Stop Hating Foreigners, Start Hating AJAX
from the automation-moves-on dept
Whenever we talk about offshoring around here it seems to generate a lot of controversy, as a group of folks show up insisting that offshoring "costs" the US jobs -- despite tons of evidence that that's not true at all. It does change the nature of jobs and may emphasize different skills, but more efficient production tends to create more new jobs. In fact, we've tried to point out in the past that offshoring is really no different than automation, though it's less efficient. So we wonder if people who are against offshoring are also against automation (or, well, any kind of productivity enhancement). Perhaps they should be. Slashdot points us to a recent article saying that more modern "web 2.0" technologies are allowing firms to cut IT staff more significantly than offshoring. Yet, don't be fooled. This is unlikely to mean fewer jobs in the long run -- but it will change the types of skills that companies are looking for. But, in the meantime, pure unadulterated luddism is a lot more socially acceptable (if equally as pointless) than the garden-variety racism that comes out of people when talking about offshoring. It's just equally as pointless.
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Filed Under: automation, jobs, offshoring
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I don't mind that my motherboard was made in Taiwan, if it works as expected, the outsourcing didn't effect me in the slightest ... but as an end user, my interest is a good product and outsourcing generally isn't the way to achieve that.
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its rare to find competent outsource folk
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Re: its rare to find competent outsource folk
If those companies used some of that saved money to train that foriegn work force said foreign work force would become more valuable (i.e. deserving of higher wages) which would lead to the same "problem" that caused them to outsource in the first place. Therefore according to the coporate creed ("Profit before anything else.") it is in the best interests of the company to go with the cheapest labor possible not matter how horribly trained it is.
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Re:
1) Most Louisiana / Kentucky call centers are subpar - and their English tends to be worse and their accents thicker. Also, they cost more and work fewer hours. Yay, unions!
2) Quite a few American products are lethal, or at least dangerous, I'd say percentage wise right up there with overseas goods.
What affects the quality of the end product isn't where the good is produced, but the core values of management. There are lots of decisions made that lead a company to produce produces crappy products or mediocre services, and usually it's not the employees at the bottom making those decisions.
Do you remember when you could only call tech support until 5pm Eastern, and it cost you to talk to them? I do. It sucked.
And even though your motherboard was assembled in Taiwan, I'll bet dollars to yuan that it was built from parts almost entirely from China.
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Re: Offshare racism
Offshoring communications is callous and cynical, and the impulse is driven by our cultural contempt for language. The earnest technicians in Pakistan have no more business explaining the intention of installation instructions written in Janglish than I do trying to interpret Renaissance French poetry for a guy in Paris.
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The Republic will stand.
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I think what scares people...
Say you go to school for a degree in the IT field and land a career in IT. You have a good career for several decades (putting you in your late 50s) and then out of nowhere automation or outsourcing take your career from you and you are laid off.
Now yes that career you had is gone and something else may have opened up but will that new opportunity be something that you are properly trained for (can you really start school all over again in your late 50s)? Will it be something that you acutally like (even though the need to work would override this)? I am all for being flexible but I'm willing to bet that the problem many people (and the older you are the worse it is) would have is not that foreigners are taking their jobs its the fact that their careers are gone and they are afraid that they are too late in life to start from scratch.
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Re: I think what scares people...
Going back to school isn't difficult and is always an option but, you're cost of living is still based off of your previous career. You're mortgage, insurance, even commute distance was planned according to the income level that you had. Now, you're looking at reducing your income by easily half maybe even more. That can be quite a hit for someone approaching their 50's. Let alone someone in their late 50's.
Then you have the problem of getting someone to hire you after you finish school. There are a lot of companies that are not going to be willing to invest in someone approaching retirement age with a new skill set.
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Re: I think what scares people...
I think a contributing factor is also that if you go out and obtain the training/education for a new career/job, the employers out there who are hiring look at age as a hinderance to being physically capable day-in day-out over the life of the job (until it too can be outsourced/automated)...they don't want to hire someone who is older and may have health issues that someone younger may not have.
