The Old Joel on Software Forum: Part 4 (of 5) - Offshoring: Real or overated?

Offshoring: Real or overated?

Hi guys,
I'm a recent I.T. graduate, and I've been having some concern. I live in Australia, and I have been reading headlines of controversy surrounding the offshoring of jobs to India. I don't know how badly the Australian economy is affected by this, but I can see its hitting the U.S. and U.K. economy hard. (atleast its starting to it seem like it)
Have I ended up in the wrong field or something.? As now I feel the promise of work is diminishing since my graduation. Has anyone on this forum been affected by it?. Or is it just a temporary economic phase. I don't know anymore what to think, hell confused.
I would like to see someone else's perspective on this.

Worried William
Thursday, May 27, 2004

The subject has been discussed ad nauseum on this forum. Use the search facility if you're suffering from insomnia.

If you believe the doom-sayers, you career is toast before it starts and you'll end up flippin' burgers with everyone else.

Is suspect that there will always be openings for good candidates. In my own case, my UK-based consultancy business has been continuously snowed under with work since I started it, back in the early '90s.

Steve Jones (UK)
Thursday, May 27, 2004

theres never an end to this topic,,i dont mind though, the gravity of the situation is worth discussing till doomsday itself.

diddy
Thursday, May 27, 2004

Worried, what city are you in and what uni did you emerge from?

Aussie bloke
Thursday, May 27, 2004

It is both real and overrated.

Corporations are laying off thousands to send work offshore. That is real. But most of them are finding that they aren't saving nearly as much as what they originally thought they would be saving.

T. Norman
Thursday, May 27, 2004

Overrated, same worries as the US had in the 80s about Japan "taking over".

I live in Perth Australia and I haven't noticed any particular loss of jobs due to outsourcing.

Matthew Lock
Thursday, May 27, 2004

-------" but I can see its hitting the U.S. and U.K. economy hard. (atleast its starting to it seem like it)"----

On what do you base that?

(Apart from anything else, it's a well known fact that the UK economy has been totally destroyed by asylum seekders who come here to skive off welfare benefits and take all our jobs at the same time (a sign of how devious they are).

Stephen Jones
Thursday, May 27, 2004

I've been badly affected by it.

Before 2001, I found it very easy to get a job in London. I lived and worked in the USA for 20 months and came back to London in 2002. It took me 15 months to find a job!!!!

When I managed to get an interview in London, the interviewers made a point of saying how many applicants they had, how many people they were interviewing. Their attitude was hostile. It is obvious they were snowed under with applicants and my worth had plummented to that of a lowly ant coming cap-in-hand for a job.

Savage
Thursday, May 27, 2004

When I graduated in 1993 I heard the same thing. In fact Ed Yourdon wrote a book "Rise and Fall of the American Programmer" which said all of our jobs would be overseas shortly.

Offshoring is real and overrated. Concetrate and being the best you can be and don't lose any sleep over it.

Bill Rushmore
Thursday, May 27, 2004

"it's a well known fact that the UK economy has been totally destroyed by asylum seekders who come here to skive off welfare benefits and take all our jobs at the same time"

what, like cockle picking?

i like i
Thursday, May 27, 2004

Hey aussie and mathew,,,i'm from perth w.a. too,,,i graduated from murdoch uni

Worried William
Thursday, May 27, 2004

"it's a well known fact that the UK economy has been totally destroyed by asylum seekders who come here to skive off welfare benefits and take all our jobs at the same time"
Think your jumping the gun there, i see the offshoring issue not as a racist issue, but as a consumer choice problem. By all means, i dont mind the indian economy improving. But not at the expense of my every day job.

uummm, yeah
Thursday, May 27, 2004

Hey Worried William, I went to Murdoch too, small world. Send me an email and we can grab a drink some time.

Matthew Lock
Thursday, May 27, 2004

HAHAHAHAHA,,,will do man. really small world, either that, or cyberspace is even smaller.

Worried William
Thursday, May 27, 2004

You two sand-gropers will be pleased to know I'm from the east. (In Australia, sandgropers is a term used for Western Australians.)

Worried, I don't think offshoring has hit the west. That's because corporate HQ's are in the east. It's definitely hit Sydney and Melbourne, not just in actions by Indian firms, but also too many 457 visa holders.

Aussie bloke
Thursday, May 27, 2004

I think offshoring is not such a bad thing. Of course, I live in the third world :)

Just a reader (usually)
Thursday, May 27, 2004

A perfectly fair comment.

The trouble for us is we've got people saying that, and they live in our country.

