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- blqysmg, on 11/03/2009, -8/+43***** should be in the unemployment line like quite a few of my friends. These are professionals who spent years in school learning to work in the IT field, and years more perfecting their craft. Many of them have been unemployed for over a year now, some have moved on to lucrative positions such as greeter in Wal-Mart or Hair Stylist at Cheap Cuts. The IT industry is 2/3s the size it used to be in the US thanks to asshats like the executive here.
- WordsnCollision, on 11/03/2009, -5/+38The only question left is, is his bonus 6-figures or 7?
- Jaiotu, on 11/04/2009, -2/+23No news here. In a capitalist society, reducing the number of employees required to do any single task increases company profits. This is good for the company and good for the stock holders. It is not in the company's best interest to employ "x" number of individuals. It is the employee's responsibility to make sure that he or she continues to be an asset to the company where he or she is employed, or to develop skills and experience that make him or her marketable to another organization. Job security is a myth. Sink or swim, etc.
- DevilToo, on 11/03/2009, -10/+27Capitalism has it's faults and this is certainly one of them.
- kalvinb, on 11/04/2009, -2/+18I lost my salary position and am now doing contract work at a reduced rate. I think part of the problem with IT people who can't seem to find work is that they're demanding too much money. The market is saturated with unemployed IT people. That necessarily reduces the pay for incoming employees or increases the expected skill level for the amount of pay offered.
Obviously your friends are willing to work for far less so maybe they need to apply that same attitude to their chosen career for a year or two. Find a small company that needs IT help and offer to work for less without bitching about it. Build the company up for a year or so and see where you can go from there. Even doing work for non-profits with no pay is better than "I'm a highly qualified IT person who did nothing but greet people at wal-mart for the last year."
Two of the things that helped me land a new job within a couple months (besides being willing to work at entry level pay with mid level skill) was an outstanding resume that had no trouble getting me interviews and continuing to work on my "thesis" project as I call it during my "vacation." Work on long term projects that demonstrate real skill that you can put on your resume to fill in the off time with.
I wasn't employed for 2 months but there was no gap in working in my field. If what you're doing in your free time isn't resume worthy (especially when you're unemployed from your field) then you need to try harder. - Shazam999, on 11/04/2009, -0/+15You can also kind of replace 10 execs with a couple of pieces of ***** floating in a toilet.
- kalvinb, on 11/04/2009, -1/+15My job as a programmer is often times writing scripts to make my job easier. It's often a joke that a certain programmer in a company could be replaced with a perl script. Jobs that previously took hours now take minutes and yet somehow the boss still expects me to fill those newly freed hours with productive work. PHP (and other language) frameworks now exist to automate the coding of the database layer. Something that usually takes time and actual skill.
We complain about outsourcing to India and yet the same people are all excited about open source and code automation. Are you good at writing blog software? Too bad. Wordpress. Want to write an eCommerce shopping cart? Too bad, already done. Content management? Dozens or hundreds to chose from.
There is a lot of work that no longer needs to be done (or the amount of effort needed to do the job is reduced) simply because open source projects exist. The people now who have little to no difficulty finding work doing web-related projects are designers. Not coders. So much free or off the shelf material exists that all that's left for a company to hire is a designer to make it pretty.
As software continues to mature with pre-packaged solutions being available for more and more cases the entry level skill required becomes reduced more and more. And that means cheaper labor can be used to get the same or satisfactory results. The higher skilled employees have literally scripted themselves out of work. - PeppermintPig, on 11/04/2009, -3/+15Yes, let's ignore the real problems and blame the ***** who gets publicity for airing his spite... How about the rampant political leeching on the productive or regulation that creates the incentive for moving jobs elsewhere, or trying to cap or fix wages, or give the big players an advantage by lobbying for beneficial deals and rules with government. Solve one of THOSE issues.
- XPpro, on 11/04/2009, -0/+12Welcome to global wage arbitrage. This is going to go on for years until some kind of balance is reached. Either we lower prices here to compete with other countries, or other countries prices rise. It's going to be a big mess either way.
- badqat, on 11/03/2009, -0/+11Probably one of those folks up in the rarified air who garner 8-figure bonuses on occasion.
- e2superman, on 11/04/2009, -0/+11Why is this news? We know it is happening and even our tax laws promote it.
- GusterBear, on 11/04/2009, -3/+13Americans already work more hours than most other countries in the civilized world. We take fewer vacations, and work more hours according to many studies that have been done.
Really the two options left are: take a massive paycut while deregulating everything and return to Industrial Revolution era environmental and safety regulations to encourage businesses to stay here (which is why they're flocking to India and other places that are horribly polluted and have a low standard of living), or, discontinuing to do business with asshat businessmen that put short term gains over long-term stability.
