Offshoring's inevitability
Rick Nelson, Chief Editor -- Test & Measurement World, 6/1/2007
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| Read more about offshoring and link to additional sources of information in Rick's blog, "Electron pushers face offshoring." |
But also writing in the Post (May 6), Princeton economics professor Alan S. Blinder is less sanguine. “I'm a free trader down to my toes,” he writes, but nevertheless cautions that “the offshoring of service jobs from rich countries…to poor countries…may pose major problems for tens of millions of American workers over the coming decades.” He cites research showing that 30 million to 40 million US jobs are potentially offshorable. And Samuelson concurs that “As communications technology improves…offshoring may increase.” (See my earlier post, “Outsource proofing.”)
There have been notable offshoring failures. They are difficult to track down, because companies are reluctant to report their mistakes. The technology consultancy ebs (www.ebstrategy.com), however, has cataloged some of them, including Dell's abrupt turnabout on outsourcing corporate technical-support call-center work because of customer complaints.
But I think such turnabouts will increasingly become the exception. The rule will be represented by the success Polycom's Austin-based engineers have had—as I recount in this issue's cover story—in delegating test-engineering responsibilities to Thai engineers who work for Polycom's Asian contract manufacturer. Those Thai engineers, by the way, were educated at UT Austin.
In fact, engineering, with its relatively rigid degree requirements, may be easier to offshore than call-center work. Call centers are unlikely to invest much more in worker training than ensuring minimal language skills. It may be cheaper (if you are serving an English-speaking clientele) to hire native English speakers who can appease disgruntled customers whose problems defy a scripted solution. An engineer's skills, however, do not depend on his or her native language.
Blinder offers no suggestions for minimizing offshoring's potentially nasty effects, but says he is speaking out because, “If we economists stubbornly insist on chanting 'Free trade is good for you' to people who know that it is not, we will quickly become irrelevant to the public debate.”
We developed-world workers will all have to engage in that debate as we strive to innovate to maintain our relevance in the face of ever-increasing offshore competition.
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