BusinessWeek has a good article in which two economists debate the impact overseas job outsourcing on the U.S. job market.
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BusinessWeek has a good article in which two economists debate the impact overseas job outsourcing on the U.S. job market.
Didn’t seem like much of a debate to me. They both offered the same solution, which I agree is the key to everything (and worrisome when you consider the state of public schools):
“The only way the U.S. will keep one rung ahead of the rest of the world is to ensure that we have a broadly educated workforce that keeps learning. … more attention should be paid to educating the U.S. workforce.”
“Better-educated workers can better cope with rapid change, adjust on the fly, and imagine and develop fresh products and strategies.”
This obviously hits home with me, having worked in IT the past 10 years.
I would agree, educating our workforce is a vital piece of the puzzle, but would that change the trend of using overseas workers… maybe not. The fact is the rates are dirt cheap and the products delivered are usually just as good and better documented in some cases. If an IT programmer in the U.S. had to work for the same rates they would probably move to a different line of work.
A big limitation to the overseas outsourcing is flexibility and communcication. Most IT projects have requirements that are about as stable as our economy. When dealing with overseas development staff, complicated and changing requirements can often be misintepreted.
I’m curious, what other countries utilize the overseas talent. It seems the U.S. capitalism and obsession with money often creates such a cut-throat environment that any thoughts bigger than immediate self preservation are dismissed. While working in Europe last year it was very eye opening to hear how we “Americans” are perceived when it comes to business and money. In short, they think we would kill our young to make a profit.
You know it hits home with me too being an ex-IT person. I haven’t heard of other countries outsourcing like we do. I imagine that most of them have protectionist laws to prevent such things from occurring on a wide scale.
As for Americans eating their young to make a profit… sounds about right!