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Re: Re: I think what scares people...
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Re: I think what scares people...
I don't completely agree with you. The problem with outsourcing is that it is completely out of the worker's control. It doesn't matter if you do a stellar job, if you save the company tons of money, or make the company tons of money. It doesn't matter how ethical you are, how honest you are, how much you train, how much you know, or even who you know. It doesn't matter how much effort you put in, how much you scarificed. It doesn't matter, in point of fact, if your labor is cheaper than someone overseas. It doesn't matter.
Every 7-10 years, there is a cycle of outsourcing, and your job will go away, and there is absolutely nothing you can do about it. It's the corporate equivalent of a fad, and I've seen it happen again and again and again.
It just happened to me recently, immediately after getting a big raise and promotion and an award, I was outsourced. I went to another company, got a nice raise and was in line for promotion, and was outsourced again -- over the course of four years I've been nailed twice.
Train up? Been there: this is my seventh career. I've spent nearly my entire life either working two jobs to make ends meet or working fulltime and going to night school.
What to do? Well, I think workers ought to be able to sue employers for the economic damages they suffer as a result of outsourcing.
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I bet people said cars would destroy the economy, since it put horse and buggy tradesmen out of work! What will the horse trainers do??? What will the wagon wheel repairmen do???
I'm just guessing.... but I suspect... the Automotive industry likely employs more people than the horse and buggy industry ever did. Probably more people just giving oil changes in one city than the horse and buggy industry did worldwide, lol.
In theory, if it wasn't for greedy bankers who seek to control everything - a global economy would be a good thing.
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Re: Flaw in logic
There are more people than in the early 1900's, so not applicable to use numerical superiority.
I'm still working the numbers, but the concept of a shift works well with your analogy... it has 'legs'.
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Our challenge.
I have always worked with H1B visa workers, and they are some of the hardest working, polite people. What I don't like is all of the middle men making money off of them, and us in the Contractor industry.
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Re: Our challenge.
I agree with a lot of others too. Generally speaking, outsourcing isn't really a problem, its just not efficient since, too often, it makes things cheaper, but doesn't actually make things better.
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Why stop at outsourcing
Techdirt should stop being the H1B apologist lackey of big business and support American workers whose jobs are being "reassigned" to near slave labor.
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Too bad you're missing the point
Companies like MS, Sun, Amazon, etc, whine that there are no good US-based employees and that they are FORCED to outsource and get H1B visas and the like, but the evidence is to the contrary that there are more and more US-grown and educated folks willing to do the work - just that MS, Sun, Amazon, etc will not pay the proper rate.
I'm amazed that you, Mike, continually, over and over, miss this simple and saliant point and continually toe the party line.
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Offshoring = disposable everything
Outsourcing offshore hasn't done anything but add to the unemployment of U.S. citizens (the proof can be found by researching unemployment rates in specific fields over the past 15 years), the profit margins of corporate america, and the extremely poor quality of consumer goods. It's forced real american companies to lower quality standards just to compete (not including the multi-national conglomerates that already have low standards). If you want proof go to your local department store and look at the overpriced items on the racks that were made by people who work 18 hrs per day for a dollar. Why produce quality when quantity will offset any loss?
Perhaps Mr. Masnick should have done a lot more research on the effects of corporate offshore oursourcing before allowing his rectal sputum to pollute the internet.
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Fear
As for the inferior products, well there's a market for quality goods as there is a market for "cheap" goods. Sometimes moving part of your business to a place where labour is cheaper issn't good for your customers (like the example the guy gave with call centres in India).
Real Estate Blog and more!
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If you keep adding to your skills, you will be in demand. I'm 46, love what I do, and dont fear I'm going to be outsourced.
Now, if you got into tech simply because it was lucrative, and think "I'm out of school, I can stop learning now", then get out! Be honest with yourself and go be a stockbroker or something that is all about the money.
