Irony of IT outsourcing
So far as I have seen, nobody but me has noticed the great
irony in the jobs of IT techies being outsourced to India and
other countries.

Advances in technologies have been the #1 cause of job
dislocation since the beginning of the Industrial
Age.

Every time somebody has invented a new machine, the people
who used to do the work performed by that machine get upset.

However, once the change in integrated into society, we
move on.

Shoemaking used to be a craft that supported who knows
how many 1000s of men and women around the world. How many of
you now wear only shoes made by hand? Zero. Everybody
reading this wears only shoes made by machines and you
probably haven't given that a second thought since the
day you were born.

Buggy whip manufacturers for some reason are one of the
prime examples often used of technological obsolescence.
How many of you think the government should be subsidising
buggy whip manufacturers and their employees to compensate
them for the lack of demand for their product?

Advances in robotic and other technologies helped Japan,
Korea and Germany take steel and automotive business from
the U.S., starting in the 70s.

How many of you work for employers who pay you with a
handwritten check? Not many, I'm sure. Every so often I
still see a very small business with only a few employees
use hand-written checks and stubs, but that's increasingly
rare. Every business of any size uses computers to
print out payroll and other checks.

Yet big businesses existed prior to computers and people had
to be paid. How many people had check-writing or
imprinting (with hand operated machines) jobs prior to the
computer taking them all away?

Word processing software has largely done away with the
old job of "secretary." How many women are sorry for that?

Technology advances in the US and the rest of the world
created the need to lay off many 1000s of blue collar
workers in the early 80s. The PC enabled the mass
downsizing of white collar workers from the mid-80s on.

Did any of you hear engineers and computer programmers --
the people who enabled these advances -- express any
regrets? I don't recall it.

I only wonder that so many of them did not foresee the process
eventually affecting themselves, with the spread of
networks -- especially the Internet -- enabling easy
long distance communication and transport of data,
including software programs.

Yet, the Internet has undoubtedly created a HUGE number
of *new* opportunities for techies. Java applets,
web site design, web programming, search engine
optimization, ad and visitor tracking, games and much
much more.

(Not to mention the huge number of jobs and businesses
created by marketing products and services online.)

Techies are tools, to be used when needed and discarded
or traded in for new ones when no longer economical.

So are engineers, research scientists and technical
experts of all kinds.

Jobs have become outmoded by technological advances
ever since the beginning of the Industrial Age, maybe
before. This has always created pain and stress
of dislocation and re-adjustment, but nobody today
weeps for shoemakers, buggy whip manufacturers or
the people who used to make records.

We notice these things more now because the pace of
advance has increased, but eventually we will adjust and
find new, useful and productive jobs to earn our daily
bread.

Next: The most important thing you can do for yourself.

best,
Rick Stooker, author
Secrets of Changing to a Computer Career
- posted by RickStooker @ 8:21 AM