> The "first wave" and subsequent waves of outsourcing have to a large extent eliminated paths of career advancement for many workers. At first it was unskilled

> The "first wave" and subsequent waves of outsourcing have to a large extent eliminated paths of career advancement for many workers. At first it was unskilled laborers and now it has been creeping up to virtually all technical job descriptions. The wet-dream of MBA's who promote this stuff is corporations consisting of a few C-level people and their board, and then a layer of fab-less product and operations people who just manage supply-chain and services stuff with external vendors. It's an ugly picture but that's what the global supply chain people want. This is how Microsoft operated for a while. Entire support ecosystems were built around Redmond, from non-core competency support (design, boutique marketing, food services, maintenance) to core competency augmentation (vendor, off shore, near shore, local). They still employ that model but to a lesser extent. They've moved away from it based on labor market trends and local competition (more companies have moved to the greater Seattle competing for resources). So I don't know if its a universal doctrine or model that will be employed, but it does seem to have a time and a place.