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Many comments here are laughing about the irony of the outsourced labor becoming irrelevant, but it should kind of be worrying. Organizations are lowering the n

Many comments here are laughing about the irony of the outsourced labor becoming irrelevant, but it should kind of be worrying. Organizations are lowering the number of jobs to the point that only the most skilled and experienced workers get jobs. If there are no lower level positions for people to take on, how will the masses work their way up and improve? How can our local and global economies improve for everyone when fewer and fewer people can get good jobs? This goes for every country, not just India or America. If an economy improves on paper yet the majority of people see a decline in quality of life, what kind of destabilizing effects will that have on the area?

shagie 9y ago
I don't see that. What I do see is a recognition that only in specific cases with well defined product boundaries does outsourcing development work reasonably. On the other hand we see many companies recognizing that telecommuting and remote work, especially with things that have no end date (keep the servers running, fix the bugs, add these new features) have hidden costs. Those costs are often exasperated by time zone differences. In areas where I have worked for the past decade, outsourcing is not looked fondly on because of the recognition that it means a loss of institutional knowledge and unending support costs. There are many entry level positions open, just you need to be able to be in the chair.
- TheAdamAndChe 9y ago
  > There are many entry level positions open, just you need to be able to be in the chair. This statement proves my point exactly. Either you need to be skilled enough to have the leverage to work remotely, or you need to be lucky enough to live in one of the few cities that happen to be growing economically at the moment. When economic growth and opportunity for the unskilled is concentrated to such a small portion of the planet and country, the rest of us suffer for it. It's a continued assault on the middle class of most of the world, and has profound destabilizing effects on those areas affected by these trends.
  - shagie 9y ago
    My previous job was in the north woods of the Midwest where there are fewer than 75k people living and the next nearest city of more than 25k is an hour drive away. There are several companies there, all hiring at all levels. There are opportunities for entry level work everywhere. However, the demand for living in urban areas with culture events changes the equation to one where employers have the ability to pick and choose- and will do so for more skilled workers. There is no luck involved in moving to a city where there are only two Starbucks's. The asset that the entry level employee has is his or her ass in a chair. There is a lot of value in that and companies will invest in it. They don't want a contractor who will disappear in 6 months or a nameless person behind the account manager who changes every few months. One just has to say "not everyone will live where they have their hearts set on." You want to live in NYC? SF? Many people do and it will be harder to compete for limited spots. That city in the north woods? A quick scan shows 20 open positions in the three biggest tech employers, half of which are entry level. Positions are paying around 150% median household income there.
    - TheAdamAndChe 9y ago
      You're speaking like someone who happens to live in or around one of the tech hubs of the Midwest. I also live in the Midwest, have several certifications, am 75% through an IT Bachelor's degree, and I have been unable to find tech-related work in the third largest city in my state. Just because your area happens to have work doesn't mean the rest of rural America does. There's a reason political extremists were nearly our candidates in both parties. There is a widespread sense of economic instability due to large trends that are gutting the middle class and concentrating jobs.
      - shagie 9y ago
        How about Eau Claire? Duluth? La Crosse? Iowa city? Marshal? Wausau? If there is an influx of people to an area (Madison, Milwaukee, Minneapolis, Rochester), entry level will be harder to find. This extends to a reasonable commute distance away. If you have your heart set on the larger midwestern cities, you will need to look harder for the jobs (possibility to less traditional tech employers) and places where there are not "fabulous" roles to fill (instead of entry level code ninja with free coffee, entry SDET in a boring government office). My first tech job after graduating with a 4 year CS degree was customer support - answering phones. Then I did QA for awhile. Then a startup as a sysadmin / webmaster where the paycheck bounced. Two years after I got my first tech job, I got an entry level programming job at a tech company doing internal automation.
nxc18 9y ago
That's kind of the issue with automation in general. Its funny to see the 'fuck you we're automating jobs/art/literally everything' coming from a subgroup of an industry that is apparently now cannibalizing itself through automation. Of course you can make a very strong argument that they should have never hired techies for things so easily automated. I suspect we don't see this in the west because there is a tendency to simply automate from the outset due to the high cost of labor.
unityByFreedom 9y ago
> If there are no lower level positions for people to take on, how will the masses work their way up and improve? I agree with that. First time I thought about it was when Obama said we don't want those low skilled jobs. I felt that was too broad a statement. Don't we want all levels of jobs to enable people to enter at any level? For me, it was hard to go through school all at once with confidence that I would enjoy my job afterwards. I found I preferred to go to school for a bit, then work, then go back, then work again, then go back to studying again to refine my focus, interest area, and be able to follow current trends. In order to follow this pattern I needed to first experience a bit of low skilled manual labor. Maybe everyone doesn't need to do that but I found it helpful.

