So does this mean I should go look for a programming position in India now?

Why not? After all, I just *love* Indian cuisine.

Gimme a good old chicken vindaloo any day of the week and I'll work for free
(well, almost free)   :-)


Brian.

On Fri, 24 Jun 2005 13:17:09 EDT, Wirt Atmar <[log in to unmask]> wrote:

>From today's NY Times:
>
>=======================================
>
>June 24, 2005
>Cutting Here, but Hiring Over There
>By STEVE LOHR
>
>Even as it proceeds with layoffs of up to 13,000 workers in Europe and the
>United States, I.B.M. plans to increase its payroll in India this year by
more
>than 14,000 workers, according to an internal company document.
>
>Those numbers are telling evidence of the continuing globalization of work
>and the migration of some skilled jobs to low-wage countries like India.
And
>I.B.M., the world's largest information technology company, is something
of a
>corporate laboratory that highlights the trend. Its actions inform the
worries
>and policy debate that surround the rise of a global labor force in
science,
>engineering and other fields that require advanced education.
>
>To critics, I.B.M. is a leading example of the corporate strategy of
shopping
>the globe for the cheapest labor in a single-minded pursuit of profits, to
>the detriment of wages, benefits and job security here and in other
developed
>countries. The company announced last month that it would cut 10,000 to
13,000
>jobs, about a quarter of them in the United States and the bulk of the
rest in
>Western Europe.
>
>"I.B.M. is really pushing this offshore outsourcing to relentlessly cut
costs
>and to export skilled jobs abroad," said Marcus Courtney, president of the
>Washington Alliance of Technology Workers, or WashTech, a group that seeks
to
>unionize such workers. "The winners are the richest corporations in the
world,
>and American workers lose."
>
>WashTech, based in Washington State, gave the I.B.M. document on Indian
>employment to The New York Times. It is labeled "I.B.M. Confidential" and
dated
>April 2005. An I.B.M. employee concerned about the shifting of jobs abroad
>provided the document to WashTech.
>
>I.B.M. declined to comment on the document or the numbers in it, other than
>to say that there are many documents, charts and projections generated
within
>the company.
>
>But in an interview, Robert W. Moffat, an I.B.M. senior vice president,
>explained that the buildup in India was attributable to surging demand for
>technology services in the thriving Indian economy and the opportunity to
tap the many
>skilled Indian software engineers to work on projects around the world.
>
>Lower trade barriers and cheaper telecommunications and computing ability
>help allow a distant labor force to work on technology projects, he said.
>
>Mr. Moffat said I.B.M. was making the shift from a classic multinational
>corporation with separate businesses in many different countries to a truly
>worldwide company whose work can be divided and parceled out to the most
efficient
>locations.
>
>Cost is part of the calculation, Mr. Moffat noted, but typically not the
most
>important consideration. "People who say this is simply labor arbitrage
don't
>get it," he said. "It's mostly about skills."
>
>And Mr. Moffat said that I.B.M. was hiring people around the world,
including
>many in the United States, in new businesses that the company has marked
for
>growth, even as it trims elsewhere. The company's overall employment in the
>United States has held steady for the last few years, at about 130,000.
>
>To foster growth, I.B.M. is increasingly trying to help its client
companies
>use information technology rather than just selling them the hardware and
>software. So I.B.M. researchers and programmers are more and more being
put to
>work for customers, redesigning and automating tasks like procurement,
accounting
>and customer service.
>
>Yet those advanced services projects will be broken into pieces, with
>different experts in different countries handling a slice. This emerging
>globalization of operations, Mr. Moffat noted, does lead to a global labor
market in
>certain fields. "You are no longer competing just with the guy down the
street, but
>also with people around the world," he said.
>
>Such competition, however, can become particularly harsh for workers in the
>West when they are competing against well-educated workers in low-wage
>countries like India. An experienced software programmer in the United
States earning
>$75,000 a year can often be replaced by an Indian programmer who earns
$15,000
>or so.
>
>Most economic studies, including one last week by the McKinsey Global
>Institute, a research group, have concluded that the offshore outsourcing
of work
>will not have a huge effect on American jobs as a whole.
>
>But looking at job numbers alone, said Joseph E. Stiglitz, a Nobel
>Prize-winning economist and a professor at Columbia University,
understates the
>potential problem. "What worries me is that it could have an enormous
effect on wages,
>and that could have a wrenching impact on society," said Professor
Stiglitz,
>a former chief economist of the World Bank.
>
>The fact that globalization anxiety about jobs and wages does not extend to
>executive ranks has stirred resentment among workers. "Maybe the
shareholders
>should look offshore for competitive executives who would collect less pay
and
>fewer benefits," said Lee Conrad, national coordinator of the
Alliance@IBM, a
>union-affiliated group that has 6,500 dues-paying members at I.B.M. "In all
>this talk of global competitiveness, the burden all falls on the workers."
>
>Education and retraining, most experts agree, is a major part of the answer
>for helping skilled workers adjust and find new jobs to replace those lost
to
>global competition. For its part, I.B.M. says it spends more than $700
million
>on training its employees for new jobs within the company, and for those
laid
>off it offers severance packages that include career counseling and
>reimbursement for retraining.
>
>Even some champions of globalization say the corporate winners should do
more
>to ease the transition of the losers. "The wealth creation clearly has some
>fallout, and there is a responsibility for it," said Diana Farrell,
director of
>the McKinsey Global Institute.
>
>By one calculation, the cost of softening the blow might not be all that
>high. For every dollar invested offshore, American companies save 58 cents,
>McKinsey estimates. And 4 or 5 percent of those savings could pay for a
theoretical
>wage insurance program that would cover 70 percent of the income lost
between
>an old job and a new one, as well as subsidized health care coverage,
McKinsey
>said.
>
>=========================================
>
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