August 25, 2012 at 2:29 pm
Comments posted to this topic are about the item Outsourcing Jobs
August 27, 2012 at 5:01 am
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Good pick and debatable topic!
But i have noticed one thing, it can be neglected but worth sharing, that the based research is published by BlueWolf, which in-fact also an outsourcing service provider. So the information provided by the them, is much realistic to be worried/happy about?
Also the trend/need to switch towards cloud computing may also leverage jobs in big DWH etc to equate the Layoff of small offices?
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August 27, 2012 at 6:29 am
Companies used to have/show loyalty to employees. As a result, employees were loyal in return. For a very long time companies have thrown loyalty out the window but still want it in return. Sorry, life doesn't work that way. Work is a partnership. If you treat employees fairly they will treat you fairly. Since companies no longer do that, they are reaping the "benefits". Sure, there are some companies that do things right, as there are employees that won't do the right thing no matter what. Unfortunately history has shown that companies tend to take advantage of down times to cut costs (lower salaries and benefits!) and they don't return things to where they were afterwards unless you are in the C-Suite!
I am NOT an OWS (Occupy Wall Street) supporter in any way, and absolutely hate the BS they stand for. That said, SOME of the points they make have a basis in reality. How long before all companies start to suffer consequences as people listen to what OWA says, given the media's propensity to accept any liberal idea as fact regardless of a lack of proof? If they try to fix things on their own first, maybe they can eliminate issues. I remember a story of a development company during the last down turn that refused to cut from the workers, and thus when things turned around, they saw almost no turn over. Their competitors were gutted!
Dave
August 27, 2012 at 7:29 am
djackson 22568 (8/27/2012)
Companies used to have/show loyalty to employees. As a result, employees were loyal in return. For a very long time companies have thrown loyalty out the window but still want it in return. Sorry, life doesn't work that way. Work is a partnership. If you treat employees fairly they will treat you fairly. Since companies no longer do that, they are reaping the "benefits". Sure, there are some companies that do things right, as there are employees that won't do the right thing no matter what. Unfortunately history has shown that companies tend to take advantage of down times to cut costs (lower salaries and benefits!) and they don't return things to where they were afterwards unless you are in the C-Suite!I am NOT an OWA supporter in any way, and absolutely hate the BS they stand for. That said, SOME of the points they make have a basis in reality. How long before all companies start to suffer consequences as people listen to what OWA says, given the media's propensity to accept any liberal idea as fact regardless of a lack of proof? If they try to fix things on their own first, maybe they can eliminate issues. I remember a story of a development company during the last down turn that refused to cut from the workers, and thus when things turned around, they saw almost no turn over. Their competitors were gutted!
OWA? I found several definitions, none of them make sense in this context. Outlook Web Application, Open Wireless Architecture, Oracle Web Application, and so on.
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August 27, 2012 at 8:11 am
GSquared (8/27/2012)
OWA? I found several definitions, none of them make sense in this context. Outlook Web Application, Open Wireless Architecture, Oracle Web Application, and so on.
I believe David meant Occupy Wall Street (OWS)
August 27, 2012 at 8:14 am
Abrar Ahmad_ (8/27/2012)
[font="Verdana"]Good pick and debatable topic!
...
Also the trend/need to switch towards cloud computing may also leverage jobs in big DWH etc to equate the Layoff of small offices?
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Thanks, but not sure what you mean by the last statement? I'm sure some smaller offices are foregoing IT staff. I see that already. They use consultants here and there (perhaps a growth opportunity?) and cloud-type services. It makes sense.
Why would any small company use Exchange anymore? It's a fantastic product for calendaring, but there's a lot of overhead for 5-10 people. Easier to use something online, even Office 365.
August 27, 2012 at 8:20 am
djackson 22568 (8/27/2012)
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Yep, for sure.
That said, SOME of the points they make have a basis in reality. How long before all companies start to suffer consequences as people listen to what OWS says, given the media's propensity to accept any liberal idea as fact regardless of a lack of proof? If they try to fix things on their own first, maybe they can eliminate issues. I remember a story of a development company during the last down turn that refused to cut from the workers, and thus when things turned around, they saw almost no turn over. Their competitors were gutted!
Don't want to politicize this. But I agree. Some of OWS stuff makes sense. We've gotten to the point where we are tipping a little too far towards the executives taking advantage of workers, especially in IT. Some companies are paying the price for their actions, some are doing much better by acting in a partnership with employees.