The latter of the two is the only real option I see. - fragMasterFlash, on 11/04/2009, -0/+8So its no longer "Devolpers! Developers! Developer!" but "Investors! Investors! Investors!" instead? And if two guys in India can get the job done how long will they let Unisys take all the profits for their work?
- michaelpinto, on 11/04/2009, -1/+9Working in the trenches my gut feeling is that in the year 2009 any IT job that could have been outsourced to India has already been outsourced to India. The real question with the cloud will be if you mind that outsourced companies mining your information for data - although frankly when you're using Google this is already happening, and companies are starting to use them for email and applications. Honestly I don't know about anybody who would think of using Unisys for cloud computing - everyone I know is either talking about Amazon or Rackspace for the most part.
- mbierman, on 11/04/2009, -1/+9I have no problem with moving jobs over seas. Just as soon as Execs move their own jobs their too..and get paid the going rate wherever they are.
Execs move teams overseas and then the rest of us have to deal with the logistics (early morning or late night calls, blah blah blah...nice. - PeppermintPig, on 11/04/2009, -0/+8It doesn't have to be a mess, because wealth is not a limited commodity and more such jobs could be created all over the place... the problem, however, is the political class sucking away prosperity, and until that is dealt with it will be a mess, unfortunately.
- Julie188, on 11/03/2009, -5/+12Guess if he's trying to sell Unisys cloud services to businesses in India than this would be a good thing.
- tgc1, on 11/04/2009, -0/+7You know what. As much as I disagree with this ***** *****. The real problem lay in the Government. How they actually reward this type of thing with tax breaks and the like.
Ie. If you export your entire operation offshore you can still import your products AND get a tax break. Why the ***** WOULDN'T you offshore?
The government should NOT allow these things to happen. Either via stiff tariffs, higher taxes, or flat out mandating that if you want to sell your products here, you have to have x% of your operation domestically (to avoid the stiff tariffs and/or higher taxes). The government is supposed to PROTECT the tax base, not erode it. The ***** idiots.
And they wonder why, in addition to spending like drunken ***** assclowns, they are always in a deficit situation. - ThantiK, on 11/04/2009, -7/+13Meh, as an American I'm happy about this. Sure I'm jobless and have been for a while, but lets face it...if that part of the company can be run reliably enough with just 2 people from india...then who are you to say you wouldn't do exactly the same thing?
The only way America is going to be put back on track is if the scales tip SOOOOOOOO far, that people finally wake up. Obama is doing an amazing job in my opinion (I said OPINION, this isn't meant to be a flame war here), but I really think all the corporate greed is just being staved off for another 30 years. It has to get worse before it can get better. I'm willing to put up with that if it means some heads roll in the future. - maxtangent, on 11/03/2009, -2/+8I noticed that the whole issue of 'cloud computing' was ignored.
Who wants all their information held by a third party?
What are the odds your great-great-grandchildren will think privacy is an unnecessary anti-social evil. - Rantus, on 11/04/2009, -0/+6Don't worry, pretty soon there will be no jobs left. Then you can move to India or China to get work and the Chinese or Indians can buy your old house and retire here.
Brilliant. - antdude, on 11/04/2009, -0/+5Let's send exec's job to India too!
- seobro, on 11/03/2009, -7/+12What can we say, execs are EVIL.....
- blqysmg, on 11/04/2009, -0/+5Congrats on doing what is needed to find a new job and only be out of work for 2 months. It's nice that you were able to survive on entry level pay, but that's basically what I was bitching about. It's not easy to work for half the pay you were getting before. Most people I know have bills they have to pay, and are going broke quickly.
This is not my complaint, but one I have for others. I've been continuously employed in the IT world for over 25 years, with a brief interlude of 3 1/2 years out to get my first degree in Computer Science. Like you, I consider that time spend IN my field, not away from it. I got my Masters while working full time and doing 10 to 15 hours a week at a second job.
I watched my department go from 135 people down to about 50, while our workload did not change. We had to learn to work harder, faster, and at a lower quality. We worked longer hours for the same pay, and have not seen any raises for several years. This is what offshoring has done for the American IT worker. - pbrooks100, on 11/04/2009, -0/+5Richard Marcello - has three LinkedIn accounts with the same title listed. Maybe he can get someone who knows how to use a computer to manage his profile. My guess is he can't remember his account/password so he just creates another.
Just the kind of guy that I would make president of Systems & Technology... - cbeach, on 11/04/2009, -0/+5Company execs are there to maximise profits, so I can see their thinking. However, what they gain in the short-term they lose in the long-term. In my experience, offshore consultancy firms do slap-dash, ill-thought-out work. They haven't bought into company culture and, being 1000 miles away, they don't suffer the support and maintenance problems they create, so they have no incentive to make software that works well in the long term.
