And what exactly do judgemental pricks like yourself find? I would still like you to state your situation. I am sure you will not divulge that info because then we would all know you have a secure job and secure retirement (if not already retired) and that makes it much easier for you to say “Stop bitching! Get a job in fast food if you have to. Its not my problem”.
How old are you sailor? Come on. Tell me? Or is it classified?
Let me see. As I’ve pretty much matched Sailor’s position I do hope you’ll find me just as big a “judgemental prick”. So for your study, please be advised that I’m 30, married, no children.
Stinkpalm, you are an idiot. I understand why you feel the need to be protected from intelligent, hard-working people where-ever they are.
Stinkpalm - why did you choose to drop $40K and earn an EE degree. Was it because it was a subject that seriously interested you, or was it because you saw the salaries of the tech boom and wanted some for yourself? Please be honest.
OK, this has become entirely too personal. Let’s all step back,
I understand (?) the market forces. I understand that sometimes jobs go overseas. I’m trying to understand that this could be a good thing, overall. At least, not a disasterous thing. This is not gonna affect me in the short term. In the long term, I’d be more than happy doing something else. What, I have no idea.
But on a certain level, it’s still irritating to hear jobs going overseas to save costs and still hear about ineffective CEO’s and outrageous golden parachutes and severence packages. I have worked for a large company, surviving layoff after layoff and the business shrinking, but seeing how much the executives were getting in bonuses alone. (I was printing their checks at the time). I know it is possible that I’m getting my info from bad sources. Maybe it’s skewed somewhat.
But I would still feel better if I hit one of these guys with a whiffle ball bat. Is that so wrong? 
Actually I worked on the labor side of the power industry for 4 years and found the subject of high-voltage sub-station design and power system/ municipal power very interesting. That is why I went into EE. I don’t think that area has every really been “booming”, but it has, and probably always will be, one of the most stable areas of EE. No one is getting rich, but people keep their jobs.
I am going (trying) into the AF into a development position instead of jumping into the civilian sector for several reasons though. First, I enjoyed being in the AF on the enlisted side, and will enjoy it on the officer side. Second, I told myself when I seperated as an enlisted guy in 99 I would try to get back in as an officer after graduation so that I could get experience and see what it is like on that side of the fence of the military. Third, in order to get into anything dealing with municipal power design/layout you have to have your PE in most places, and that is not an easy feat to accomplish.
All areas of EE do not interest me, particularly the digital side.
The programmers watching their jobs go to India made a bad career choice. If they wanted to code, they shouldn’t have chosen a field based on proprietary software than is ruled by companies, but should have just coded free software as a hobby while working in a less mobile profession. That’s the path I took. I chose not to waste six years on a master’s degree in computer science, a field that any one with half a brain could see moving overseas quickly (as happened with the textile industry, the “hi-tech” field of 150 years ago). Instead, I became a classicist, which is a stable and enjoyable profession. Teaching positions pay decently and there are plenty of patrons to support those wanting to predominantly do research. When I feel the inclination to code, I can help out a free software project.
It’s a shame that the dot-com euphoria blinded people to the fact that every field that starts off high-paying and hi-tech eventually heads over to the third world.
UnuMondo
The smartest people I know (at least the ones who are primarily motivated by money) are finding ways to exploit these disparities in cost of living and geographically specific expertise to their advantage, with sometimes quite spectacular results. In addition to all the smart Indian and Chinese and other various folks for whom I draft U.S. work visas, so they can come here and use their brains to take advantage of America’s higher standard of living and help American companies make money, a few even go a step further.
One Russian guy I know came here for his MBA and was hired after graduation by a boutique consulting firm’s Russian subsidiary. After a couple of years in Moscow, they transferred him to the U.S. to manage a client project; not many people can bridge that particular gap in language and culture, and even though he was very young and didn’t have much professional experience, he was suddenly the best guy for the job. I didn’t now him through work, but my firm was just starting the green card process for him (which is expensive and painful, but his employer obviously thought he was worth it, and believe me, he was making a quite decent salary; they didn’t pay him any less than the Americans in his position, which would be legally prohibited for someone in his visa category anyway). A few months ago, he got a better offer: he left everything he had here in the U.S. (a quite nice lifestyle) and went back to Russia to an upper management job in a major petroleum extraction company. All before the age of 30. Again, he was the guy with the skills and experience most suited for the job, mostly because of his experience in America.
I have no doubt that he will go on to bring Russian industry into the 20th century, but at the same time, the cost of living and salaries in Russia are heading toward Western levels, too. A 1-bedroom apartment in Moscow that might have rented for a token sum of a few dollars a month in 1989 can go for hundreds a month now, if it’s in decent shape and a good location; that’s not exactly New York prices, but it’s still a significant jump. It will all even out eventually, but the process will be painful. My condolences on picking a vulnerable field, but hey, that’s capitalism for you. You may have to find a new niche. (And BTW, government-guaranteed student loans can also generally be switched to an income-contingent repayment plan. I know; I’ve been there. It sucks, but grownups have to make their choices and live with the results.)
