by CIO Staff

Outsourcing to India: Offshore Debate Rages

News
Aug 01, 20032 mins
Outsourcing

CIOs pressed to cut costs find that outsourcing to India makes economic sense. But those decisions have effects that spread far from the executive conference rooms. Online readers, ranging from jobless IT workers to Indian consultants, posted scores of comments reacting to our June 1 story “Inside Outsourcing in India.” Three examples follow (to see more, go to www.cio.com/printlinks).

During the ’90s I enjoyed working with a few Indian engineers. That is when we all had employment. Well, it is indeed unfortunate that it has come to this because of the greed and corruption we have in corporate America. I have a family to feed in America where the cost of living is significantly more than in India, and every time I hear the mantra ’We’ll all win via outsourcing,’ I’m more than skeptical. The two winners are technologists in India and upper management in the U.S. The losers will be me and the rest of the middle class of America.

-YALOSE (Yet another laid-off software engineer)

I am an Indian software professional educated in India and the United States. Indian professionals will succeed not just because they are cheaper but also because they are the best (on average). [As] a CIO, would you give work to an Indian with an Ivy League education working in India at $10,000 per year? Or to an American night schooler who demands $70,000 per year? According to America, this is supposed to be a free world. Does this mean free only for the West? Don’t keep us beggars forever.

-Ram, Consultant, J2MEWorks, Chennai, India

Our economy is slowly beginning to create jobs again. The problem is that the jobs are mostly overseas. Our largest, most profitable companies are shipping our jobs and middle class income to third world countries where they can get two or three workers for the price of one. Economists say this is creating the largest ’jobless recovery’ in U.S. history.

What good is a tax cut and lower interest rates going to do the United States when all of our highest paying jobs are moving out of the country? These high paying jobs are America’s tax base.

-Corey Goode, www.goodetech.com