Aussie bloke
Thursday, May 27, 2004

Based on the crappy code that is coming from our outsource group. I see a future with plenty of jobs

Troy McClure
Thursday, May 27, 2004

i heard from a colleague in dubai (uae) that there has been a legislation that has been passed to limit the number of indians coming, as it has cheapened the workforce, and now locals and expats struggle for work. food for thought. I say this from a purely economics point of view, and nothing else, just incase i'm somehow misunderstood.

Worried William
Thursday, May 27, 2004

"it's a well known fact that the UK economy has been totally destroyed by asylum seekders who come here to skive off welfare benefits and take all our jobs at the same time"

jobs that nobody wants like cleaning toilets

not important
Thursday, May 27, 2004

Dear Worried William

The situation in Dubai is completely unlike the situation anywhere outside the Gulf. In the Emirates, where Dubai is, l for example, locals form a third of the population, and much less than that oif the workforce - indeed almost nothing of the workforce if you exclude the public sector. The situation is different in Saudi, where foreigners form over 70/% of the workforce, and about 85% in the private sector but only about a third of the population.

There is no real fight between foreigners and Saudis for jobs. The problem is that the Gulf employers don't want to hire their own nationals because they can get Indains for peanuts and that is when they bother to pay them, whilst their own nationals demand the kind of salaries their parents got, and expect to get away with doing as little work as possible. Add to that the fact that many Gulf Arabs lived for a long time off payments from Indians in return for fronting the Indians business, and the fact that throughout the Gulf they attempt to prevent workers changing their empployers, thus forcing them to leave the country and reapply for a job, and you start to get a nice mess.

This of course has nothing to do with outsourcing, which is buying services from abroad, like say happens when we buy a piece of US software or watch a Hollywood film or outsource soaps to Australia and watch Neighbours, or buy books on English grammar from Brits or Israelis instead of Chinese or Russians.

Stephen Jones
Thursday, May 27, 2004

The cost of oursourcing an Australian programmer to India is probably more than the cost of an Australian programmer's salary. Sure, the amount the Indian ***programmer*** earns is significantly less than the Australian programmer but consultancy fees more than accomodate for the difference.

In the case of Telstra, they claim they will save large sums of money, but that is mainly because they have an outsourcing arrangement with IBM (who are addicted to overly expensive consulting revenue) - Telstra would probably be able to save EVEN MORE money if they insourced their IT operation (particularly if they based it in a cheaper state like WA or SA).

Walter Rumsby
Thursday, May 27, 2004

Hey Walter, I'm all for it, let the eastern states outsource to W.A.,,,and we'll even be fine with all the sandgroper jokes ;)

Worried William
Thursday, May 27, 2004

Hey William, if I was you and fresh out of University I would get a few mates together and form a start up. Having just come from Uni you are probably used to living of just a couple of hundred dollars a week so what have you got to lose?

Matthew Lock
Thursday, May 27, 2004

Walter Rumsby, it's not clear from your post, but you're aware that it's actually IBM who is doing the offshoring, and through that offering allegedly lower prices to Telstra?

This gives Telstra the excuse that it's not their decision to outsource. This in turn gives the Howard government the excuse that it's all just a commercial arrangement. (For those in other countries, Telstra is majority owned by our government, and is sending hundreds of jobs to India. Probably more.)

I thought it was pretty cute that they justified the offshoring on grounds of reducing prices to consumers. They've just put most of their prices up.

Aussie bloke
Friday, May 28, 2004

"outsourcing is buying services from abroad, like when we buy a piece of US software or watch a Hollywood film or outsource soaps to Australia and watch Neighbours, or buy books on English grammar from Brits or Israelis instead of Chinese or Russians."

I don't agree it's the same thing. That's just importing stuff. You'd have to be able to say that Saudis were already doing those things, but the jobs were sent overseas to be done cheaper or better if you wantod to say it was the same as outsourcing.

I buy pickles at the store. Am I outsourcing pickle growing if I wasn't making pickles before? No, of course not - I am buying pickles.

Not everything in the world is outsourcing. Outsourcing is a particular thing.

Dennis Atkins
Friday, May 28, 2004

Dennis, you might not have been making pickles before, but your grandma probably was, (and if we are to believe all the dire stories about outsourcing you may yet be). In Tanzania everybody still makes their own soap from wood ash and oil. I still know people in Spain that make household soap with used cooking oil and caustic soda.

The filing clerks in Indian offices who find their jobs replaced by a copy of Windows XP are in effect having their job outsourced. In general the western programmers job has come at the expense of two or three other jobs, either in his country or outside.

Stephen Jones
Friday, May 28, 2004