A recent article about job offshoring at Yahoo Business was some serious FFTAGFFR. The global economy is undergoing nothing short of a full scale paradigm shift. Ten years ago I was anxiously looking forward to the day when I could telecommute from out in the boonies in Idaho, and yet still make a good salary. However, the advances in telecommunications have allowed bottom line-driven corporations to leapfrog beyond setting up their American information workers as telecommuters. Instead, they contract out to teleworkers in Third World countries. Increasingly, most new customer service call centers are being set up not in low cost Arkansas, but instead in in ultra low cost India. Likewise new software development centers are being set up not in low cost Oregon, but instead in in ultra low cost Pakistan or Communist China. I expect this trend to continue. And with university systems expanding in the Third World there will be no shortage of high tech teleworkers in the Third World. The University of Bangalore cranks out tens of thousands of programmers every year that are gleeful at the prospect of earning a whopping $10,000 a year and willing to crank out beau coup lines of code, working 60 hours a week, sitting elbow-to-elbow with their co-workers. At $10,000 a year, they can afford to live in a nice house and have a lower caste servant to do the washing. (Someone who is willing to work for $300 a year.) If you work in high tech, my advice is to maneuver yourself into an offshoring-proof job. There aren’t many of those. Note, however, that offshoring is impracticable in any job that his highly dependent on face to face contact. It is also unlikely for offshoring to occur in some highly regulated sectors or such as banking, gaming, and defense. (At least the defense jobs that require a security clearance.)
Offshoring–The Handwriting is On the Wall
