] "You can get crackerjack Java programmers in India right
] out of college for $5,000 a year versus $60,000 here,"
] said Stephanie Moore, vice president for outsourcing at
] Forrester Research. "The technology is such, why be in
] New York City when you can be 9,000 miles away with far
] less expense?"

This is a better article then the one I previous recommended, simply because the comments are, well, raw and uncut, and often quite arrogant. My favorite:

] "It's not about one shore or another shore," an I.B.M.
] spokeswoman, Kendra R. Collins, said. "It's about investing
] around the world, including the United States, to build
] capability and deliver value as defined by our customers."

Um, yes Kendra, we understand your motives. We're not dumb. However, Its ABOUT the macroeconomic impact of your strategy, something you ought to be thinking about. For example, drinking bottles of lye is a bad idea even IF you are helping your customers dispose of the lye, and therefore delivering value as they define it.

The last time I posted on this, Jeremy responded as follows:

] ] "He won't be able to have a career designing and building
] ] stuff because all those jobs have moved to India."
]
] So move to India already.
]
] Seriously, choosing one 'thing' and doing it repeatedly
] for decades on end. What's the term I'm looking for ...?
]
] Industrial age! That's it!
]
] Actually, that approach still applies, as long as your
] 'thing' happens to be learning.

Oh, if only things were so simple. There are several problems:

First: After studying computer engineering for 5 years at Georgia Tech, I'm honestly quite dismayed that my degree appears to have been useful for about 2 years after graduation. It is now extremely difficult to get good jobs in my chosen profession, and it looks as if that situation may never improve.

I might be exaggerating. 400,000 jobs overseas is far less then the margin between the estimated future growth in the need for computer professionals and estimated growth in the availability of computer professionals. However, I don't think the estimates that people still seem to be operating on take in to account the events of the last few years. I've seen people looking at the supply in horror (college admissions for said professions are way down), but not really adjusting their demand estimates. Basically, it remains to be seen.

Retrain? Should I go back to school for 5 more years, so that I can practice biology for another 2? Surely if people india can do CS they can do biology.

There are more problems...

The HR industry is set up to hire people who have degrees in particular professional fields. Our educational systems and dominate ideas about corporate management are simply not set up to support people engaged in continuous learning. So it may be extremely difficult for individuals to escape the effects of price pressures on salaries when they occur in their profession.

Of course, a widespread washout of professional salaries might be just great for large companies on the short term, eventually this will result in decreasing tax revenues for state and federal governments, as well as deflation. While its all upside for the third world, I think the US is going to have serious problems maintaining their standard of living over the long term.

The result will be a world in which wealth distribution will be much more fair. (This, of course, is the core reason why the anti-globalisation movement is seriously confused. The things they oppose will create the outcome they claim to desire.) However, I don't have to like it. Fat rich americans are going to be poor, in relative terms.

The only way out is to increase demand to meet the coming supply... I.E. to innovate. Having said that, I think whats coming is way out side of anyone's control, and it will be a fucking miracle if we pull it off without massive hardship. As for personal strategies, well, in the midst of deflation there is only one thing whose value is going up. Cash.

Save your pennies.

(BTW, I'm so not qualified to offer up an analysis like this its not even funny, so I'd be interested to know how and where this is wrong.)

I.B.M. Explores Shift of White-Collar Jobs Overseas