October 21, 2007 at 12:57 pm
Another article from Database Weekly, also from the same author about IT retention.
http://www.eweek.com/article2/0,1895,2203026,00.asp
I think IT job will keep offshore, if not India may go to other country. Actually there is one more thing that America company should worry. There are less and less students majoring in computer science in colleges these days. The hottest major is biology, bio-medical, bio-chemistry because all the parents especially the ones in IT right now said those majors can never go offshore.
So that means less students will graduate from IT as far as I see in the next few years.
(I have a kid studying in high school, last year's graduating class had 550 students and less than 5% chose to major in computer and subject to change. I also looked at other school districts and they had the same situation. Maybe this only happened in NY.)
October 21, 2007 at 10:26 pm
This particular article was short on detail but also pretty telling.
The "magic" of offshoring is rapidly declining, no so long ago the cost differential between a U.S. employee and an offshore resource was frequently 5 to 1 which allowed for a lot of innefficiencies and overhead when dealing with offshore resources. Today the cost differential is closer to 2 to 1 (particularly with the weakness of the U.S. dollar and the rising salaries in places like India). At 2 to 1 (soon to be even?), the cost savings are often outweighed by the difficulty of working across time zones, cultures, etc. and local resources become much more attractive.
My personal opinion is that there are a limited number of people in the entire world truly capable of operating at the high levels required in today's complex environments - I suspect that we'll eventually see a fairly level playing field globally, good/great IT folks are hard to come by and only a small percentage of the global population is truly capable of "playing" at that high level. There will always be a certain percentage of work that can be farmed out to the lowest bidder but to be honest I've seen IT get harder and harder, not easier and easier, and the skill/talent required to be truly effective in IT in general continues to rise.
Hopefully, the lower number of folks choosing comp. sci., etc. as a major is really a measure of those who are truly interested in the opportunities/possibilities of a career in IT rather than an admission of the futility of a career in IT - only time will tell but again, I suspect that the truly good/great will always be able to make a good living in our business...
Joe
P.S. Recruiters - I would love to work/live in Australia or NZ... actually anywhere abroad, I love learning about new cultures and people.
October 22, 2007 at 6:25 am
The salary in Europe, Australia and New Zealand is very low, you sure you want to work there.
October 22, 2007 at 12:04 pm
Well - I didn't notice Joe asking to get paid on their payscale. Just said he'd like to work over there:)
Of course - the way the dollar is going, might not work out any better 😛
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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?
October 23, 2007 at 8:12 am
Loner (10/22/2007)
The salary in Europe, Australia and New Zealand is very low, you sure you want to work there.
Wow! What a sweeping generalisation. Europe's a big place, you know. Can't really speak for the rest of it, but here in the UK my salary is about the same as I think it would be for the same sort of work in the US, only here I have 25+ days leave a year (not including bank holidays), sick pay, and a 35-hour week. I think that throughout the EU, employment law is much more favourable to the employee than it is in the US, although salaries do vary from country to country.
John
October 23, 2007 at 9:03 am
I used to work for a company that had a subsidiary in England, their normal vacation was 4 to 6 weeks. I remembered we had to send people there during Christmas to take care of business because everyone was on vacation. However their salary was at least 1/3 less than US programmer, and in England everything was very expensive. My husband's company also had a subsidiary in England. Whenever he went there, his co-workers in England would ask him to buy clothes especially jeans. I got a pair of Levi's jeans here for $18 (on sale), in England it cost about 40 pounds. US $1 = 1.5 pounds.
I also worked with a woman coming from England, she also said she made more money here than in England, that was the reason why she stayed here.
October 23, 2007 at 11:41 am
Now that the exchange rate is roughly 1 pound=2 dollars (today's rate as best I could find it), sounds like our colleagues "across the pond" are making out better than we....
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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?
October 23, 2007 at 11:48 am
Not if you spend pounds as fast as dollars. I was stationed in England for 2.5 years in the Air Force. It was expensive on the local economy. It was cheaper to buy things on base, or have my parents buy stuff state side and ship it to me. For instance, a book on base could cost me $3.00, off base the same book might cost 2.50 (pounds) or about $5.00.
😎
October 23, 2007 at 1:57 pm
Not sure the salary difference is so much now with the price of the pound against the dollar! Who knows...But then again, it really depends on which industry and part of the company you work in...
A job in London could be £50k. The same role in say, Manchester could be £30k.
October 24, 2007 at 1:36 am
Yes. I work in the north of England... if I were based in London then I'm sure I could beat US salaries. And don't forget we Brits don't have to shell out for health insurance in the same way you do. That must make quite a difference.
John
November 4, 2007 at 7:33 pm
Being in the US working for UK, I think the UK is doing a bit better right now in raw numbers.
I think offshoring will still happen, but it's not a "fad" anymore or popular, so companies will be a little more careful in analyzing the changes rather than thinking it's something they "need"
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