IT Outsourced to India

After 6 years with the same employer, my company has just layed off 200 people to outsource support and development to India. Of course, they keep us around for awhile to train our replacements. That should be fun!

Besides being terribly disapointed, I'm actually sort of excited about it because now I get to go off and do some of my crazy ideas.

Has anyone else been though this?

You could blow up your office and put your boss' head on a stake. Seems fair to me.

I'm on the employer end (if any) of the situation, and I think outsourcing should be made illegal because of the damage it causes to society.

I've been there, but our jobs took a 2 step journey. They moved the department to Ireland for a year then jumped to India.

One of the guys that was in my team moved himself and his family to Ireland (with the help of the company), only to find out he was out of a job twelve months later. Nice.

yeah I was in the same boat 4 years ago :/ had an awesome job doing really well got married and 2 months later was laid off.

If I were you, I'd promptly teach them how to _fail_ :)

HP moved their entire support ladder to India... Then they moved it to Costa Rica. The people in Costa Rica are nice but have bad accents... I speak fluent español but they keep trying to speak english. If I speak spanish they get the order right... if I speak english they have a hard time but it is a point of pride that they can speak english.

Oy!

Our MILCON government contract which my company develop and been maintaining the software for several years now, was recently outsourced to India since the firm there under-bidded us big time during contract renewal.

The funny thing, the guys who wrote and maintain the code didn't make it too "programmer friendly" and the folks in India haven't accomplished anything yet (over a month now...). The MILCON firm is now reconsidering us again....go figure...

There will be a ceiling on activity like this, the country (UK) can only take so much.

Especially now the EU is expanding again to allow Romanians and Bulgarians through. It's bad enough with the Polish at the moment, hordes of them snapping up work and charging dirt cheap prices or wages.

Hopefully I'll be gone from this once great island in a few years, there's no feeling of nationality left, lol, you even get wrong from the local council is you fly the union jack/saint george cross. Schools cancel Xmas in case it offends the minority.

As well as the taxes, I'm starting to think the sheriff of nottingham is back in power.

for non-UK Blitzers, hows this for a law they are trying to push through:-

A Council Officer knocks on your door, no warrent, and you HAVE to let him in, if you don't, you'll be find £2000, then £200 a day there after till he has access.

The reason for this is that he does a full survey of your home, taking note of porches/extension, rooms (How many rooms you have), kichen size, toilet size.... the works!

Then, your annual council tax bill is evaluated on that, which is going to push people even more!

Here's another one:-

Every car in the UK may be fitted with a black-box, this box tracks your movements on the roads, each type of road you use has a seperate 'price per mile', at the end of the month, a tax bill comes in demanding payment for using said roads (Country roads start at 2p p/m, motorways 132p p/m, not definite, but its something like that)

Currently, if you receive a shed full of cash/property or other kinds of estate from a deceased loved one's will, you have to pay 45% of that in inheritance tax!

This is the point, the goverment is allowing UK companies to move jobs off-shore, leaving skilled UK workers behind.

They are allowing MASS immigration (Currently, for every 1000 people that leave Britain, 3000 enter), they are also letting hordes of foreign workings in like the Polish), leaving UK workers being shunted aside.

So when all comes to all, HOW THE HELL DOES THE SHERIFF OF NOTTINGHAM EXPECT THE VAST MAJORIY OF UK WORKERS TO PAY THEIR TAXES?

Idiots, the lot of them... grrrr

Dabz

>Especially now the EU is expanding again to allow
>Romanians and Bulgarians through. It's bad enough with the
>Polish at the moment, hordes of them snapping up work and
>charging dirt cheap prices or wages.

The point of the internal market in the EU is to lower the wages of the west to eastern european standards, thereby making the EU more competitive. Unfortunately, unless you own a sizable number of shares in a large company, you won't benefit.


Andy

loads of "success stories" on outsourcing: http://thedailywtf.com/

Dabz - they aren't idiots. They're doing exactly as intended. The idiots are the unfortunate common people who have been bred that way and are soon to be completely abandoned. Destroy nationality and the EU expands to fill in the vacuum - the only winners are big business and a select group of unelected elitist dictators who you never learned about in school or ever saw on television. The EU is the old soviet union waiting to be recognized - it just has not shown its true colours yet, but with each new draconian law resticting freedoms (for our protection of course) the true parasites in power will become bolder.

