Outsourcing Permutations

September 24, 2007 6:42 PM

Indian company to outsource its outsourcing. Outsourcing in Ghana, where the government takes English very seriously indeed. Finally, Native American outsourcing.
posted by StrikeTheViol (8 comments total)

I can't tell if there is a joke to be made here or if this is just the punchline to one.
posted by CitrusFreak12 at 7:17 PM on September 24, 2007

"It's the equivalent of a bachelor's in computer science in six months," said a trainee, Melissa Adams, 22. Adams graduated last spring from the University of Washington with a business degree and turned down Google for Infosys.

Melissa Adams: Fail.
Infosys: Fail.
Google: Fail.

On the bright side of all this, eventually if you lose your job to outsourcing you will be able to get it right back by working for the US Division of the Canadian Division of the African Division of the Indian Outsourcing Company. With a pay cut, of course.
posted by TheOnlyCoolTim at 8:00 PM on September 24, 2007 [1 favorite]

But lately, packs of foreigners have been strolling the campus. Many are Americans, recently graduated from college. Some had been pursued by coveted employers like Google. Instead, they accepted a novel assignment from Infosys, the Indian technology giant: Fly here to learn programming from scratch, then return to the United States to work in the Indian company's back office.


These are brilliant intercultural business practices.

As for the pay cut, its been across the board at American companies for the last thirty years, courtesy of the GOP. Labor costs are being driven down all over. This is capital being allowed to totally dominate the marketplace without regulation.
posted by Ironmouth at 8:23 PM on September 24, 2007

There's no way companies that were outsourced to overseas can afford to subcontract themselves when the companies themselves must know of it and can just go to those cheaper countries, no? Is India going to learn that they were just a pitstop in a race to the cheapest labor?
posted by amberglow at 9:28 PM on September 24, 2007

As for the pay cut, its been across the board at American companies for the last thirty years, courtesy of the GOP. Labor costs are being driven down all over. This is capital being allowed to totally dominate the marketplace without regulation.

The GOP doesn't control wages in India. And uh, I don't see exactly what the problem is. The habit of U.S. tech workers believing they have a natural monopoly tech work is rather irritating.

I wouldn't want to hire someone who'd earned a "bachelors" in six months, though.
posted by delmoi at 10:11 PM on September 24, 2007

Is India going to learn that they were just a pitstop in a race to the cheapest labor?

The Indians are Infosys, Wipro, etc are pretty smart people. I imagine they are well aware of the reasons people were using them. I also imagine that there are now a sea of Indians who have the training, infrastructure, and know-how to go out and do there own thing.
posted by chunking express at 6:24 AM on September 25, 2007

And as Delmoi points out, American tech workers are the most annoying people on the planet. The amount of ignornance the spews forth whenever out sourcing comes up on Slashdot is hilarious. "Indians can't program" "Indians can't speak English" Suck it up already.
posted by chunking express at 6:25 AM on September 25, 2007

amberglow writes "Is India going to learn that they were just a pitstop in a race to the cheapest labor?"

Damn sure they will ! And exactly like the yanks, they are not going to do much about that ..of course I am not speaking of the powers-that-have, but the ordinary indian Apu, with the reasoning that their job can still be outsourced to somebody paid in a inexpensive currency AND even more hungry ! Fear !!

Yet as you said this is a race to the bottom : with what money are wage-earners supposed to buy goods and service in europe ?

So I guess its more likely to be just a scare tactic to keep the indian wages conveniently low.
posted by elpapacito at 6:42 AM on September 25, 2007