More companies are outsourcing white collar jobs to help manage the outsourced blue collar employees.
One thing I noticed, well I didn’t notice but everyone bitched about and then became reality, then took us for a horrible whirlwind, helped lead to fear, then people spending less money which fed into our recession, etc… or you can call me a conspiracy theorist if you want, is that our jobs were being outsourced, mainly US Blue Collar jobs and then the white collar jobs like programming, etc… to third world and even non third world countries.
Actually, that isn’t surprising at all. Even South Park on Comedy Central had episodes about this with people from the future taking over blue collar then white collar jobs, and other shows had similar spoof, but none really took it to the extent of recession, etc… for the most part. However I have noticed a lot of trends. You can agree with me if you want but if you disagree, I completely encourage you to respond here and let’s have a debate about why you think I am wrong because there is a very good chance I am.
Initially, American online companies for example found that companies in India could do their programming work cheaper than having American Programmers (Just using programming and India for this example because I recently came across this exact situation with an ex client) write their “custom code” cheaper and more efficiently. They slowly started outsourcing parts of the code to India and other countries and then realized that Programmers in the US were more expensive and started firing them and moving towards more outsourcing.
Then, all of the sudden their IT departments started to disappear and only have a few key people left and most of the people building the code, etc… were actually in different countries. This was looked at by the executives as being great. They cut costs and found great alternatives.
Then reality sunk in.
(BTW this is from what I have seen, this could be 100% different where you work and from what you have seen which is why I want you to share your experience with us here).
The Indian code (This is actually code from multiple countries, I am just using Indian code because that is where most of the companies I have consulted for (namely the recent ex client) that had this issue outsourced the work too, nothing personal at all) was just stolen code with patchwork that not only crashed, but caused a lot more damage to their systems and their sites and caused more downtime and a heck of a lot more loss in potential customers, repeat buyers, downtime, revenue and sales, etc… then it would have actually have cost to keep their American Employees employed and their Companies and systems actually up and running which also would have kept their customers happy, trusting their companies and everything running smoothly. (Not to mention the time zone and language barriers that became unbearable).
So what started to happen then was that companies could no longer function with the outsourced Country’s Programmers and workforce anymore so they now had to hire some people back or fill the positions that they originally outsourced and now not only have to pay those salaries again, but also had to keep paying for the people in the Countries they outsourced too since they are the ones who provided the bad and patchwork code and understood it. What’s even worse is that some of them preached for so long to their investors, etc… that outsourcing was the answer that they actually had to continue to do this and further dig a hole into their companies, budgets and profits and find new ways to cover it up, which actually is leading me to the point of this whole rambling.
When America lost it’s blue collar and lower level white color tiers of employees to other countries, and other countries could not provide the same quality work consistently (Not all countries or companies) as the American employees did, but companies had to stick with the outsourced companies too….These outsourced companies now need someone to help manage their own staff and live up to the guidelines and expectations that the American Companies now require again and also have to be able to speak and/or interpret the American English language 100% and also be available during US business hours since the obvious solution of cheaper foreign labor did not pan out.
Basically, what seemed like an obvious solution to an expensive group of skilled workers backfired on companies to where they not only have to or had to start rehiring these workers, but they also now have to keep some of their outsourced companies but also send their own employees and hire employees who are now very expensive in these countries full time to make up for the years of shotty work which are now effecting their businesses. These companies also had to train them and help get them work visas or dual citizenship. The good news for Americans with this issues is that this is essentially creating a new market for Americans to capitalize on where Americans who have the outsourced skills can now become foreign consultants and start to claim some of these jobs and help bring them back to America. Or at least have these companies in other countries have to start outsourcing back to us and spend the money on us to bring the skills that only we have to make it so they can continue to work with us which also helps bring our money and jobs back to our country,,,,not to mention provides more motivation for our country to continue to get more educated and be able to compete better in the world market.
We definitely had a very hard time and a huge loss in jobs, but these companies that outsourced for the most part learned or are learning their lessons and Americans are starting to now get their jobs back, but as very skeptical Consultants.
For me, this means that America now has a new opportunity to be the consulting export leader of the world and in reality, that can be a seriously profitable and lucrative export that no one else is really actually capitalizing on. Exporting our knowledge and the knowledge that our companies have forgotten about is a seriously missed and overlooked skill and talent that we can offer and I think that this could be a solution for a lot of unemployed Americans and companies that need help because they got screwed by outsourcing.
I talk to companies regularly that have issues because their fired their team and outsourced following the trend and now need help pulling themselves back out of the gutters. The thing is that they need to revisit the people that built their companies and systems and made them what they are. I’m not saying other countries don’t have talent, but the people who built the systems and were dedicated are the ones who know it and can really make it work again.
Before companies start firing, it is time for the Executives and higher levels to start taking their own hits and keep the people that matter, not trying to outsource their jobs when in reality, a few years down the line they will have to spend a heck of a lot more to fix this mistake.
So unless they are trying for a quick solution then quitting, outsourcing all of the work and firing most of your team is a sure fire way to shoot yourself in the foot. Not to mention that if you are running a large company and start with layoffs, your employees get scared, stop spending money, the people they talk to could also get scared and start spending less, and it slowly starts to trickle down.
Eventually more people stop spending because of fear and then end up spending on things they cannot afford when they see how much they have saved and feel a little more confident but because of all the random fluctuations, we end up with mini recessions which leads to more fear, less spending and then more layoffs. Eventually it leads to an even more solid period of a lack of spending which leads to more layoffs since sales are down and more people unemployed who will not be spending money and we start to find ourselves in the situation we are in now where we are stuck in a really bad recession which is hopefully ending as sales are now finally starting to pick up.
We are also finding ourselves starting to be more creative and creating new jobs and new roles and one thing I think that America can do very well is become the leading export of our knowledge,,,,consulting on what we originally built and other countries can only patch.
I love our country and am probably being biased on this one, but at the same time this is something I have seen again and again. This article is also not meant to offend, but to help get Americans to think about what we can offer to the world Market and what other countries may want.
One thing that I think we can do to help not only ourselves but other countries grow is our knowledge and experience and offer it through Consulting to help bring not only money back, but also our jobs. Wouldn’t that be funny if one of our biggest exports became Consultants?
That could also actually help lead to bringing back the blue and white collar jobs to the USA.
Because of the serious language barriers, etc… companies overseas are now hiring Americans which cost a lot more, which are raising their prices and then they are trying to charge American companies more. Or the US companies have to pay and send an employee over to live there and spend long periods of time there, which is also even more expensive for food, hotel or housing, etc… What I can easily see starting to happen is that these same companies will realize it is much cheaper at this point to get coding and work that is done right the first time and done well and not have to spend the money fixing the same thing over and over and not have to miss deadlines, sales, launches, etc…
This opens up the door for college students and lower level employees to start coming in again, then eventually you need someone else with more experience in that department to help manage, mentor and teach these emlpoyees so the higher up white collar jobs start to appear again. So in reality, the outsourcing not working and the quality that some of these overseas companies cannot provide could essentially not only create a need for them to have to outsource and recruit back to us which brings money back in to our country, but also brings back our jobs and hopefully moves them back to the USA so we can start to fix our own economy.
Anyways, that is just some food for thought and I would love to know what you all think as well.