All I can add to this is that programming has always been a tough field to crack. The only time there wasn’t a huge surplus of programmers was the latter half of the nineties. Otherwise, you had to work your ass off for not a lot of pay until you gained enough experience in the right skill set to demand a lot of money, which is how I did it.
As of today, though, you can’t even do that. No way would I advise any young person to take programming as a major these days. I have my position for the nonce, but realize that it could disappear at any time, and I always have my little contingency plans in the back of my head for the time I might need it.
What’s happening now to programmers in the West is roughly analogous to what happened to Swiss watchmakers when watches went quartz and anyone could make a super accurate watch for very little. We’re the Swiss watchmakers at the dawn of the quartz era. Like someone else said, fighting this would be like trying to fight water going downhill.
Thank you pantom and about one other person for making fair observations without the snide and unjust implication that this is all somehow deserved.
Personally I am not scared for my own job… I am also fortunate in be a specialist in a number of low-level technical areas that will always need local expertise, and have friends at the highest levels of the industry I can tap for work. If that weren’t enough, I aim to train as a plumber next year and an electrician the year after that. If the worst happens, I am an amateur musician and will busk my way to riches! 
I am scared for what will happen to the industry en masse. The mid-term effect on the economy for one thing, for there will be a lot of unemployed in 5 years if this continues unchecked. Secondly I fear for the long term effect on the profession as practiced in America and the UK. As someone said, what happens when there’s nowhere for our own future techie stars to shine? Answer: They won’t.
But I am mostly just outraged at the injustice of it, for it is most damnably unfair that so many positions that are intrinsically domestic should be moved overseas. I’m not just thinking of programming, a type of work which often transcends national boundaries, but what about that other great Indian import, the call-center? When I phone my local bank, I expect to speak to another Brit or at least someone actually living here. It seems fundamentally wrong that the person picking up the phone is 3000 miles away. A job at a British bank, dealing with the British public, belongs in Britain. Simple as that.
Some in this thread profess they cannot see any unfairness at all. To them I suggest they remove their blinkered, stereotyped (racist?) view of fat lazy Westerners needing a kick up the arse, and hardworking industrious Indians/Chinese needing the opportunity. Once you recognise that basic fact that geeks are the same the world over, and it is that local differences entirely beyond their control that are being so readily exploited, the unfairness becomes starkly apparent.
One suspects that if it were us fat lazy Westerners making money by taking jobs traditionally done in India and China (and serving Indian and Chinese markets to boot), you’d be screaming blue bloody murder about it. “Western economic imperialism!” would go the cry, or something like that.
But of course this way round, it’s ‘only fair’.
If I may ask a simple question, what the fuck are you talking about.
Please explain the difference between having your bank balance read out by a phone operatior in India or by a phone operator in East Kilbride? Why the fuck does it “belong in Britain”? What sort of jingoistic bollocks is that? Where the fuck is any “injustice”?
Reuben, just because you are used to it does not make it just. Rather, we in western countries are in a situation of privilege and injustice is to leave things the way they are. Injustice is that an American or European can make ten times as much for the same work. That is injustice of the highest order. Just because that is the way it was and that is what you are used to does not mean it is right. Just because someone was born in China does not mean they have a lesser right thatn you have to earn a living. We are all humans and we should be free to choose who we want to buy goods and services from. If you want to buy only domestic things then you can do that. I choose to buy from whoever gives me best value and I don’t care if he lives next door or around the world.
Gary Kumquat if you can’t see what’s wrong with it, and are actually so monumentally blind and reactionary as to consider my attitude ‘jingoistic’, of all things, then there is no point in me trying to explain it further.
sailor, you would have the beginnings of an argument if the American or European earning 10 times the wage of his equal-ability Eastern competitor had the same outgoing concerns. But they don’t, and so neither do you. We in the West pay far more for comparable goods, far more tax, etc.
I agree entirely that you and I are very fortunate to live in a stable democratic system, one in which our forefathers had the good sense to promote decent law, education, healthcare, and the rest of it, for all citizens.
But I reject entirely the notion that our situation is ‘unfair’, merely because there exist other countries that do not yet have the same happy state. I ain’t saying we shouldn’t feel obliged to help them out whenever possible - far from it in fact - but I’ll stop some way short of giving them my actual livelihood.
I still suspect that you would too.
In other words you can’t give 1 reason why a call centre in India is worse for fielding account queries than a call centre in the UK.
Me, I’m still laughing my tits off at the sheer parochial nonsense to be found in “A job at a British bank, dealing with the British public, belongs in Britain.”
[League of Gentlemen]
“This is a local bank, for local people”
[/LoG]
Reuben, what I reject is the notion that I should be forced to buy expensive goods or services made in western countries when I can buy the same cheper done somewhere else. Whether I am rich or poor, a private individual or a corporation, it is MY money and I don’t want the government extorting it from me to protect local people thakyouverymuch. If I want to give to charity I will do so. If I want to buy western crap I do not need the government tell me to do it. Yes, the Chinese guy pays lower rent and can sell crap cheaper and that’s the reason I want to buy it and I cannot see why he should be denied the opportunity to make a living. Protectionism is not only unfair but it does not work.