August 27, 2012 at 9:51 am
Steve Jones - SSC Editor (8/27/2012)
djackson 22568 (8/27/2012)
Companies used to have/show loyalty to employees. As a result, employees were loyal in return. For a very long time companies have thrown loyalty out the window but still want it in return. Sorry, life doesn't work that way. Work is a partnership. If you treat employees fairly they will treat you fairly. Since companies no longer do that, they are reaping the "benefits". Sure, there are some companies that do things right, as there are employees that won't do the right thing no matter what. Unfortunately history has shown that companies tend to take advantage of down times to cut costs (lower salaries and benefits!) and they don't return things to where they were afterwards unless you are in the C-Suite![\quote]
Yep, for sure.
That said, SOME of the points they make have a basis in reality. How long before all companies start to suffer consequences as people listen to what OWS says, given the media's propensity to accept any liberal idea as fact regardless of a lack of proof? If they try to fix things on their own first, maybe they can eliminate issues. I remember a story of a development company during the last down turn that refused to cut from the workers, and thus when things turned around, they saw almost no turn over. Their competitors were gutted!
Don't want to politicize this. But I agree. Some of OWS stuff makes sense. We've gotten to the point where we are tipping a little too far towards the executives taking advantage of workers, especially in IT. Some companies are paying the price for their actions, some are doing much better by acting in a partnership with employees.
I agree with you. Where I disagree with OWS (I think I used the wrong letters before?) is in their blaming the bankers for our financial crisis. Yes, they contributed, especially the idiot in charge of the Fed with his quantitative easing BS. However a larger portion of blame goes to the governments across the world. Greece, Spain and other countries are leading the fall. The US is right behind them. We have added almost $6 trillion dollars in debt in less than 4 years! We have built a house of cards on a fault line, we shouldn't be surprised when it comes crashing down. But back to my point about the media, they refuse to print the truth, wanting instead to only print that which they think will increase their profits. Our politicians in the US do what they think will keep them in power. Corporate America has bought our politicians, and uses their control over government to prevent passage of any protections for the American worker, both from companies and foreign workers brought over and taken advantage of by the same companies that are screwing our citizens. As negative as this paragraph is, there are a lot of ethical business people, and blaming all of them isn't right. I don't know the percentage of businessmen and women that are unethical and disloyal, but it isn't all of them.
We need to find a way to fix the ills of our society without detroying the good things we have built. OWS is in favor os socialism and against capitalism, and socialism has proven to be a failure.
Dave
August 27, 2012 at 10:25 am
I don't necessarily believe that the outsourcing wave has anything to do with political aspirations or is anything new in the business cycle. At all times a business is chraged with trying to define what is "core" to their business, and what is anciallary. The idea is to retain those things tht are core and enhance them (maximize what is your core advantage), while off-loading the ancillary items. It's actually good, since it allow for new, specialized industries to appear, whose core business is what another company no longer considers core.
But this has always been happening: the first companies who put together tractors, used to assemble and make every part. As time went by they off-loaded more and more onto other companies, who got better at making those parts. SO yes - there are jobs shifting from one company to others, but in almost every case it leads to a net increase in jobs, and not the other way around.
The business cycle is getting shorter, but if anything - data is becoming MORE central rather than less. As long as we're smarter enough to continue to evolve with the business, our functions will continue to be highly relevant and central to our organization's success. Things will continue to change, and some functions will either be automated or off-loaded, but that simply allows us to focus on the truly important aspects. Call me a starry-eyed optimist, but I'm not worried - I actually look forward to it.
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Your lack of planning does not constitute an emergency on my part...unless you're my manager...or a director and above...or a really loud-spoken end-user..All right - what was my emergency again?
August 27, 2012 at 10:51 am
Matt Miller (#4) (8/27/2012)
I don't necessarily believe that the outsourcing wave has anything to do with political aspirations or is anything new in the business cycle. At all times a business is chraged with trying to define what is "core" to their business, and what is anciallary. The idea is to retain those things tht are core and enhance them (maximize what is your core advantage), while off-loading the ancillary items. It's actually good, since it allow for new, specialized industries to appear, whose core business is what another company no longer considers core.But this has always been happening: the first companies who put together tractors, used to assemble and make every part. As time went by they off-loaded more and more onto other companies, who got better at making those parts. SO yes - there are jobs shifting from one company to others, but in almost every case it leads to a net increase in jobs, and not the other way around.
Call me a starry-eyed optimist, but I'm not worried - I actually look forward to it.
Hmm, you do seem optimistic, and I applaud that attitude.
I have to disagree with outsourcing leading to a net increase in jobs. Caterpillar and other manufacturers shed jobs and sent them overseas. Whether there are more jobs in China doesn't matter to me, the fact that a large numbers of Americans lost their jobs does, because I believe we should take care of our own first. Also, until the US economy improves, the world economy isn't going to, and that is hurting billions across the planet. US consumers drive the world economy more than any other country.