If you rest on your laurels, they'll get smashed and not do you much good ;)
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Re: Advice
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Dumb Americans...
When all the jobs WERE in the US, companies had a hard time hiring for call centers because most of these "college educated workers who needed jobs" thought they were too skilled for Tier I tech support. Companies found a way to hire enthusiastic workers and at a lower wage, so they went with it. They would not have LOOKED for alternatives in the first place if willing Americans took those jobs at the pay they offered!
It is kind of like illegal immigrants (except not illegal). They come into our country, take jobs Americans don't want to do anyway, and then Americans complain they are stealing jobs away from citizens. If Americans were willing to pick crops all day long for minimum wage, farmers would not have to resort to this other labor.
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Re: Dumb Americans...
If Americans were willing to pick crops all day long for minimum wage, farmers would not have to resort to this other labor.
Except for the fact that there are Americans that don't mind working for minimum wage but the farmers hire the immegrants anyway since even a less than minimum wage job is consdiered a massive salary to them and in the case of illegals the farmers can hire them "under the table" for less than min. wage because what are they gonna do? Its not like illegal immigrants can report them to the Better Business Bureau (or whoever you would file a complaint like that with).
I agree there are Americans out there that think they are to good for hard labor jobs but there plenty who simply cannot do hard labor jobs much less at such low. And also we have corporations that search for loopholes in labor laws in order to get cheap labor.
There is plenty of blame to go around.
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Re: Dumb Americans...
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outsourcing
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The company I work for flat out stated a few years ago that while they would not actively lay off american employees (they did anyway - several times), they would only be expanding overseas. Meaning that through attrition, they would be reducing the American workforce in favor of cheaper labor elsewhere.
I like how apologists such as yourself run around screaming "racist!". You're right, wanting fair competition and not being sold out to some guy in another country who has one fiftieth the cost of living expenses I do is totally racist. How dare I?
Capitalism isn't about fucking over citizens in your own country. It's about competition. Fair competition. If you can't find people willing to work for the age you are offering, then offer a higher wage. It is underhanded to just say "well, fuck you guys - we're goin' to India!". After all, I as a citizen and employee in the united states can not pay Indian prices for milk or chinese prices for rent. I simply don't have that option. Yet a corporation has the entire global pool to pick from to find the cheapest employees. Yes, fair capitalism indeed, huh?
Seriously, look at all these idiots. "They would not have LOOKED for alternatives in the first place if willing Americans took those jobs at the pay they offered!".
Well, then why not offer minimum wage? Seriously, if Someone in Chennai, India is willing to do my job for $6/hr, why not advertise the same positions in America for $6/hr? How dare I expect a comparable American wage. It's not the employer's fault that I can't pay $50/mo for rent and that I pay $3/gal for gas. How dare I expect so much!
In fact, why shouldn't every industry do that? Let unfair foreign competition compete with Americans in a way that completely undermines them. That's true capitalism, right?
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Re:
So to say its not a problem because you havent seen it just shows how in tune you are with the subject.
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What that has to do with racism, I have no idea. I guess it's the easiest cry of attack from the mindless who have no true footing. Like i care what race someone is? What does that have to do with the essential salary-fixing that companies are doing by simply saying "if you won't work for sub-standard wages in america, then we'll just give it to someone else in the world who can". As soon as I have the option of choosing where in the world i want to pay my income tax and what level of expenses I want to pay, while still living in America - then we can talk.
I don't hate foreigners. I hate the company selling me out to them. I may not be losing my job to offshoring. You might not either. But we are all suffering lower salaries and other compensation than we'd otherwise get if we didn't have that threat over our head to artificially lower our value.
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Re:
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logic
Now, I'm not racist, I don't care a bit what color you are, but I can recognize what my eyes see. They see jobs leaving, decent jobs, with little or no return benefit for Americans. Automated factories need techs, engineers, mechanics, you name it. But with the computer companies outsourcing there is no such reciprocol employment. The same is true with most other outsourcing.
