Offshoring...

[vampyrefate]

Apparently the BCS have come to a new understanding with the IAOP to advance offshoring. This made me a bit angry, so I decided to write to the BCS today.
I don't expect they'll publish my letter, so here it is here in case anyone is interested.

Comments

[morecake]

Frankly, I agree. There are some benefits to be had from offshoring, but I really don't believe managers are looking any further than the reduced wage bill, at the cost of some serious hits to productivity.

[mrs_ralph]

In the really expanded eye view there is also significant damage to the tax base and the economy in general. The workers who are made redundant will no longer be contributing to the tax base. They will, instead, be withdrawing funds from it. Also a certain number of employers will move their home offices overseas cutting into the tax base even further. One could say that offshoring is not just counterproductive to the recovery of the economy but also downright unpatriotic and could topple the system as we know it, crippling the country for years to come. Perhaps toppling the system is not neccesarily a bad thing, depending on your point of view, but the fact that it would cripple the country for what would probably be an extended period of time is not a good thing

[vampyrefate]

Just out of interest, what are IT workers retrain to become? What's "higher up the food chain"? They surely can't all manage offshore workers.

Initially, the premise was a sotware developer could move into business analysis, then project management, or account management.

It doesn't really work though - the team I used to manage at fretties had 10 developers for each 'analyst'.

The proponents of offsoring tend to get a bit vague when you press them on this.

Not that my thoughts are especially new - the latest thing is "Onshore Offshoring" - whereby workers from India are used to directly displace natives using a loophole in the work permits system, but that is an argument for another day.

[vampyrefate]

Is the professional association for writers(?) signing MOUs with the outsourcers?

[ddraiggwyrdd]

What is really at the heart of this is that the majority of companies are committed to shareholders who do not reside in this country. Any short term savings that can be translated into share returns are all that interest them.Ultimately that is the bottom line on the whole resesion.People who have no interest in a business because they can sell the shares when necessary and buy better ones. Short term profit has taken over as the driving force and still no one is reacting to the resultant decline.