contracting gravy train only temporary until india takes over

[contractor79]

I suspect this contracting gravy train is only temporary.

It's well known that IT professionals and pretty much anyone else who works on a PC are vulnerable to their jobs being exported to India or other nations where employment costs are much lower. This process has already begun as call centres, admin jobs and IT staff get made redundant as their work is moved to Indian companies.

These contracting rates you currently enjoy will only be in operation whilst this transition of jobs from UK to India takes place. Do you really think it's sustainable to get paid your £hundreds per day when they can pay Indians less than £100/day for the same work once they're trained up?

Come on guys, get real, you're being paid good now to help the transition process of exporting IT and other PC jobs from UK to India.

Your kids will not have any IT jobs to do unless they emigrate to India.

What will they do?

oh and don't expect this to be an election issue, all those 'main' parties are quite happy to export our jobs to India in this 'globalised' world.

[TykeMerc]

In other news:-

Pope confirms that he is Catholic.
Significant evidence exists that bears do in fact defecate in the woods.
The United States of America has elected a non white person to the Presidency.

Outsourcing to a vastly cheaper labour pool has happened in many industries over umpteen decades, in the case of IT it's been done with very mixed success.

[contractor79]

You get paid to export your children's jobs. Think about it.

[blacksheep]

Personally I'm optimistic when offshoring comes up.

Very few companies seem to take a mature/holistic view of offshoring until its too late, and then have to spend lots of money fixing the problems, so senior managers don't look bad and have to reverse their offshore decisions.

It's easy to say (as an example) "the cost of a DBA(or other skill you care to choose) is £XXX/day in the UK, but a DBA costs £<a lot less>/day offshore".

However, what most companies need to do if they offshore is get a particular workload or SLA moved outside of the UK. It is not simply a case of five-of-this-type-of-role-in-uk can be replaced by five-of-same-type-of-role offshore.

The big challenge is in organising offshore work, and the communications to make it succeed

I've been lucky to spend a large part of the last 8-9 years sorting out offshoring projects. Yes, offshoring can work, yes it can reduce costs, but it doesn't automatically mean that there are no jobs left onshore. IMHO, there has to be a significant and senior onshore presence to make offshoring work. Recognising that, and making it work means there are still plenty of opportunities in UK companies, if you're happy to be flexible about working alongside offshore folks.

[HairyArsedBloke]

Theaded your time machine is on the blink again. This thread has leaked through from 2001.

Get it fixed, old chap.

[northernladuk]

To be honest I thought the biggest threat wasn't off shoring it was bringing the Indian's over here to work on the UK sites. I currently work in a office that looks more like Bangalor at the moment! There are 20 odd Indians and 4 Uk guys currently. Some of these guys are now PM'ing and workign in Service Delivery now which does really alarm me.

[d000hg]

You get paid to export your children's jobs. Think about it.

I don't have any children.

Also, in some areas outsourcing is a reversing trend, call-centres for instance. And the first flush of excitement in software is being tempered with caution after a number of cock-ups.

[swamp]

My current client tried off-shoring, and it didn't work. They tried on-shoring, and despite paying more (all in) than the local UK contract rate, they still just got a disaster.

Right now they are happy with UK contractors because we are delivering. They have a business plan and it is being met, and that is all you can ask of any project.

To be honest, most of the Bobs you see on site are there because of corruption in high places, and not because of any perceived cost savings.

[nomadd]

I suspect this contracting gravy train is only temporary.

Could be. But at least it's been a good 21 years of "temporary" for me.

These contracting rates you currently enjoy will only be in operation whilst this transition of jobs from UK to India takes place. Do you really think it's sustainable to get paid your £hundreds per day when they can pay Indians less than £100/day for the same work once they're trained up?

You clearly haven't worked on many "bob-ridden" projects. I have - for the last 10 years. Hence why my job is even safer today than it was back then when the outsourcing boom started.

Your kids will not have any IT jobs to do unless they emigrate to India. What will they do?

I don't have any kids. But if I did, and they felt the same way you do, I'd maybe suggest they open an Indian Takeaway.

[TykeMerc]

I've already advised my sons to stay away from IT as a potential career, 1 is at Uni in biological sciences, 1 fancies architecture or civil eng at the moment and the other is undecided, but still a bit young to make his choices.