The alternative approach is hiring permanent staff offshore. But there's a hugely liquid job market in the financial districts of India. Staff up and leave at the drop of a hat if they can make more money with your competitors. And they take your knowledge with them. - acidtonic, on 11/04/2009, -0/+5You miss the part where the new Indian replacements suck at the new job and quality goes down.
Lots of the ones I've worked with just care about the paycheck. They dont care about the company or our country or our values.
They come over here, send most of their money back home while living frugally(read tight ass) on nearly a 6 figure income which hurts the economy.
Then they get loans for cars they know they wont pay off, live here for a couple years until the money has just piled up back home, then they leave the cars in the parking lot of the airport and never return.
You ever see how many cars are recovered from foreigners at the airport? They dont care about our country. Once the money runs thin at home they'll fly a different family member back (the other is now wanted here) and repeat the process.
THAT is what is killing our economy, along with their half ass "good enough" attitude. - andrejhoward, on 11/04/2009, -0/+4No it's really not "their fault"
Your simplistic view and failure to really extrapolate the problem of what is going on is a problem in and of itself. - zmigliozzi, on 11/04/2009, -0/+4Ya he'll be bragging in about 6months too when he sees customer service ratings sink. You take big risks by offshore outsourcing.
- sassafras1232, on 11/04/2009, -2/+6Seriously, this story reads like something from five years ago. Anyone in the IT industry who hasn't made their peace with outsourcing by this point in time deserves to loose their job.
- donotclickjim, on 11/04/2009, -4/+8How is division of labor a fault of capitalism? Sure, it sucks for Americans but I'm sure the 2 guys in India are happy. We need to stop thinking of us vs. them. We are still talking about humans regardless of their nationality.
I agree with PeppermintPig though. If we want to keep jobs in the US then work on removing the incentives that promote outsourcing. If we want to compete against India for IT jobs then we must be more competitive. This doesn't necessarily mean taking a pay cut. If you can code faster or more importantly code with much higher quality then that can quickly out weigh the cost of multiple off shore developers and your pay is justified. - astrotrain, on 11/04/2009, -0/+4This is not the first time Unisys has been ass-hats, about a decade ago they wanted to copyright the patterned ".gif" technology. And stated that people would have to obtain permission by Unisys to use any .gif image. Otherwise Unisys threatened to Sue...
These folks are right up there with SCO and their misadventures trying to copyright the Unix (and any "like") OS... - Khast, on 11/04/2009, -4/+8Yup, I am so glad they are outsourcing 30 minimum wage jobs to India so that 2 people can do the same amount of work for less than $1 per day.
Isn't it nice to know how valuable you really are on the workforce?
So, what kinds of jobs do you think CAN'T be outsourced? And would you want to be doing these for the rest of your life? (Oh, wait...there are people who are willing to do that job for less too...so either you will have to take a pay cut, ot we will have to lay you off.) - cookedfrog, on 11/04/2009, -0/+3Widget A & B being equal, if A is $1.00 cheaper because IT is done in India which do you buy?
Investors take the risk of putting their money in a business to earn a profit and executives are employees like all the other employees who's job it is to make a profit or else there is no business. - tgc1, on 11/05/2009, -0/+3I agree, it seems more and more the information points to the governments of the world colluding to ***** the average person. Deliberately working with corporations and giant industries to continually erode our liberties and the like. Not many pay attention to that. They follow die hard allegiances to these corporations (see: Apple).
If that continues to trend we are *****. - ButterLoyalist, on 11/04/2009, -2/+5Try writing some new software then. Invent something.
- blqysmg, on 11/04/2009, -1/+4Trust me, the quality of the work has suffered. What one qualified tech could do here a few years ago is being done poorly by several techs oversees. That having been said, I never said that the Indian techs that replaced them are untrained. Many of them have the same level of schooling that we do. Many of them are sharp and good workers. The fact remains, however, that you can't generally take a whole department, with years worth of knowledge and history with the company and replace them with new hires right out of school. You have to bring in new kids slowly, let the older, more seasoned workers bring them up to speed. In a couple of years, the new guys get past the entry level stuff and begin to really pull their weight.
What's happened with outsourcing is that they pull in hundreds of new guys at once and depend on existing documentation to explain their job to them. While there ARE some quality issues with the new processes, in general the companies that have outsourced to off-shore locations are okay with the lower quality as long as it comes with the lower price.