But as for out-sourcing, it'll all come crashing down. I bet there are already a huge number of security scandals that are being hushed up right now...how dumb can it be to have your bank account details available to criminals in another soveriegn country?..not saying they're all criminals but the criminals will know where to go to get what they're after.

Dabz,

I dislike the UK very much too; mostly because of all the people who hold flag-waving nationalistic, anti-immigration views such as yours. And, of course, because of the binge drinking "culture" and plague of scummy chavs. As soon as I finish up my degree I'll be out of here - and good riddance to the wretched uncivilised place.

I was laid off once. It didn't really bother me. I moved to China.

I feel the same way about the patriots here in the states, Luke.

Of course, the other points Dabz made were valid reasons to be extremely concerned/angry.

Just out of curiousity, how many laws and freedoms have been revoked or are in the process of being changed over there in the name of protection from terrorism?

Not too many, but generally the UK is more authoritarian than the US anyway; there is less freedom and more privacy infringing surveylance. The consensus seems to be that the only people who object to state spying are criminals, terrorists or people with criminal intent.

There have been some purposefully vague free speech inhibiting laws regarding actions that incite racial/religious hatred, and also an extremely suspect proposal to allow people to be held by the police for 90 days without trial (which was quite rightly thrown out.)

Get this - NORWAY - yeah, the tiny 4-5mill inhabitants country up north in europe, is increasing its military defence budgets and calling in more troops due to the Sep.11.2001 attack in US.
But fixing the roads that kills hundreds each year? nah ...

I got made redundant too. From the same company as JustLuke, coincidentally.

I blame the French (not all of them; just Infogrames/Atari/whoever they are this week).

Outsourcing is great! Seriously, somebody above said they hate Britain because we have too much flag waving nationalism. We barely have any, that's why companies feel free to move jobs to developing countries so the select 1% can be even richer at the expense of the other 99% of people. They know full well 90% of the country aren't intelligent enough to know too much of this will have a major effect on the country. If large sections of the population boycotted any company that did such things too much then they'd have to keep jobs in the UK.

I'm increasingly worried by the effect outsourcing and too heavy immigration is having on people. People seem to go to either stupid extreme, either they hate anybody that wants to maintain their jobs and way of life, branding them a racist. Or they go to the other extreme and hate anybody different or from another country, well get this, they didn't come here with guns and force us to let them in come here. WE allowed them to come here in too greater numbers. There seems to be few people that like me, like other countries and cultures but....shock horror...also respect our country. You no longer have variety if you shove everybody into one country and stir them up. The world beginning to loose diversity is perhaps the greatest unnoticed tragedy in the world today.

Thanks Luke. Come to my country, get your degree and exit with your middle finger firmly raised. I think the US could be accused of being as Nationalistic and flag waving as any other country, and while I agree we have a Nanny State here, I think US citizens are in as much danger of losing their freedoms as us, all under the banner of 'The war on terrorism'. Don't get me wrong, I actually like the States and I have family there, but you are being somewhat hypocritical.

I'm all for people to move here for a better life than they have back home, if they've got the skills to plug any gaps in our industries, take my old company, it's just laid off half it's british labouring workers, and set on polish contractors, three of my mates got laid off, now they are in box one at the dole! And I bet a pound to your penny that the Polish workers wont be on minimum wage, or even the majority of the money earned doesnt see the taxman!

I worked in London for one and a half years on the building sites, and the amount of foreign people working 'on the fiddle' is unreal! Granted British people do it too, but I've seen nothing like it.

I've been there, seen it, the world doesnt just revolve around IT, it's a problem everywhere, and it should be sorted before it's too late.

Call me anti-whatever, call me a nationalist, call me susan if if you like, but I'm proud to be British, I'm proud of my countrys history, I want to stay in Britian, just with every year passing, I feel I'm getting pushed out because I'm a white brit, getting squeezed ever more, which makes my views seem more aggressive, and if our goverment doesnt get their finger out, this country is going to pop, and I dont want to be here when it happens!