As for the "crop picking" comments, I'm fairly sure they originate in large cities, because anybody who has grown up in the country has spent thier time picking rocks and produce. Most of us did it as kids for pocket change and progressed to full pay during the final years of school. I have no problem with people from out country coming in and working those same jobs when we have outgrown them, but to dismiss the claims that jobs are being taken simply because YOU dismiss the job is pure folly. For instance, my brother is a janitor. He is well contented with a job that others would dismiss as menial and underpayed. He is not mexican or indian. He is your typical W.A.S.P. and that job is putting him through college. Will he stay with the job? No, but that only opens it up for the next generation.
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Re: logic
In the tech world today it is getting harder and harder to find entry level jobs yet companies still expect you to have experience (which you would have picked up in said entry level job). They won't hire you unless you have experience but there is nowhere to go to get said experience. Something of a catch-22.
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Re: Re: logic
Or those jobs pay to little. Perfect example, I had a friend fresh out of college who applied for a bunch of entry level jobs. They paid anywhere from $20,000-28,000. He turned everyone down because "the median salary is $40,000 and that is what I deserve to be paid." Whatever, take the lower job and work your way up. You can live fine off of $28,000, especially out of college.
Also, as far as experience goes, what about doing internships while in school? I never understood why people go to college, never work a job or take and internship, then complain no company will hire them. I worked for IT when I was in college so the jobs are out there.
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So, when American encounter people who actually are willing to work.... it scares them.
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Re:
So what, is working harder for less money supposed to be some kind of virtue?
I think the world has heard quite enough from the well-to-do white suburban libertarians with a Calvinistic bent. People do not want the world view you offer.
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RE: Outsourcing costs companies money
A couple months ago, I ordered a couple items that totaled $14, clicked on one click, and forgot about it as usual. Later I get an email from Amazon showing $14 and $37 for shipping !! So I called them, or tried to call them. You can't call them, you have to enter your number first, then their call center (India) will call you back. I have no problem with the Indians, they are actually very polite, usually anyway and calm people who are probably very well suited for this type of job however, they had NO authority to help me with this problem. All they could say was I am sorry for the inconvenience. I had to threaten to contest charges on my credit card before they finally agreed to escalate me to a higher level of tech support which was by EMAIL ! The email came days later and gave me a credit of $15 on my next order, which I promptly placed and from then on I have been going to the local Borders Book store and making my purchases. Amazon LOST ME AS A CUSTOMER over this.
When I call an American Company, when I need help or have a problem, I expect to get the company in Seattle, NOT India or somewhere else. And I also want to talk to someone who can actually HELP ME.
Sorry Amazon, you loose. And this is the way everyone else should treat these instances. If everyone voted with their wallets, these problems would disappear.
Put your money where your mouth is people!
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Re: RE: Outsourcing costs companies money
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RE: TheDock22
The entry level position is great for a person with no formal higher education but who has proven a valuable and intelligent resource for the company. They need the training and conditioning the position offers. College graduates, for the most part, do not. To force them into these positions regardless of thier foresight, dedication, and proven training is not only insulting, but unfair. And before people start saying, "Just what I expect from a young college grad.", I have to state that I am a middle aged business man who only had two semesters in college and those not in business.
I also agree about internships. They are a valuable resource that is often overlooked by college students. It's a shame, but it happens. Then again, internships often don't pay squat and those same students have to support themselves with other full time jobs.
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Re: RE: TheDock22
Yes. In order to make it in the business you sometimes need to take a job just to prove you have the experience, working for a business.
To force them into these positions regardless of thier foresight, dedication, and proven training is not only insulting, but unfair.
You can learn something valuable at any job you take. They might not learn anything new about CS or IT, but they will learn how a business hierarchy runs and about software they might not have learned while in school. To not take a job because "you have already had that training" is not a good reason to complain there are no jobs.