This is a fascinating thread, but it’s clear to me that it keeps degenerating into stereotypes. The alarming fact of the matter is that an awful lot of IT jobs are being outsourced overseas, and people who have studied long and hard (and worked long and hard) are suddenly finding themselves with no prospects. I have several friends in this boat. The “headshunters” don’t even have programmer requests anymore.
This is a case of “entitlement”, or lazy Americans being done in by the hard-working foreigners. It’s the economic situation changing (I don’t understand the claim that “wages are a red herring”. As far as I can see, wages are the whole business. If they weren’t lower elsewhere, whoi would dream of sending the jobs elsewhere, and introducing the prioblems of long-distance communication?) Now people who have spent their lives working up to thois point are screwed. They’d been told that there would be programming jobs. Even, as noted, after the loss of manifacturing jobs we were told that there would be software jobs. Surprise!
You could say that they were too short-sighted, but that’s more obvious in hindsight. These are the jobs that were assumed to be tied to their place of business. Modern communications and the internet changed all that. This is a PROFOUND change – viewable perhaps as a continuation of the loss of manufacturing to companies outside the country, but wholly different in displacing jobs once thought secure.
The obvious corrolary is that this is but the second wave of a trend. Don;'t think your own job is secure just because it isn’t manufacturing or programming. I’ve been reading news reports and advertising from specialist consultants overseas. Chemical engineering, EE, all other engineering, even biotech can now be done by high-tech workers overseas and zipped to your company via e-mail. These people, again, have much lower costs of living, so they can undercut high-tech specialists here. I have a lot of friends in consulting jobs that this is going to hit hard.
There are some situations where you need an in-place person, it’s true, but these firms have US liaisons. There’s no need to have the whole team on US soil.
It’s a scary prospect. You can’t just say “You trained for the wrong area”, because this will affect all areas. Pick a new field and train for it, at great cost and effort, and you can find the overseas consultants already there, and cheaper. There are only so many positions for liaison folks. And I’m sure the folks overseas will be happy to have you move over there to take advantage of the low cost of living.
This, as I say, is a profound change. It’s not just the usual workings of business and the labor market. The social effects will be significant.
Going into R&D would be nice, and might get you out of the consultant loop, but precious few companies are doing R&D anymore. Look how the mighty have fallen – Bell Labs is no more, split into pieces, and Lucent is in hard times. Polaroid is now reduced to selling its name to products developed in other countries.
Well, it is new and it is old. People have opposed change since time immemorial. Field laborers opposed machinery because it took jobs away. Every step of progress has meant someone was displaced. Railways meant cheaper transportation costs so products which could not compete before were now competing. The standardization of cargo containers and their computerized management has made worldwide shipping incredibly cheap.
The world is in a state of continuous change and those who adapt and ride the chage will succeed while those who want to stop it will fail and be left behind.
The only way to succeed is to change and adapt. Nobody is owed a job in any sector. If the demand diminishes then the thing to do is change, not expect someone is going to shield you from competition.
In the long run it is good for everybody. European countries have understood this. Even though each one had sectors that would suffer by joining the common market, they realized that, on the whole, they would come out ahead.
Interesting.
I work in Ireland, supplying goods and services to the scientific manufacturing sector. Many American and other foreign pharmaceutical manufacturers have set up manufacturing and segmented processing sites here in my working lifetime and I am among the many thousands who have reaped the benefit.
These companies were set up here for a variety of reasons, not least of which was the government’s tax incentive scheme for foreign manufacturers.
You have to consider that we are people too and when it gets down to the bottom line, if our government can entice foreign investment here which proveidew me with a good job, I am not going to say:
"Oh no, I couldn’t countenance taking bread out of the mouths of the children of the American workers. "
Who would?
No one
Generations prior to me had to leave home and find work abroad. In my lifetime, the work has come here, to us. In time, it will go elsewhere. That’s the way the world works.
Fair doesn’t come into it.
If you are in the right place at the right time, you will benefit.
If you are in the wrong place at the wrong time, you have to adapt.
And as age seems to be a defining parameter in this debate, I may as well state that I am 35.
On the other hand, companies around here simply cannot find enough people to do database administration, Peoplesoft implementation and training… my company can’t find enough people with SAP experience. There are IT jobs companies can’t find enough warm bodies to fill - maybe not the fancy, high-prestige programming and development jobs, but good jobs all the same. A search for IT jobs in my area on the local job site turned up 424 listings, some of which look like pretty juicy positions.
The fact that this sudden dearth of programming jobs just happens to coincide with the total self-immolation of the Internet bubble in an explosion of office Jacuzzis, cubicle foosball tables, and paper millionaires, but does not seem to have cut into the demand for capable IT support and implementation people, suggests to me that the job shortage in specific IT sectors has a lot more to do with the bubble bursting than it does to sneaky foreigners stealing our jobs.
There are plenty of jobs in the USA and a shortage of people to cover them. Nursing is one field I can think of where there has been a chronic shortage for many years now. Not to mention picking produce in the fields. I do not think anyone is owed any specific job or any specific level of income. It is the other way around: we get something in exchange for satisfying other people’s needs. The beauty of a free market is that to get my money you have to make me happy. And viceversa.