[EDIT} Just thought, this is probably the point were I fall out with half the community, but please note, I dont intend to offend anyone (Apart from chavs), I've read your views and respect them as you as an individual, and as discussions like this goes, no one is right and noone is wrong, it's just the shitty old world we live in... Thanks for reading

Dabz

Um, its his country too, and I don't blame him for wanting out. His Clarkson-esque review of the place is bang on.

Yep, scummy chavs do my nut in too, think they own the place, take the piss out of anyone, take the piss out of the police, you deck one and the next thing that happens is the police are knocking on your door! :/

Waste of human skin!

Dabz

You ever spent the night on one of those horrid blue matresses with only a stainless steel bog for company?

Most unpleasant. I don't recommend it.

Not yet, touch wood! But been close! :)

My brother is a little slow, he went to the local special school (as they like to call it), and one night he was walking past the shops, and this fatish chav thought he was clever in front of his mates and give our john a black-eye. I got wind of it later and stormed to the lads house, I knocked on the door, his mam answered and I asked if he was in, he came to the door and I swung for him, smack bang on the nose, next thing I knew I was in the house... his dad chucked me out, and I ended up rolling about with him for a couple of minutes, bit stronger than me but I had a go (I got a canny shiner too), the mother was trying to pull the chavs dad off me and my mate crainey was trying to pull me off the dad, it finally settled down with his dad sying he was going to call the police...

I went home, 15 minutes later there was a copper at the door, I told the story of what happened, the police interviewed our john, next thing they dropped the charges after they found out why I came to the door!

After that, non of the chavs have blinked an eye at our john since! :)

Dabz

You got me!

I've had my share of bad experiences with the police. Friend of mine made a citizens arrest on a thief at his office and actually had a photo of 4 of them standing next to a stash of equipment they had stolen. He just went up and said 'Cheese'. The police were called and still hadn't turned up an hour later... and the detainee was going mad in the toilet where they had shut him, pulling all the internal ceilings down trying to escape. The police were called again and my friend was told to let the guy go. The police weren't seen until several days later and never got anyone. Then there was the time I took a kicking from 3 lads and had my jaw broken (totally unprovoked, hadnt even spoken to them). The copper taking my statement the next day actually laughed and said they get a lot of that. Finally, the time my brother was purposefully rammed off the road. A decent police woman knew the description of the car and caught a local trouble maker red handed. In particular, there were dents with two layers of differently coloured paint matching my brother's car. It was handed over to another officer who promptly went on holiday and forgot about the case. After numerous phone calls over the weeks, my father went to the station to complain nothing had been done. The officer accused him of being a time waster and told him to get out!

Outsourcing is good and belongs to free market.. It's distributing wealth too.

Exploitation of poverty, more like.

Free in a sense that it's costing other people their jobs? Cute! :)

Dabz

What business does Europe have allowing immigration at all? Do you hate Japan because they don't replace their native population with another one?

But it also provides jobs for other people in less developed countries, which in turn aids global development. Of course it sucks to lose one's job, but bear in mind that you and I and most people are free to emigrate to other countries and take jobs in those countries too.

I'm not attacking you, Dabz - just the view that immigration somehow steals jobs. Immigration and outsourcing ultimately benefits both developed and developing countries. And, let's face it, anyone who is unwilling to go where the jobs are can hardly complain that companies aren't bringing the jobs to them.

So outsourcing merges developed nations with third-world hellholes that don't have any worker protections or such a thing as a minimum wage? And he's supposed to be proud his job is being sacrificed for the sake of global development (company saves money, some guy in India gets paid a few chickens)? That sounds admirable.

You seem to be confusing places with people here - the common mistake of nationalists. The concept of nationhood is one of exclusion; there can't be an us without a them.

Look, in referring to the UK, I of course meant "the prevalent society and culture of the UK" - I don't literally hate the UK, because it's just the name for a bunch of inanimate objects; trees, dirt, grass, etc. Europe doesn't allow or disallow immigration, neither does Japan - they're just places, not thinking beings. People allow or disallow immigration, and I dislike anyone who would selfishly seek to deny others the pleasures and advantages that they possess.