shagie 9y ago

I don't see that. What I do see is a recognition that only in specific cases with well defined product boundaries does outsourcing development work reasonably. On the other hand we see many companies recognizing that telecommuting and remote work, especially with things that have no end date (keep the servers running, fix the bugs, add these new features) have hidden costs. Those costs are often exasperated by time zone differences. In areas where I have worked for the past decade, outsourcing is not looked fondly on because of the recognition that it means a loss of institutional knowledge and unending support costs. There are many entry level positions open, just you need to be able to be in the chair.

TheAdamAndChe 9y ago
> There are many entry level positions open, just you need to be able to be in the chair. This statement proves my point exactly. Either you need to be skilled enough to have the leverage to work remotely, or you need to be lucky enough to live in one of the few cities that happen to be growing economically at the moment. When economic growth and opportunity for the unskilled is concentrated to such a small portion of the planet and country, the rest of us suffer for it. It's a continued assault on the middle class of most of the world, and has profound destabilizing effects on those areas affected by these trends.
- shagie 9y ago
  My previous job was in the north woods of the Midwest where there are fewer than 75k people living and the next nearest city of more than 25k is an hour drive away. There are several companies there, all hiring at all levels. There are opportunities for entry level work everywhere. However, the demand for living in urban areas with culture events changes the equation to one where employers have the ability to pick and choose- and will do so for more skilled workers. There is no luck involved in moving to a city where there are only two Starbucks's. The asset that the entry level employee has is his or her ass in a chair. There is a lot of value in that and companies will invest in it. They don't want a contractor who will disappear in 6 months or a nameless person behind the account manager who changes every few months. One just has to say "not everyone will live where they have their hearts set on." You want to live in NYC? SF? Many people do and it will be harder to compete for limited spots. That city in the north woods? A quick scan shows 20 open positions in the three biggest tech employers, half of which are entry level. Positions are paying around 150% median household income there.
  - TheAdamAndChe 9y ago
    You're speaking like someone who happens to live in or around one of the tech hubs of the Midwest. I also live in the Midwest, have several certifications, am 75% through an IT Bachelor's degree, and I have been unable to find tech-related work in the third largest city in my state. Just because your area happens to have work doesn't mean the rest of rural America does. There's a reason political extremists were nearly our candidates in both parties. There is a widespread sense of economic instability due to large trends that are gutting the middle class and concentrating jobs.
    - shagie 9y ago
      How about Eau Claire? Duluth? La Crosse? Iowa city? Marshal? Wausau? If there is an influx of people to an area (Madison, Milwaukee, Minneapolis, Rochester), entry level will be harder to find. This extends to a reasonable commute distance away. If you have your heart set on the larger midwestern cities, you will need to look harder for the jobs (possibility to less traditional tech employers) and places where there are not "fabulous" roles to fill (instead of entry level code ninja with free coffee, entry SDET in a boring government office). My first tech job after graduating with a 4 year CS degree was customer support - answering phones. Then I did QA for awhile. Then a startup as a sysadmin / webmaster where the paycheck bounced. Two years after I got my first tech job, I got an entry level programming job at a tech company doing internal automation.

nxc18 9y ago

That's kind of the issue with automation in general. Its funny to see the 'fuck you we're automating jobs/art/literally everything' coming from a subgroup of an industry that is apparently now cannibalizing itself through automation. Of course you can make a very strong argument that they should have never hired techies for things so easily automated. I suspect we don't see this in the west because there is a tendency to simply automate from the outset due to the high cost of labor.

unityByFreedom 9y ago

> If there are no lower level positions for people to take on, how will the masses work their way up and improve? I agree with that. First time I thought about it was when Obama said we don't want those low skilled jobs. I felt that was too broad a statement. Don't we want all levels of jobs to enable people to enter at any level? For me, it was hard to go through school all at once with confidence that I would enjoy my job afterwards. I found I preferred to go to school for a bit, then work, then go back, then work again, then go back to studying again to refine my focus, interest area, and be able to follow current trends. In order to follow this pattern I needed to first experience a bit of low skilled manual labor. Maybe everyone doesn't need to do that but I found it helpful.