trade. I think it’s a bit of a red herring. This is not all beneficial to the U.S. economy, as some seem to be arguing. How could this potentially affect workers in these jobs? Lots of workers, in lots of occupations, will be displaced. Economists may say that these people will find other work. But the jobs they find may pay significantly lower wages. Or they may have given up trying to find an IT job. What’s dysfunctional about policy-making in the United States is that the Washington elite have been pushing the idea that we have a shortage of scientists and engineers. What is being done to address these concerns at the federal level? There has been legislation introduced to reform temporary visa programs to try to curb some of the abuses. Many of the companies that are very good at offshore outsourcing have actually utilized these visa programs to move work offshore more rapidly. Some companies bring workers in on these visas, train them, and then send them back to their country to replace American workers who trained them. And the American workers, in order to get their severance pay, basically have to do the training. If more research and development and other jobs that demand highly-skilled workers go overseas, won’t it have significant long-term implications? There’s a perception, and I think it’s a correct one, that technology has been the driver of economic growth and change, and if you are not on the cutting edge, if you don’t have a large number of people working in technology, you have to wonder about your military capabilities going forward. There’s also a lot of discussion about intellectual property and security concerns associated with sending work overseas. But companies have to decide whether it’s worth the risk and whether those countries have the right kind of intellectual property [laws] and enforcment. Should college students steer clear of IT, computer science and engineering degrees? Let’s hope not. But there are a lot of engineers who are not recommending these degrees for their children, or nephews or cousins or friends. The risk involved is too great—it’s better to go into a safer occupation. These are our best and brightest so they can pretty much go into any occupation they choose. But when your best and brightest are out of work, you have to start wondering what’s going on. Have you spoken with a lot of IT workers? What are their responses? What’s interesting about IT people and engineers is that they tend to have a libertarian streak, ideologically. They believe in meritocracy. They’ve made it through engineering school—many of the others failed—and they’ve made it on their own merit. So some view any government intervention or unions in a negative way. Then you have a number of other people who are just outraged. And then have others who say, “What do we do about this? How do we move forward?” I would say fear is another big reaction. There is a lot of insecurity out there. You go to local IEEE [Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers] meetings and the first topic of discussion is jobs. What do you think the long range consequences of all this will be? It’s really a hard call. If we can come up with some smart policy, this can be a positive on both ends. The United States does have a vested interest in seeing other countries grow and seeing other people get good jobs, but we can’t abandon people here. Whether or not we lose our prowess depends a lot on what companies and policymakers do.
I cannot believe this country! I have worked to become a it engineer for a while now and have 2 national awards and when I graduate I not going to be any better off than I am now! I was going to get my degree in business administration with a consentration in marketing but decided to geta degree in information technology instead because that were my heart is . I am now wondering did a I make a huge mistake. Are these company not worry about the usa workers were they came? I wonder who is going to buy there crap if they start outsourcing all the jobs? I wonder who's next chemist ,project management ,middle management? where a way there a buck i guess. I am just wondering what are us suppositly elite band of unemployed engineers supposed to do? Do we go from 50,000 a year to a 18,000 a year mcdonalds job! Maybe I should more to one of those foreign countries to see if I can get an It job? I dont want to work in any other field I am sick of this bureaucracy! Give our jobs back ! period!
EDS is shipping white-collar jobs offshore to catch up with low-cost competitors. http://www.forbes.com/forbes/2003/0929/058.html A "real" scary story for Techs.
Don't do a job that could be outsourced overseas. If it is the type of job you could do sitting in a cube all day or telecommuting from your house with a PC and phone (programming, phone tech support etc.) it could also be done by someone else in India for much less. Get into something "hands on." Call center and large back office datacenter type jobs will likely continue to go overseas along with R&D facilities. There will always be companies that want all their people to be local and would not save enough by outsourcing overseas to make that worth their while.
CPA's are in danger. EDS' U.S.-certified CPAs in Chennai (formerly Madras) are preparing corporate tax returns for an American manufacturing giant and doing bookkeeping tasks outsourced by other big companies. (EDS won't name its clients.) Other jobs The picture is the same companywide. In the same month that Jordan said hewould lay off thousands in the U.S. and Europe, EDS announced the opening of the Mumbai office and another in Auckland, New Zealand. It is scouting for bigger offices in Malaysia, where 100 jobs will be added in the next 18 months to the 400 already there. Workers do such jobs as processing bills for phone companies, handling expense report payments and writing code to keep computer systems from overloading. "I can offer someone the same capability at half the price," says Michael Stockwell, managing director of EDS Malaysia. =============================================== May be we should plan doing CFA or CISA or other related certifications that would require us to be physically in US. or MBA in Health Care ????
What do you guys think about Networking and Unix system Admin jobs.. Like being involved in network design and systems/net support. I was thinking about doing CCIE ? I already have CCNA. Is it worth the effort to do CCIE then ? or should I be looking into something else. I also have Database knowledge. Do you think these types of jobs are also going abroad ?
I already responded on the other post, but I'll give it another go here. Will networking, database, administration jobs go overseas? Yes, but the real question is how many or if 'all' of them will go overseas. The answer is absolutely not. In the future even with maximum employment sent overseas there will be hundreds of thousands of jobs in this nation. Lets take networking to build an example. In the perfect world where all administration was done remotely their would still have to be local individuals to pull cables and to do initial installs. However, the world is not perfect and business individuals are well aware of this. When electricity goes down in India dropping communications from your data center businesses in the U.S. will not be happy. A simple UPS will not sufice since every single node from India to the U.S. is a point of failure. Additionally, although many workers in India, and other locations, speak english perfectly well many do not. How many times does manager X need to communicate to the programmer, network engineer, etc... Not only is India on the opposite side of the world meaning your employee would have to work nights to be able to respond, but if they do not speak perfect english the manager in the U.S. will be frustrated without a translator and having to communicate through a translator will not make the manager happy. Additionally, even though outsourcing is all the rage in the U.S. realize that their is a significant push by millions of businesses to keep everything they can 'in house' since they do not trust contractors. I do not believe it is that big of a jump in logic to say that their would be more resistence to contracting out a service outside of the country when their is resistence to contracting out a service to a business in the same city/town/locality. Additionally, anyone who has taken even the simple program management / development courses will be able to tell you for successful development (or maintanence for that matter) communication is key. Business communication courses will teach that teleconferences will allow a reduction in necessary travel, but face to face meetings will be key. Needless to say it is more expensive to travel from India then it is from Detroit (and once again don't forget possible communication problems). One final point for tonight. I think it would be safe to say that the most qualified individuals are currently being employed. Translation...additional oversea employees means that less qualified individuals will need to be hired leading to less productivity, more training requirements, etc.... John
I am a CCIE and i know a few CCIE jobs going to india. They manage/troubleshoot networks from there. Take a look at these companies in India .. they do all sorts of LAN/WAN management for some large companies in USA http://www.microland.net/Sols_Services_new/ML_services_mgdinfra_fm.asp http://www.hclcomnet.com/datacenteroperations.htm