You're speaking in broad generalisations here. You'll have to be more specific: Which developing country are you calling a hellhole?

EDIT: By the way, you seem to be arguing against capitalism rather than immigration (which is a necessary feature of free market capitalism). You can't accept the benefits without also accepting the disadvantages, unfortunately.

Leadwerks, usually better economy is followed by worker protections etc.

Globalisation causes our western nations economy growth to slow down a little, but it will still go up. And these poor countries will get richer. It's a good thing.

>You seem to be confusing places with people here - the
>common mistake of nationalists. The concept of nationhood
>is one of exclusion; there can't be an us without a them.

So what! Every ideology, religion, way of life or any other system of thought can only exist by the same principle, indeed the concept of 'I' is only possible because we as human beings can differentiate between ourselves and others. This is natural, but then you go around turning it into a nationalist conspiracy.

The problem is, if you don't have 'us' or 'them', all you have is a droid army void of any thinking at all. But then, that would certainly please both the left wingers who thrive on poverty so much so that they want to import it, and the right wingers who wants to free themselves from taxes, nevermind the poverty that will follow for everyone else.

>People allow or disallow immigration, and I dislike anyone
>who would selfishly seek to deny others the pleasures and
>advantages that they possess.

To protect what your parents and grandparents have worked for isn't selfish. Somebody worked hard and fought for the right for their children to be able to have unemployment benefits, to live in a welfare society etc.

Most of the immigrants/welfare refugees to european countries have decided to take the easy way out, instead of fighting to implement a wellfare society that their children will enjoy, they have emmigrated to get to enjoy one now.

Pleasures and advantages are things you have to work hard for, and if some people would get off of their behinds and fight for their rights, then they could have those rights without emigrating.

>Leadwerks, usually better economy is followed by worker
>protections etc.

Absolutely wrong. In order for worker protections to become an issue, you need unions. Unions are either banned or made ineffective by most developing countries because most foreign companies consider them a threat to their long term profits. In many countries, unionizing will get you or your family killed.

>Globalisation causes our western nations economy growth to
>slow down a little, but it will still go up. And these
>poor countries will get richer. It's a good thing.

How is it a good thing when people in the west have their lives wrecked by losing their jobs and people in developing countries are being abused in order to profit maximize a companys earnings.


Andy

Also, nationhood which the greedy carpet-baggers who're really behind mass immigration to the west despise so much is what has protected different peoples for centuries. Sovereign countries prevent the globalists from taking over completely which is why they're being destroyed in the space of a single lifetime using every kind of deception possible through every available channel.
Anybody who thinks the motives behind out-sourcing and uncontrolled immigration are for the benefit of the poor people in this world could not possibly be more more duped. It's simply a means towards an end... and it isn't egalitariansim.

I agree with Leadworks/Halo/Josh on this one.

The distribution of economy as you put it is a myth. This implies that the poorer class incomes will increase magically. And suppose what you say is accurate... That means the asking price of the outsourced work force will eventually go up. Then you're back to where you started when the client inevitably seeks out cheaper labor again.

What a lot of corporations do not realize is that outsourcing simply gets you what you pay for, and weakens your resources on the homefront.

Every company I know and have worked for that has outsourced has lived to regret it. If it wasn't communication barriers as Rook mentioned above, it was blatent incompetence.

I used to work with a very large group of outsourced group of people from india. Nicest bunch of folks. They actually resided in our office (in the US) because it was a requirement of the company I worked for. I was informed by quite a few of them that these outsourcing agencies are told to promise the world, and try to learn to deliver the goods as they go. This became pretty obvious, and I was exiting the company, the new upper management were phasing them out.

The act of outsourcing shrinks the local IT community. And when the time finally comes for a company to realize they messed up and try to get local help, good luck to them. They will be ignored, or they will end up paying the money they thought they were going to save.

Or, worse yet, the act eliminates the local IT community entirely, at which point their cheap outsourced labor controls the situation. We'll see how inexpensive it is then....

I don't really blame the indian/coding sweatshops. They need to make a living too.

