Earlier today a friend of mine from the Bay Area and I were having a conversation about the current state of our 'knowledge economy.' He brought to my attention the SFGate article below on the increasing surge of 'knowledge worker' jobs to overseas markets. What caught his eye in this article was the quote:
"There is no job that is America's God-given right anymore," HP chief Carly Fiorina said. "We have to compete for jobs."
To which my friend offered, that he thought it rather noble of Carly to suggest that she and other USA C-level executives should have to compete for their jobs with offshore executives who would most likely work for millions less in annual pay. This would indeed save the USA job market a good deal of money - perhaps enough to re-employ a few million of the out-of-work non-'C'-level workforce... (^:
SFGate :: Backlash brews as executives keep shifting white-collar jobs overseas
RACHEL KONRAD, AP Business Writer
...Executives say transferring highly paid, highly skilled jobs to foreigners allows companies to engineer products inexpensively and lets Americans focus on emerging fields such as nanotechnology. The average American programmer commands $60 an hour; in India the rate is roughly one-sixth of that.
Proponents also say outsourcing develops work forces -- and in turn, consumers with buying power -- in fast-growing markets such as China, India and Russia.
Despite that daunting economic logic, outsourcing opponents say they hope to educate the public about the true cost of globalization.
"People are tired of everything being based upon the bottom line, where companies are getting richer and everyone else is losing out," said Marcus Courtney, organizer of the Seattle-based Washington Alliance of Technology Workers, which has 370 dues-paying members and 16,000 people on a free electronic mailing list...
K-Collector Topics: Conversations Economics Education Knowledge Economy knowledge work Liberty Alliance Our Society Outsourcing ProductivityHi J
Have you seen the talk about the new documentary "the Corporation"? When analyzed, corporations are revealed as pschopaths! They have no feelings. They have no guilt and they are only self interested - yet we have invested everything into them.
i have seen it rob... corporations are in their 'reptilian brain' - survival, hoarding, dominance - not very different from the brain possessed by the reptiles roaming the earth some 200 million years ago...
Posted by: judith at January 21, 2004 08:41 PMRachel Konrad states, as have a number of AP reporters said similarly:
The average American programmer commands $60 an hour; in India the rate is roughly one-sixth of that.
This is an interesting "fact" without substantiation. The median of the highest paid "programmers" (Programmer V out of 1 through 5) in America according to Salary.com
http://swz.salary.com/salarywizard/layoutscripts/swzl_compresult.asp?geo=U.S.+National+Averages&jobtitle=Client%2FServer+Programmer+V&jobcode=IT10000188
seems to be bringing in about $89k, topping out at $99k. Perhaps these AP reporters should cite references when making such sensationalist claims. Certainly stating that the average programmer earns 4.5x as much isn't quite as effective a rallying cry?
Try comparing the average quality of the average overseas outsourced programmer you get to that of one of America's "Programmer V". A more appropriate comparison would be with that of a "Programmer I", whose national median income is a mere $50, or $25 an hour.
$25 vs. $10 isn't as alluring as a whopping SIX TIMES the Indian rate, touted in this article.
Further, factor in the higher cost of managing resources so incredibly far away, with language and culture barriers comingling with security and international intellectual property concerns, and you can readily see that the strong argument to outsource offshore is quite trumped up.