- "...a final humiliation will be expected of the
doomed US workers: they'll be expected to train their offshore replacements."
-
- SAN FRANCISCO -- IBM
is planning to move up to 4,730 programmer jobs offshore, the Wall Street
Journal reports today.
-
- The plans are still under debate, according to the newspaper,
which cites internal documents, but involve Application Management Services
group, part of IBM's Global Services operation.
-
- As is the modern fashion, a final humiliation will be
expected of the doomed US workers: they'll be expected to train their offshore
replacements.
-
- While the trend to move backoffice functions such as
administration, accounting and call center support to cheaper locations
such as India and China has been evident for some time, only this year
have CEOs targeted trained IT professionals. Estimates suggest that one
in ten white collar jobs Stateside will be sent offshore by the end of
2004.
-
- But is this the whole picture?
-
- The CEO of a privately held software company told us
recently that in contrast to IT jobs which demand 'real' engineering skills,
such as the C++ programming language, 'dot.com' jobs involving web design
or database work were overpaid. He told us he could save money and employ
more US citizens: resulting in a net gain for the economy. However, publically
quoted companies such as IBM are under pressure simply to return higher
profits to their shareholders, and can't afford to be so altruistic.
-
- http://www.theregister.co.uk/content/7/34525.html
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