Who's to blame are the corporate suits that make irresposible knee-jerk decisions in desperate attempts to save a couple bucks on the bottom line. The truth is, IT is a skilled labor, and with skilled labor, you are rightfully obligated to pay for it as much as those that provide it are rightfully obligated to live up to the price. Nobody goes to school and puts in a countless amount of commitment to work for a miniscule wage. What's the point?

Rest assured, kharma will prevail here. They will know eventually of the mistake they made.

nawi

>>Outsourcing is good and belongs to free market.. It's distributing wealth too.

Let the guys in india make thier own jobs. I want mine back.

It is sort of funny. I work with a number of guys from India here on H1B visas. I want to know why I don't have a job but the H1's do? Shouldn't they have been sent home first? The H1's start out making less money at first but soon end up making as much as anyone else. The big plus for the company is that they know they own these guys. If they whine they know they will be sent home. The company burns these guys 24/7 with on additional compensation.

Bill Gates is always saying there aren't enough It works in the US. What he really means is there aren't enough IT works that will work for what he's willing to pay.

I'm actually not all that upset. I'll find something better.

It's always amusing when a bunch of guys who have no actual experience of the impact that the free market and outsourcing make on developing countries make bold claims about it not benefitting those countries.

It's just a discussion Luke, hell, we always talk about graphics cards, sound cards, processors, all that tech, which console is better than the other... But in reality, who has the actual experience in building them, no one, but that doesnt stop us discussing on what 'we' think, or how we 'feel' about them! :)

Dabz

EDIT:Just thought, I'm amazed this thread didnt burst into flames, I hope skid takes notice :D

I still reckon that if someone makes big claims then they should be ready and willing to back them up, though, but I'm not exactly frothing at the mouth in rage about it. We're just having a nice little chat, right?

Honestly, I was expecting this thread to be locked a while back. It just goes to show that people can discuss interesting issues and even - gasp! - disagree with each other without needing to be disciplined like children (occasionally).

Exactly! ;)

Dabz

As others have pretty much said JustLuke there needs to be jobs for everybody in the world and just transferring the number of jobs there are at the moment from one side of the planet to the other doesn't fix the problem, it just moves it.

Do you really think the developed world can export jobs indefinitely and still be part of the developed world?

I take your point, but my argument is that outsourcing helps developing countries become more developed, which effectively raises the global average of development.

As to your argument that outsourcing simply moves problems rather than fixes them, take China as an example of how flawed this opinion is:

China experiences double digit economic growth year by year due to foreign investment and outsourcing.

Due to the exploitation of Chinese workers by Wall Mart, China has recently strengthened the role of trade unions, enhancing the rights of Chinese workers.

Wages may be low in China, but due to foreign invenstment they are improving. Recent times have seen the emergence of a new middle class that is both more wealthy, more worldly and better educated than ever before. These people will have a great influence on China's political future.

Due to the huge amount of wealth that companies/countries invest in China, the country has come under a great deal of international scrutiny. These days corruption, lack of free speech and fair political representation can no longer be hidden quite so well. Progress is slow, but the pressure to reform is building.

And I suspect that the same could be said for many other developing countries too.

Would those outsourced jobs have had such a positive impact on people in the developed countries from which they originate? Of course not. Outsourcing has a demonstratably positive global effect. If one country can't compete with another in a particular area then it needs to find another in which it can. It is ludicrous to adopt an "I can't compete so I will remove the competition" mentality.

Development, perhaps... But you can make a good argument that the average quality of life decreases.

The westerner who loses his job and can't find another one will probably give up more than whoever gets the job in the developing nation will gain... While they make a decent salary for the local economy, many are still being exploited by the powers that be with draconian working environments and insane hours.

But the westerner who is unable to find work is unlikely to starve to death - his developed country probably provides a level of financial support that developing countries do not.

Besides, exploitation is a necessary phase of development. I don't claim that outsourcing and foreign investment are magical cure all for alls for a poor country's problems, but the facts speak for themselves: investment leads to very real improvements to the quality of life in those countries. Once people are no longer consumed by the struggle to satisfy their basic needs then they tend to turn their attention to other problems in society, leading to development in other areas.

Let's also not forget that there is nothing to prevent any westerner from taking a job in one of these countries and enjoying a standard of living comparable to one found in a developed country.