As to your first point, it is political today. Companies used to outsource jobs overseas simply because of smaller wage costs. Today they are outsourcing jobs due to environmental regulations being pushed by extremists claiming to "save the planet". If we want to save the planet, why are we moving jobs to countries that have almost NO environmental regulations? Even if we think it is good to have these regulations, we have to admit they are political by definition. I do think we need to treat our planet better, but I recognize that when companies are forced to close factories due to government regulations, that is a political decision that forced the business decision. I am sure there are still jobs being lost to greedy business leaders, but that is no longer the only cause.
Sigh, if only I had a magic wand from one of those characters in the very popular magic books and movies, I could cast a spell to make everyone get along, everyone to have enough to eat, and everyone to work hard. Sadly human nature prevents that sort of thing from every really happening (peace and tranquility, not magic of course!)
Dave
August 27, 2012 at 11:10 am
djackson 22568 (8/27/2012)
Hmm, you do seem optimistic, and I applaud that attitude.
I have to disagree with outsourcing leading to a net increase in jobs. Caterpillar and other manufacturers shed jobs and sent them overseas. Whether there are more jobs in China doesn't matter to me, the fact that a large numbers of Americans lost their jobs does, because I believe we should take care of our own first. Also, until the US economy improves, the world economy isn't going to, and that is hurting billions across the planet. US consumers drive the world economy more than any other country.
First - it is useful to keep the distinction between outsourcing and off-shoring. Just because something is outsourced does NOT mean it left the country. Conflating the two will lead to some VERY inaccurate conclusions.
Besides - those nubers aren't always easy to compute, since those statistics are often done over short cycles. As technology and/or product lines change, some operations shut down and others spin back up. The manufacturing aspects decreased, but electronics/ design teams increased. So a company like caterpillar might move its older line off-shore while redesigning the new products. So some jobs are lost, but what isn't always counted would be what jobs replaced them
Look at companies like Dupont with very long development cycles. They continuously destroy and build up design teams to handle specific aspects. If you look only at the layoff part (which is often what happens with those statistics), they look to be a hack-and-slash organization, but they are simply moving most folks from project to project (where the projects might actually be different corporate entities).
As to your first point, it is political today. Companies used to outsource jobs overseas simply because of smaller wage costs. Today they are outsourcing jobs due to environmental regulations being pushed by extremists claiming to "save the planet". If we want to save the planet, why are we moving jobs to countries that have almost NO environmental regulations? Even if we think it is good to have these regulations, we have to admit they are political by definition. I do think we need to treat our planet better, but I recognize that when companies are forced to close factories due to government regulations, that is a political decision that forced the business decision. I am sure there are still jobs being lost to greedy business leaders, but that is no longer the only cause.
But it's always been political. What used to be regulated via tariffs and trade embargoes now falls under EPA regs, or artifical constructs like NAFTA. Same game, just different tools in the game. That's been happening since the 1700's. At any point the only real differentiator is how skilled or corrupt the person in charge might happen to be.
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Your lack of planning does not constitute an emergency on my part...unless you're my manager...or a director and above...or a really loud-spoken end-user..All right - what was my emergency again?
August 28, 2012 at 12:34 am
I beg your pardon but I categorically disagree with you that US consumers drive the world's economy, this may be applicable during 70's until 90's but not now. Most US companies now are relying into emerging markets like Latin America, Asean, China, India, etc for futher consumer growth -- as the growth in North American region and European regions were already saturated. It is saturated not because of layoffs but because it reached the peak and less headroom for consumer growth.
Going back about outsourcing, most company do outsource because it will make their bottom line more solid and be able to focus on their on the core valuable business.Just take for example Apple, US engineers are the ones designing and innovate their core products but their high-volume manufacturing are outsource to China; since China is a manufacturing powerhouse and more efficient in manufacturing not just because of a lower labor cost but manufacturing is their forte due to economy of scale.
Also, remember that US companies earn more due to outsourcing. Large US IT services outsourcing companies like HP, IBM, Accenture are themselves brings value to US because they earned more on this business.
Hmm, you do seem optimistic, and I applaud that attitude.
I have to disagree with outsourcing leading to a net increase in jobs. Caterpillar and other manufacturers shed jobs and sent them overseas. Whether there are more jobs in China doesn't matter to me, the fact that a large numbers of Americans lost their jobs does, because I believe we should take care of our own first. Also, until the US economy improves, the world economy isn't going to, and that is hurting billions across the planet. US consumers drive the world economy more than any other country.