If you actually worked in the industry, and work with any of the outsourcing vendors, you'd realize that these guys don't have "a few years of tech school." I'm not saying that the Indian techs are stupid or untrained. I'm saying that they are, in general, less experienced than the people they are replacing at doing the job that is being replaced. Even that isn't the point. The point is that, in a rush to save a buck, hard working and qualified Americans are being put out of work by American companies while less experienced foreigners are brought in to replace them.
Folks, we are training our replacements. Congratulations, because the fallout from this has just gotten started. Much like the Auto industry, we have taken something that is American, and trained someone to take it away from us. Now we can't compete with them. We will watch other people achieve world dominance, and wonder how we let it happen. We didn't let it, we caused it. - Eorster, on 11/04/2009, -0/+3If you can't beat them join them. Find Indian firms to do the development, undercut the bigger guys and send the work to your new friend the Indian development firm while you manage the project. Is it easy? No. Is it possible? Yes. I know of companies that do it, I know of companies that have failed trying to do it and I know of companies that have succeeded rather well doing this. I also know of companies, after having a project fail miserably in the past, that would never give work to a company that they know outsources all development to India, or any other foreign company for that matter. Is it easy? No. Does it suck? Yes. Are there other options? Sure, sit on your ass and hope they keep extending unemployment benefits or work at a wally world. This country, the USA, is undergoing a huge metamorphosis and the standard of living is falling ( Note I did not say quality of life) but I have a feeling that once we understand what really makes for a quality life, we will be alright. But of course it will be harder on some than others, so you may not have that shopaholic girl friend in a few years but they will have to adjust as well.
- newman8r, on 11/04/2009, -2/+5lol I read this as "unisex exec brags about sending US IT jobs to India"
- maxtangent, on 11/04/2009, -0/+3Of course they shouldn't and of course the gov't knew what the consequences would be.
Just like they shouldn't have signed the GATT treaties where taxpayers PAID for industries to be moved to China and PAID to enure they were profitable until they became profitable on their own.
Follow the pattern and you can plainly see it is all INTENTIONAL.
Now, why would that be, and what is to be done about it? - tmatyt95, on 11/04/2009, -0/+3I think the pre pakaged software/ open source will change how IT people work but will most certainly not make them redundant
- mbraynard, on 11/04/2009, -0/+3If they complain, Unisys will give the jobs to two guys in Pakistan.
- mbraynard, on 11/04/2009, -2/+5You have a good attitude. Best of luck.
- orcusabre, on 11/04/2009, -0/+3Is this really surprising? The corporate structure demands efficiency and we've seen this pattern before. We've seen this happen in the manufacturing industry and it was only a matter of time before the IT followed. Corporate economics is brutal and it is adapt or die for companies out there. If Nike pays a few pennies per hour and no benefits to its workers in Honduras to get clothes manufactured, the choice is simple for its competitors in the US. Either cut your costs, or lose the entire company trying to save American jobs. I'm not saying that its the right thing to do but that's how it works. It sucks and it hurts to lose your job but stop blaming the execs for your problems and move on. Look at all the "made in xxxxx" tags next time you're out shopping at Walmart and think about that for a second.
- MasterPain, on 11/04/2009, -0/+3Ya like those truck drivers who went over to Iraq they made great money if they lived to spend it.
- tradderjohn, on 11/04/2009, -0/+2unisys suddenly became relevent ?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unisys#Controversies - akacipher, on 11/04/2009, -2/+4Indian IT professional here, trust me when I say this.... May be India is getting outsourced jobs... but the once outsourced are all pathetic, boring and repetitive tasks which you don't need any brains to do! All the good stuff in IT ie challenging programming and some real work still lies in US!
- sodade, on 11/04/2009, -0/+2You are both quite naive. It is not easy to outsource these jobs, but "they" are working on it and making it easier and easier every day. If US corporations continue down this path unchecked, it will be far worse in 5-10 years.
My suggestion is to build up those business skills. - mbraynard, on 11/04/2009, -4/+6You mean a fault of capitalism is that one individual who is willing to do a job better for less money gets the job, even if he lives far away?
How is this a fault?
The fault would be the other way around - if someone who charged more / did a worse job just because of where he lived.
What's really at fault is the American education system that allows it's graduates to be bested by third-worlders. - c010rb1indusa, on 11/04/2009, -1/+3I feel for unemployed Americans, but unfortunately globalization favors developing countries, while hurting developed ones. We can't say we wan't democracy, and free market economies in foreign countries but then try to complain when we lose jobs because of free market democracies, China excluded. We have to figure out how to add a value to these jobs staying in America, meaning that they need to stay in America because they can't be done nearly as well anywhere else. Unfortunately foreign countries such as India have a larger percentage of their people being tech majors compared to the US, which is also party of the problem.
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