IMO ;) China is eventually going to cause serious problems for the UK, because the stuff they export is so damn cheap (and it's cheap for a reasons described above). I did read somewhere that if China keeps on growing, and we keep on buying their goods, we are going to see another 80's crash where interest rates go through the roof.

Now that's not a good thing for the UK at this point in time, since house prices are getting higher (my 2 bedroom house is currently valued at £95 000, double for what I paid for it!)

You cannot buy a decent sized three bedroom ex-council house nowadays for less than £115 000. Now that's way beyond the average persons financal status, even an average couple would be pushed to get a mortage that high!

For those that do go out and buy a home, and you've got to admit, everyone needs somewhere to live, and interest rates rise at least 1%, that's extra money to pull out on top of everything else.

In the 80's, interest rates soared to 15%, which at the time, The UK's unemployment figures were at its highest, people were topping themselves because they lost their jobs, their home, their family.

Interest rates go hand in hand with how many people are working, if noone is working, the Bank of England have to claw back every penny to help give give people some money in social...

So in effect, the more jobs that go offshore, the more it's going to cost the average punter/small business to keep the goverments purse strings filled!

But hey, out-sourcing is helping people abroad, so if my mortgage company sends the heavys round when I cannot afford to keep my payments up, I'll find comfort in owing thousands of pounds because someone, somewhere has given my job to someone abroad, because it's a good thing to spread wealth!

Lovely :)

Dabz

Where I live in the UK is 80% immigrants who don't really speak english at all. It is depressing, crime is high and I do not have a sense of identity in my own country.

I do not feel national pride, only a faint sense of loss. This atmosphere makes England feel like a trashy euro supermarket.

If you have lots of money you will be spared my grim view of England, as you'll live somewhere nice, away from the reality. This country is shot, and I no longer love it.

The blame goes to the Labour Party. They are the sole change of heart in me. I doubt if we changed governments, the Tories would be any different.

I hope to leave one day, at least get as far from London as possible.

So basically you've told me my opinion is flawed by agreeing with it? If I said moving jobs from one part of the planet to another doesn't fix the problem it just moves it, of course the places that are getting the jobs are going to start to be better off. Maybe you have a point somewhere but I think you failed to communicate it.

I hear this from people in favour of globalisation a lot. I still don’t understand what people that hold this view think we CAN compete in if Chinese or whoever, works for less. They’re humans just like us, if we can do a job so can they, but they can do it cheaper due to wages and biased exchange rates etc. Please tell me what we can compete at exactly?

>Due to the exploitation of Chinese workers by Wall Mart,
>China has recently strengthened the role of trade unions,
>enhancing the rights of Chinese workers.

The chinese 'trade unions' are state owned and operated by the communist party. Collective bargaining is not allowed, striking is not allowed, workplace safety is not a union issue... In fact, pretty much everything that a western trade union does, is not allowed in China.

>Wages may be low in China, but due to foreign invenstment
>they are improving. Recent times have seen the emergence
>of a new middle class that is both more wealthy, more
>worldly and better educated than ever before. These people
>will have a great influence on China's political future.

The bottom line is this. No working stiff cares about chinas development if it means that they'll have their own lives wrecked.

>would those outsourced jobs have had such a positive
>impact on people in the developed countries from which
>they originate? Of course not.

I don't care. I am not going to sacrifice by neighbour so that a high ranking member of the chinese communist party can get a new Mercedes Benz.

>Outsourcing has a demonstratably positive global effect.

That's not true. Pumping money into various third world dictatorships and hoping that somehow they will become democracies is a dream, promoted by the only ones who benefit... Stockholders of large corporations.

>If one country can't compete with another in a particular
>area then it needs to find another in which it can.

Ricardo is dead.

>It is
>ludicrous to adopt an "I can't compete so I will remove
>the competition" mentality.

Not at all. Tradebarriers have worked well for centuries, for most european countries. It's a simple way of leveling the playingfield when you have asymetric competition.

>But the westerner who is unable to find work is unlikely
>to starve to death - his developed country probably
>provides a level of financial support that developing
>countries do not.

So it's ok to wreck a guys life, because you feel that the chinese guy will ultimately benefit more from having that job.

