Many americans complain about how outsourcing is stealing away jobs. I don’t believe in this too much, but i do have issues with outsourcing.
Let’s take a look at Singapore….
In the 70’s American companies such as Intel, IBM, Nasa, and Motorola developed manufacturing contracts with a 3rd world nation… Singapore and concentrated efforts in Malaysia. We then go in, and mangae how they run the factory. some malaysians get good, they get promoted to management. They hire new engineers locally, manage locals… and learn foreign methods of industrialization and business tactics. eventually, they turn around and offer to buy out their own parent companies, or score capital with other management peers… to open up their own firms competing with the international firms. STATS ChipPAC, based out of Singapore, trades on America’s NASDAQ, and makes microprocessors and semiconductors for Motorola, Raytheon, and holds 15% of China’s semiconductor market share. This is what happens when you teach a 3rd world country how to swim…
Am I against all this? yes and no. For myself,… sure i don’t want more competition. I wanna be a big dog, and I wanna be able to win easily… make money… feed my family .. drive a porsche… and screw the rest…
But realistically… What’s best for the world?
Let’s put in another perspective… the world wants to be lazy. An american programmer of Oracle can make about $70,000 a year. He speaks English fluently, can work well in a team, and produces pretty good results in a team of 10 programmers … to turn a 5 GB database application around within 6 months. Meh… average stuff…
Some may go to china to look at alternatives… or india… or romania… or russia… well… you’ll get a programmer for roughly $10,000 a year. it will take him roughly 4 years to do the same thing… after all the screwups, miscomunications, and poor turnover. I’m not saying they are stupid… in fact, they are MORE technically oriented. I’m just stating that technical knowledge does NOT compensate for fluent communication and understanding…
then look at a country like….. France. the same programer… would make $35,000 in PARIS. same quality… if not slightly better. for half the price! no slow turnaround. now what does that say?
It says the american is overpaid. The majority of developed nations pay programmers in this range. So… While american may do a good job… they are overvalued. SO LONG AS THIS CONTINUES… companies will jump left and right to outsource their talent pool. As salaries go up around the world… eventually, things will stabilize.
I’m not saying americans should reduce their salaries. I’m saying they should increase their production. earn your up-keep! you get 2x the salary as the world average? produce 2 x the average! don’t depend so much on the inflated rates your culture and lifestyle feeds you… because in the end… those who expect much without producing anything… will starve.
So long as this value and equilibrium is not shown directly… nothing will change.