Friday, June 18, 2010
Offshoreable Occupations
All the occupations related to mathematics, statistics, etc. are offshoreable. 14 of the 23 occupations related to architecture and engineering are offshorable. That means that most of the actual calculations and drawing could be done by Indians and Chinese in their countries. Yet programming as an occupation has not disappeared in the US or Europe, only the salaries descended to normal levels.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
6 comments:
The typical offshore Indian programmer isn't really good. Browse the forums of websites like TheDailyWTF.com and you'll find plenty of talk about this.
http://forums.thedailywtf.com/forums/p/8039/151285.aspx
The biggest firms can be picky and hire the most elite programmers in India, who are equal in ability to Westerners. I'm not sure though that they trust them yet for their most critical applications.
I'm sure this works differently in the US than it does here, though.
Any job that is not nailed down through cartels like the medical, bar and accounting associations can be offshored. For now, this protected category includes for policemen and soldiers, the eyes and arms of the State. Almost everyone else's job is eaten from below by alleged foreign talent. In the 90s the US IT industry was carrying on about how they simply had to have Indian code coolies turn up the US as the Americans lacked native talent. The truth was something else altogether, Americans were not willing to work for the pay on offer. The Indians and East Europeans were brought in to depress the wages of American programmers. In theory a limited supply of programmers meant that the price of a programmer should go up, but in practice the IT bosses ended up with all the benefits, deriving 'value' by driving down salaries.
You may put it that way - Western workers refuse to work for the salaries offered. You cant offshore the jobs protected by unions and guilds, or jobs requiring personal - verbal service. The rest, starting with math and stats, are open to the capable and willing, wherever they are.
Then why don't we offshore the CEO's work too, after all anyone can do rounds of golf and glad handing of politicians. All kidding aside, are American CEOs worth multiples of Japanese or German or French industry titans? They too oversaw massive expansions of their industrial might; but they could handle it without much offshoring.
Then why don't we offshore the CEO's work too
Ohh, that happens eventually too. Eventually the product is made by a foreign company instead of just by a foreign supplier. A good example of this is in bicycles. First bikes were made here, then they were made overseas to the specification of American companies who marketed them as their own, and now they are made by foreign companies without the need for the American company.
This is going on with computers also - at first companies like Acer and Asus were OEM's for well known American makes like Gateway and Packard Bell - eventually the supplier bought the marketer.
The only reason this hasn't happened more is that marketing is trickier than it looks, especially marketing in a foreign culture that you don't really understand. But eventually the foreigners get the hang of it.
K
Post a Comment