In other words, you support the idea of penalizing people in developed nations for living in developed nations. That's all I needed to know. I'll take the nationalists or the marxists any day, atleast they have a sense of solidarity.


Andy

The whole premise that globalization is going to help developing countries is absurd. Employers make the effort to seek human resources from half a world away because they are trying to skirt local employee rights and protections. They go to these countries because the people will work for a few grains of rice, and have no rights. Why would they want conditions to improve for faceless foreign employees in another hemisphere? They don't even care about their own people and nation.

It's like the illegal alien issue in the U.S. Tyson Foods doesn't give their employees the day off to go protest because they want them to come back as citizens. If they wanted to pay their employees minimum wage, they would have hired American citizens in the first place. Tyson Foods wants illegal aliens to receive more benefits and freedom, so that the company can push more of their labor costs off onto the government.

Outsourcing and hiring of illegal aliens transforms developed nations into third-world countries with no worker rights, and extremes of wealth and poverty. It already happened in California, and it is now happening in Europe.

That's typically whats happening, and I find it a little unreal some people cannot see it!!!

And as far as 'spreading wealth', take this cut from this page: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/9424936/


Attention has focused especially on mistreatment of migrant laborers from the countryside, in the wake of a case involving a construction worker who killed four people when he despaired about his pay.


then this one:-


These days, the wealth gap is evident everywhere, from elderly citizens digging through downtown trash bins for plastic bottles to recycle to migrant shacks squeezed between luxury villas in Shanghai’s suburbs.


And it's probably the same everywhere else in the developing world...

So the idea about out-sourcing isnt to be a good human being and making money for deprived people, it's about helping fat cat bosses make more money, people in China and India etc etc are'nt going to see diddly squat of it, and people in my country are going to pay for it with their money and their jobs!

I'm finished with this discussion now, it's been a good'un, but no post 'for' out-sourcing has changed my views.

Thanks for the chat Luke, even though your view is totally opposite to mine, at least we can agree to disagree! ;)

Dabz

In a few years, all service industries will be based in India and all manufacturing will be based in China. Well, that's the way it seems to be going, anyway. I can't see a way to stop it. :/

I see it that way, too, 10p. I predict the UK will end up as a giant management and consultancy cell with no production capability and precious little technical expertise.

> I see it that way, too, 10p. I predict the UK will end up as a giant management and consultancy cell with no production capability

Look on the bright side, eventually enough of the jobs will go overseas so that things will look to expensive to build there and then the jobs start coming back - you can stand a couple decades of rampant unemployment and poverty for the global market can't you?

I hate that it's happening to you, but trust me ... it's not the last you'll hear from your idiot outsourcing employer if the same thing happens to them what happened to mine. I worked for a pre-print press graphics company for two years, then a fellow from India came to train with us so that they could lay off six people (in a tiny company with only 9 artists) and move it all to him.

Three months later, and many many man hours of fixing all his mistakes, they started outsourcing to me. Now I work from home, doing the work I would've done there, but remotely and without fear of being fired (since I'm doing them a favor and for much more money). Now he has 0 work, and I am the on-shoring solution. The quality for work will drop drastically when they outsource particular kinds of work (namely the kind that require proper english and proper procedure). I hope any company that outsources / lays off to India tanks from the lack of quality for their cheap a$$ ideas.

Tyler - I agree with you. All the outsourcing projects I've seen have failed and end up coming back. My company has even done it. They must have forgotten how badly it turned out.

I've seen how these things play out before. We had a project move to the west coast. They hired a contracting firm who brought in twice the number of bodies to replace us. All the contractors were Indians. Smart guys but they bit off more than they could chew. They promised the world before they even understood what the application was. They never really understood the application so they ended up rewritting what they could and let the rest of it tip over. About a year later, the project was transfered to another team. In the end the company spent about $30 million moving a $10 million project. Clever guys...

My employeer laid someone off last year, brought her back for six months and paid her way more than she would have earned in a year. They expect to bring her back again next year also. Basically, if she wants, she gets a six month vacation and wheelbarrow full of money.

I'm not waiting around for them to come looking for me. I've got better things to do. I may go back to consulting as the money is outstanding or I might take a job at one of the local companies that look interesting.

