Worrying About Offshoring Has Been Offshored To India
from the now-watch-Lou-Dobbs'-head-explode dept
In one of the surest signs that India has made great economic strides, a growing number of professionals there claim to be worried about losing their jobs, as privatized industries may look abroad for cheap labor. Stories about rising wages in India are not new, but what's new is that employees are starting to voice their concerns and organize in opposition to perceived economic threats. It may be of no immediate comfort to Indian workers, but at least they can look at America's history with offshoring to realize that it has anything but decimated the economy. Really, the story shouldn't be much of a surprise, though one wonders: while some in the US are still surprised (and some are outraged) when they get an Indian call center worker on the line, will Indians react the same way when they discover they're talking to someone in Vietnam or Bangladesh?Thank you for reading this Techdirt post. With so many things competing for everyone’s attention these days, we really appreciate you giving us your time. We work hard every day to put quality content out there for our community.
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Serves 'em Right!
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serves WHO right? whose karma?
Its not the Indians' fault that they were offered jobs by American companies. If you dont like off-shoring, then blame the american companies not the people who like getting jobs.
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buy 'nam
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Re: serves WHO right? whose karma?
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Re: serves WHO right? whose karma?
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Circular
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haaaaaaaaaaaaaa
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I have no sympathy for them
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Full Circle
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website
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outsourcing
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Re: serves WHO right? whose karma?
By outsourcing jobs that 98% of Americans don't want, and can't afford to keep, American companies stay competitive. Employees can find other jobs, earn a better wage. Who wants to work doing Dell PC support making $8.00 an hour? Not me. And certainly no one I know. If you think those jobs should pay more, good luck, I suggest you start a business and try and compete in the REAL world. Politicians love to spew filth about jobs going overseas, yet they don't seem to want to do anything about it. Oh sure, it's easy to spout off in the NY Times or the Washington Post, but when it comes time to do something? They turn tail and run away.
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i dont care
thank you.
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Re: Re: serves WHO right? whose karma?
They should pay more. You have a job that requires complex thought(okay, that -should- require) and skill. You have to deal with assholes all day that yell at you if they feel their intelligence is threatened. You work insane hours with little gratitude....
Dell is making insane profits and paying their executives way to much. Same goes for almost every shitty company in the US. The workers aren't greedy, it's the owners and executives that are greedy. The wealth needs to be distributed a little more eavenly.
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Insulting to whom?
That depends. Maroon is racial insulting, whereas Moron is insulting to the mentally disabled.
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the "global economy" can go to hell
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WTF?
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took my server down
for all of you who wish to "hep a feller american out" by monetizing my google ads on http://theysentmyjobtoindia.com, please try again later.
Both my wife's job and my job were sent to India, mine to Bangalore and hers to Mumbai. Mumbai is the capital, used to be called Bombay. I'm humming the Police song now, "Bombs away in old Bombay"
hee hee
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Re: Re: serves WHO right? whose karma?
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Not offshoring
It'll probably be awhile, but I look forward to the day when wages have risen enough in India and infrastructure good enough in even poorer locales to make outsourcing from India a boon.
That won't be "poetic justice" or "karma is a bitch", that'll be good for both India and wherever Indians outsource work to.
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different topic
RBI in India is govt. operated. I didnt see in article about increasing wages etc. Pretty strange from tech dirt. Now i will be careful before reading from techdirt.
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Asok's a Moron
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If you want to blame someone, blame the consumer -- you and me. If this country was truly against outsourcing Wal-mart would be bankrupt, and we'd all be watching RCA TVs at home.
Warren Buffett put it very well saying (something to the effect of) "If everyone in India had the same living standards as the US tomorrow, clearly both the US and India would be better for it". We are headed that direction.
If we as US IT workers want to stay competitive, then we must be the most flexible and adaptable in the world. The good news is that at this point, we are.
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It's not a fault...
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Re: different topic
Thanks for the comment. You're right that the linked-to article specifically mentions outsourcing, though elsewhere others have made the inference that one of the fears is that the private company will be able to move some jobs overseas, to places with cheaper labor. Perhaps it was a mistake to make this jump, though all these fears are pretty tightly related. Thanks for clarifying this, and hopefully you won't let this cloud your view of Techdirt (too much).
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Next, my job wasn't really outsourced, but technical support was, but to Canada and Florida. As I supplied Tier 3 Support for Business Customers DSL for a large telecom company and my job, was moved to another division in the company that handled the same functions for the Residential DSL department. BTW, the Residential DSL Support for that Telecom Company, which is still one of the remaining Big 3, outsourced it's support to Mexico, Canada, and I think Pennsylvania.
So not all outsourced tech jobs are going to India, but still to underpaid techs just out of High School. Just to let you know, one of the Canada Outsource centers has a System Admin who is still in High School, and really doesn't know what he's doing, at least according to an ex-coworker who went their to train the people at that call center.
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gee what a maroon
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Re: Insulting to whom?
That depends. Maroon is racial insulting, whereas Moron is insulting to the mentally disabled."
I don't recall reading anything in that article that you linked to about racial connotations. I did see information about there being meaning for run-away slaves, but slaves come in many racial backgrounds and colors. So please stop making this about racial crap. I live in the south and that is the primary reason that the south is lazy, ghetto, welfare ridden, and generally written off... becuase people cannot forget the past and move on with their lives.
Now, as for the topic at hand, I work for a company that receives a lot of that business from offshoring. It is nice that a lot of American companies actually own the call centers overseas. But that is not the spin you get from the media. our company owns centers in India, Philipines, all over Europe, El Salvadore, Mexico, USA, Canada, and more. So not all of the money is going overseas. A lot of the cashflow is coming back to the US. Granted, the workers overseas are not contributing to the local economies, but trust me... Walmart and other companies are working bring that cash back here.
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Eastern Europe is Better
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private companies. They will go where the labors are cheaper. Indian companies
are flourishing and they are going to behave like the European and American
companies. Now the leading Indian tech companies like Infosys Technologies
Ltd. and Tata Consultancy Services Ltd. are trying to recruit cheap workers from
the third world countries and at the same time they are trying to attract
American workers. It is estimated that now more than
10,000 Americans are working in Indian companies
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So Much Fear
If you are in a job that can just as easily be done elsewhere you should probably think about increasing your skills and making yourself more valuable or be ready to find another job when yours gets shipped off. There's not really anyone to blame, it's just life. Other countries are trying to improve their economies and standards of living, so of course their happy getting jobs. Businesses have to offer competitively priced products and make profits that make their stocks valuable to their investors, which are usually you and me if you have a 401k or IRA. Consumers like cheap products and the majority of people will buy the cheaper product rather than spend extra for quality.
You're not guaranteed a big salary or even a job for that matter. Life is what it is, sometimes cruel and merciless. If you see something that's wrong come up with a solution, don't just complain and cry about it. Otherwise, just learn to deal with it and move on.
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spare it
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Re: So Much Fear
I guess that with that kind of thinking, I have been used to thinking of myself as someone who would need to improve in order to compete with others better.
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Re: haaaaaaaaaaaaaa
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Is it Worrying About Offshoring?
MB
http://blogs.ittoolbox.com/emergingtech/technocrat
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