As to your first point, it is political today. Companies used to outsource jobs overseas simply because of smaller wage costs. Today they are outsourcing jobs due to environmental regulations being pushed by extremists claiming to "save the planet". If we want to save the planet, why are we moving jobs to countries that have almost NO environmental regulations? Even if we think it is good to have these regulations, we have to admit they are political by definition. I do think we need to treat our planet better, but I recognize that when companies are forced to close factories due to government regulations, that is a political decision that forced the business decision. I am sure there are still jobs being lost to greedy business leaders, but that is no longer the only cause.
Sigh, if only I had a magic wand from one of those characters in the very popular magic books and movies, I could cast a spell to make everyone get along, everyone to have enough to eat, and everyone to work hard. Sadly human nature prevents that sort of thing from every really happening (peace and tranquility, not magic of course!)
August 28, 2012 at 9:15 am
Matt Miller (#4) (8/27/2012)
djackson 22568 (8/27/2012)
Hmm, you do seem optimistic, and I applaud that attitude.
I have to disagree with outsourcing leading to a net increase in jobs. Caterpillar and other manufacturers shed jobs and sent them overseas. Whether there are more jobs in China doesn't matter to me, the fact that a large numbers of Americans lost their jobs does, because I believe we should take care of our own first. Also, until the US economy improves, the world economy isn't going to, and that is hurting billions across the planet. US consumers drive the world economy more than any other country.
First - it is useful to keep the distinction between outsourcing and off-shoring. Just because something is outsourced does NOT mean it left the country. Conflating the two will lead to some VERY inaccurate conclusions.
Besides - those nubers aren't always easy to compute, since those statistics are often done over short cycles. As technology and/or product lines change, some operations shut down and others spin back up. The manufacturing aspects decreased, but electronics/ design teams increased. So a company like caterpillar might move its older line off-shore while redesigning the new products. So some jobs are lost, but what isn't always counted would be what jobs replaced them
But it's always been political. What used to be regulated via tariffs and trade embargoes now falls under EPA regs, or artifical constructs like NAFTA. Same game, just different tools in the game. That's been happening since the 1700's. At any point the only real differentiator is how skilled or corrupt the person in charge might happen to be.
Please forgive my attempts at editing the post. I don't think I am doing that well!
I understand the difference between outsourcing and sending jobs off short. There is a difference, although again, to the person losing their job it doesn't matter. Those of us that work as DBAs might be able to find work, but there are a lot of people in the US, and presumably across the world, who can't find work.
Not sure that I agree it has been going on since the 1700s, but I get your point. I believe there is a large difference today. 50 years ago most US companies did not outsource for cost savings nearly as much as today. They did typically do it because there were things they needed that they simply couldn't obtain any other way. If you make shoes, of course you aren't in the business of growing your own leather. Over the last few decades or so, US business did seek off shore opportunities to increase profits. While that is still true, there are other reasons today that are driven by unreasonable regulatory constraints. Do I shut the business down, or do I fire all my manufacturing staff and concentrate on sales and marketing? Regulations aren't just affecting jobs, they are causing an increase in world hunger. The UN has complained that the US is using far too much food to produce ethanol, which is leading to an increase in starvation as countries can't afford the increase in food prices.
Whatever the reasons, whether I am correct or completely off base, outsourcing jobs is more prevalent today than ever before. One could argue that the current world economic conditions are caused in part due to the changes that must occur as a new balance is found. I believe it is going to be a long time before things recover. I also believe it is going to require eliminating a huge number of inappropriate regulations that have been put in place.
Dave
August 28, 2012 at 9:19 am
paulgrammer (8/28/2012)
I beg your pardon but I categorically disagree with you that US consumers drive the world's economy, this may be applicable during 70's until 90's but not now. Most US companies now are relying into emerging markets like Latin America, Asean, China, India, etc for futher consumer growth -- as the growth in North American region and European regions were already saturated. It is saturated not because of layoffs but because it reached the peak and less headroom for consumer growth.
Interesting, but while you can disagree with the messenger, that does not change the fact that economists believe it is so. The concept that the US is largely responsible for the current economic crisis is not mine. Blame has been placed on us for a few reasons. First, our consumption does drive things, as our trade deficit is the largest in the world. You can't argue with that. Second, our monetary policy is simply wrong, and is adding to the issues that we see in Europe. Most of the world is blaming the US monetary policy, so again if you disagree, it isn't with me.
Dave
August 28, 2012 at 9:27 am
American workers just can't compete with some one in India who will do their job for $5,000 a year tops and work 14 hours a day six to seven days a week. That's the bottom line. I have said this for years on this forum alone. Until that is addressed, or US companies are heavily penalized for doing it, offshoring of American jobs will continue, our economy will continue to decline, and high unemployment here will continue to rise.. I have always considered this to be a direct threat to our national economic well-being.:-D
"Technology is a weird thing. It brings you great gifts with one hand, and it stabs you in the back with the other. ...:-D"
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