I'm also working on doing a start up! Now that would be fun! There is plenty of investment money around and people are ready to get back into high tech.

Kinda makes you want to become a 7-11 clerk over in India, doesn't it? ;)


The western world is a lot harsher than the picture you paint. In cases such as this, it's usually family that bails that someone out. Why? Getting help from the government is a job in itself. There are a lot of controls in place and a lot of red tape to cut through to get aid. There are a lot of good reasons for it, but most of those reasons are unreasonable obstacles to those that legitimately need it.



Not having a go at you, but I wonder why someone needs to experience the impact in order to make accurate speculation. In fact, there are some things that are best speculated about and acted upon before irreversable damage occurs. Many good points have been made here by "inexperienced" people.


Sounds exactly like what we went through at the last place I worked.

Has your ex-employer had a tough year? It's near the end of the final quarter, and if things aren't going well, there's good reason to make the next year's expenses considerably lower (via outsourcing or human resource reduction).

Do any of the upper management have ties to the country they're outsourcing to? I've seen that happen before too.


You could always train them the wrong way. Though in the end, it probably won't matter much.

The transition meetins have started. The contractor is replacing 18 of our guys with 4. This should be really smooth.

Their first question was "Where is the server?". Well, we run a complex portal that is made up of over 30 servers. They wet themselves when we showed them the architecture. None of them even knew what they were looking at. Their next question was for a list of all the displaced employees so they can try to hire them. Morons...

The company I work for right now hired some Indians to help out with the backlog of mobile phone games we had. What a complete farce that turned out to be. B*llsh*tters! The pap they supplied got the game canned. Needless to say this company learned quick and won't be using the Indian continent again. Thing is, these guys were just bare-faced liars (with nothing to lose) who made promises they had no idea how to keep.

Outsourcing is just a way for a CTO (or whatever stupid title they've come up with) to get a fat bonus before he walks out the door to his next fat bonus.

I'm surprised nobody in the business world has clued on to that yet, either that or they consider it business as usual, since the CEO, and every other Csomething is probably trying to do the same.

Most outsourcing companies in India supply "developers" without distinction of experience, there's a company starting with "A" that's famous for it. You'll be replacing senior experienced developers with guys who have just got out of college. Code quality is usually quite low, as you're mixing inexperienced, overworked people in low numbers with rushed deadlines. Throw in communication issues, issues with data security (EU can be nasty with that) poor connectivity, and you've got a lot of fun ahead. Meanwhile your CTO will be out the door with his fat bonus in his new Porsche to leave the trouble for some other sucker.

Apparently now India is running out of people to fill the demand and it's forcing prices up, which is making offshoring less attractive.

My company is going IPO next year and outsourcing us is just a way to play with the numbers before the launch. I suspect they know it will fail but by that time they'll all have several lifetimes of money.

They had a big all staff meeting a few months ago to tell us the *good news* that we were going public. All the big wigs on stage were overjoyed with themselves and all the employees in the audience were wetting themselves over the oncoming layoffs. They took questions from the audience and no one (including me) had the balls to ask how many people they expected to lay off.

outsourcing is a very short-term benefit on a companys balance.
But this fits perfectly with todays managing habits.
A manager usually holds a job for 1-3 years before he 'takes on other challenges'. The job description mainly states 'show better numbers next shareholder meeting'.

Very quick and easy solution is outsourcing work - it looks brilliant on paper. When the whole deal crashes these managers will be long gone..

As a sidenote - our company was bought by US-Locusts(KKR):

workers were laid off, assets were sold, all money they could grab was transfered away to the Kaiman Islands or other safe money regions.
Then after the remains of our former market leading company were sold the new managers faced a harsh situation (all assets gone, knowledge of laid off people gone, etc) so what did he do?

He tried outsourcing.
He laid off more workers.
He got his numbers for the yearly balance.
He grabbed a couple of millions and 'seeked new challenges'

The indians turned out to be complete fakes that had no idea of what they did and could not even remotely meet any of their promises.
The indians were laid off.
The IT is in chaos.
Customers lost trust in us.
Sales go down, down, down.
More people are laid off.
...
...
...

All this makes me sick :(