Offshore Outsourcing Anger Will Ebb In 2004
from the calm-down,-people dept
Gartner is now saying that all this anger we're hearing about tech companies outsourcing the labor overseas will die down next year as the global economy starts to improve, and people realize that the sky really isn't falling. Every time the country goes through things like this, people begin to freak out, and only later do they realize that it's not the end of the world. People and companies adjust, and change to meet the new market realities - and, generally speaking, things end up for the better.
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If it lasts
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sure...
Its easy enough to say when its not YOUR job that's outsourced.
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Outsourcing --> Unions
Corporations need to think about the long-term effects of their actions. Yeah, it may help them save a bit more money today, but what is it going to do to them (and everyone else) tomorrow?!
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No Subject Given
Corporations have an amazingly short-term, "we won't get caught," not us mentality. Time and again they are busted (and pay measly fines) for environmental abuse, bad business practices, etc. Globalization is just another this-quarter-shortcut that can improve the bottom line, for them, RIGHT NOW.
It certainly benefits the corporations, as well as the people in the sweatshops overseas, but not here. The usual argument, that the lower labor costs will "trickle down" to the consumer, is bunk - corporations just say, "Ooh, more profit margin!" and keep their prices the same. It's great for the handful of American citizens who are CEOs.
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Same old story
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Re: Same old story
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Re: Same old story
So is leveling the standard of living worldwide good for the U.S. or bad for the U.S.?
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That's what they said last year and the year befor
They said if the Iraq war concluded quickly, the economy would improve and unemployment would go down...it didn't and set a new, higher record.
Just this year, they warned us that if we didn't give rich people and companies huge tax cuts, the economy would go into the toilet. Oddly enough, it seems, giving rich people and companies tax cuts sent the economy into the toilet anyway and unemployment numbers set a new, even higher record.
Now, they say unemployment will go down next year? Yeah just as soon as Bush gets in charge of the unemployment numbers and fixes those like he fixed the intelligence about Iraq...
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Re: That's what they said last year and the year b
Gotta go...unemployment claims just hit a five month low, Microsoft announced they were hiring 5,000 more workers and my 401K is making a come back (oh yes - I'm "rich" - I make over $50,000 a year)
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I will still care.....even after 2004
The long term implications are what scare me. I know in this economic environment we are all a little gun shy but I have a hard time envisioning what the good old USA will be producing 10 or 20 years from now. It looks like lawyers, food service professionals, and possibly bankers. Eventually we will lack the ability to design and manufacture in this country, add the fact that we may not be able to program and it limits our ability to compete. I guess every empire must decline and I guess if we last another 80-100 years we fit the historical pattern...
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Re: I will still care.....even after 2004
However, every time in the past that we've ended up outsourcing jobs overseas the US has ended up focusing on a new industry that has helped build our economy even more than the old one.
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No Subject Given
If $X is saved through outsourcing 1,000 positions to India, the immediate impact that people notice is that there are 1,000 fewer jobs in the U.S. However, few people pay attention to how the money saved can be used. There are a number of possibities:
1. Pass the savings on to customers. Upon spending less money, they will spend or invest the money that they saved elsewhere, promoting new development.
2. Expand the product line or the production of existing products. Doing the latter can cut prices.
3. Use the money saved to create new research and development jobs (which is precisely what Microsoft is doing -- they've announced the creation of 5,000 R&D jobs only weeks after announcing the outsourcing of thousands of low-end jobs to India).
4. Raise the salaries for CEO's -- the only really negative option, although that can spur development in tourism, I suppose :)
Keep in mind that the opposite of globalization is self-sufficiency, which equates to poverty, as we saw in the Middle Ages when there were political barriers restricting trade between neighboring cities. I doubt people would wish to return to that, but they're support for protectionism on the national level follows the same principle.
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Outsoursing kills
As part of requirement gathering Taty's people communicate with the client, learn business, train themselves . The next step ? What would you guess , they will have second project without Accenture as a middle-man. At the end they will squeese those greedy people from Accenture from the market.
So what do you think about it ?
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