Looking at the current jobs report and disappointment with the unemployment numbers, I don't think we take into account the impact of outsourcing by major companies in our country. For example, I currently work in the IT industry. I have experience as a Sr. programmer, project manager, consultant and application architect. 10 years ago, I would have a staff of 10 to 25 IT professionals in the Houston area working with me on multiple projects ranging from web, desktop, SharePoint, windows and even Lotus Notes applications. Eight years ago, my highly profitable company outsourced many developer positions to India. As a result, I still work in Houston, by myself, but now have 40-50 IT professionals in India that I manage without the manager title or pay. Even with 40-50 developers in India, it still is almost 35% cheaper than having 10-25 Houston area employees. Then you take into account that my responsibilities are those of a manager, but without the manager's pay, it's almost 45-50% in salary savings. My theory are those jobs are never coming back. This is the new norm. We look at the unemployment rate and expect it will get back to lower than 6%. But, why would these companies bring these jobs back if they can save 35-to 50% in salaries and healthcare benefits by outsourcing? Why doesn't anyone talk about the impact of outsourcing when discussing the unemployment rate and the potential that outsourced jobs are not likely to return to the US economy, regardless of who is POTUS.
Well, it depends on what sort of time frame you're looking at. Theoretically, the jobs (mostly manufacturing in the case of outsourcing) could come back when US labor becomes as cheap or cheaper than foreign countries that have the capacity to perform the needed labor at comparable quality. At the rate that developing economies are growing, it is possible that some of these jobs will start coming back in a few decades.
Started with manufacturing, but has expanded. In the tech industry, large part of the reason it has expanded is because of location, cost and work hours. They are closer to the manuf site, cheaper labor and work longer hours. QA, Development, even project management and general management has been outsourced. What hasn't yet been affected are high level management, high level designer, core developers and so on. I think unless the government put up some restriction or we have a completely new type of economy, this will slow down but the jobs are not coming back in our generation (with rare exceptions such as when company moved too fast at out-sourcing --- has happen and will continue, but the trends stay).
I work in an IT consulting company with offshore teams. I'd say the quality of the dev team for some offshore isn't the same but then again, consulting companies are brought in because client management has acknowledged a problem in their own processes or talent base (local or abroad). The latest fad is nearshore, where the time differences in Brazil isn't as bad as the ~12 hour difference to India. That's not to say it's entirely difficult to get hired as a technical person. There's still a supply constraint as enterprise is either moving towards automation and IT or upgrading decades old legacy systems they started after Y2k. For now, unemployment numbers are suffering as Corporations are shedding services jobs that have been replaced by automation and smarter IT services. I'm not too sure when IT professionals automate themselves out of the equation at the present time. If you've been to some of these institutions, it's almost wracking how you'd be able to trust your info and data to them...
My company outsourced, but it was 14 years ago. These days we have 30 people in India on the team and 6 from the US. The 30 people in India are so inefficient that they could like be replaced by 3 experienced US hires. It just won't ever happen. Instead they'll gladly replace me one day with 3 folks from India.
If you drive a foreign car, you shouldn't complain about outsourcing. Companies are making the same decision normal people are when purchasing a car. It is almost worse with a foreign car, because they generally cost more.
Is there such as a thing as a car that isn't "foreign" in some way or form? Toyota, Honda, Nissan and many non US based manufacturers have factories in the US to build their cars for the US market. Chrysler, Ford, GM uses foreign parts and have many plants and development center in Canada, Mexico, S. America, China, Europe... (yes, they outsource too). A conscious consumer that want to buy US only doesn't have that much of a choice simply because nearly EVERYONE outsource. Don't compare what a consumer does vs what a huge corporation like Apple, with Billions in quarterly profit, does. One have the ability of layoff no one, the other have the ability to layoff 10k workers, not out of necessity, but for pure profit.
I'm generally for free trade and that also includes outsourcing but I agree there are many problems caused by it. It was inevitable with the rise of global communications that any job that can be possibly outsourced will be. At the same time protectionist practices that restrict the flow of the capital, labor and resources cause problems too. My own opinion is that while there is short term pain from things like outsourcing moving capital and encouraging development in other countries does benefit the US. For example while China and India have taken US jobs there are many US companies that also sell goods and services to those countries benefiting the US. As the Chinese economy has developed Chinese businesses and companies are investing capital back to the US.