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Re: RE: TheDock22
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Companies owe employee's nothing
People that complain about their employers or go on strike because they are dissatisfied should go find another job or career.
I don't buy the statement that Americans hate Foreigners. They just hate being transferred to a CS rep. in a Foreign country that has an accent that is hard to understand.
And yes, I agree the average CS rep has no authority to do anything but read a prepared speech for any possible question that might be asked.
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Re: Companies owe employee's nothing
Why does a company owe you a lifetime of employment? Unless you have a contract, you can be let go and you can depart your employer for any reason.
The expectation of loyalty is a two-way street. One thing I don't like about corporations is that they expect you to give your mind, body, and soul to them and will not show that same loyalty back and the vice versa. These days it is popular to outsource to India but if those corporations decide that India becomes to costly they will not hesitate to lay them all off and set up shop elsewhere. And that is part of the reason why people are skepital to trust companies.
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RE: The Dock22
Ninety-nine percent of college grads have worked for a business, that isn't the issue. Whether you worked the family business or worked for McDonalds, most every graduate has held a job. The people who set the requirements and do the hiring know this. Prove they are responsible and reliable? I'm pretty sure that four plus years of studying proves that.
"You can learn something valuable at any job you take. They might not learn anything new about CS or IT, but they will learn how a business hierarchy runs and about software they might not have learned while in school. To not take a job because "you have already had that training" is not a good reason to complain there are no jobs."
True, you can learn something valuable at any job. Why should they have to be underpaid while they recieve this final bit of education? They worked hard to get thier degrees, to prove thier knowledge and ability. I thought that was what we prided ourselves on. Hiring and firing based on knowledge and ability over nepotisim. Youth and lack of time in company is not a good reason to underpay a person.
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How to kill American technical IQ
I find H1B a bigger threat than offshoring. I used to cut lawns to make money when I was young, it has been years since I have seen a teenager cut a lawn. Also, I love automation, what do you think a programmer does?
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The effects are quite different
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you can't outsource productivity
also, from an economic perspective, the less you export and the more you import, the weaker your currency gets. that means that the 12 ruples a day that you pay those indian dudes will cost more and more dollars, and it keeps getting more and more expensive to ship your materials to china and to ship the finished products back. also, as the standard of living in india and china improves, it will get harder and harder to find people who will work for 12 ruples a day. then you have to decide if you want to pay more to india or move the operation to someplace with a lower standard of living.
you think quality is bad now, wait until operations get moved to an unstable region like africa or the middle east to save even more money.
give it time, the greenback will become nearly worthless in a few years thanks to off-shoring, outsourcing, and increasing energy prices. eventually, every country in the world will outsource it's labor and manufacturing to the US because we will have the cheapest currency in the world.
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Re: you can't outsource productivity
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Offshoring vs. Robots
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Facts-lite Proof
Why is the "tons of evidence" link just a similar rant about how misunderstood outsourcing is, possibly by the same author? Evidence is supposed to be facts, not idealogical conclusions. And from what facts I know I think you're wearing the world's thickest pair or rosed colored glasses.
But instead of economics, I would rather discus values. The thing is, your conclusions are fine – if someone happens to have the same values and world view as you. But you know what? Most people do not share your values and never will.
Perhaps you like the idea of workers robotically bouncing around between careers every time their pay masters decide they would like to turn payrolls into profit. But most people like their lives to be more stable. And that is something outsourcing of high paying jobs and automation and entirely unregulated markets simply cannot give – jobs leave or disappear, markets crash and people suffer. And the less they have the more the brunt of the shock they take.
With little or no historical evedence, people like you constantly claim that everything will eventually even out and everyone's fortune will rise in the end. The reality is that most people don't like the trade offs they are told they have to make, and are tired of waiting for the rewards that never come. Americans are not happy with the way the country is going, and our economic situation is a large part of that unease.
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Programming is an art.....
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entrepreneurial coaching
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