IT outsourcing 'has cut UK wages'

[OhioChick]

Source: The Press Association

4 hours ago

The outsourcing of computer contracts to other countries has cut the wages of workers in the UK, according to a new report.

The wages of new information technology (IT) support staff have remained stuck at £18,000 over the past five years, while longer serving employees have only seen their pay increase by 0.8% a year, said the Association of Technology Staffing Companies (ATSC).

But salaries for managers have increased by 20% over the last five years to an average of £45,000, the research found.

Low skilled jobs leaving the UK acted as a disincentive for people in the UK to study IT, which could worsen skill shortages in the industry, the report warned.

Ann Swain, chief executive of ATSC, said: "The outsourcing of entry-level IT jobs has meant fewer graduate-level jobs are available in the UK. It's like removing the bottom rung from the career ladder."

"The shortage now is of candidates with a few years experience looking for second and third jobs. But how do you get that experience if entry level jobs are being sent offshore?

"Concerns over quality of service and data security in outsourced operations are constantly being voiced. However, these concerns haven't yet prompted organisations to bring their IT support roles back onshore en masse."



Read more: http://ukpress.google.com/article/ALeqM5hHTUkheW1iehNK7--QshcJKTu49A

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Looks like UK citizens in the IT field are being screwed just as US citizens are...

[Warpy]

1. It's happened in Ireland, too

because the corporate pigs are moving those jobs to India. The Irish economy was finally starting to boom after centuries of permanent depression marked by war and famine and people who had returned from all over the world to their homeland just got the rug yanked out from under them again.

I feel compelled to point out that the Indians who got all the jobs aren't the problem. It's the corporate pigs and their need to loot more and more money to prove their worth to what is basically a vicious system.

The Indians have the jobs for now. Whether they get to keep them is still moot because that country is getting less stable as they fail to distribute the wealth and because so many Indian grads are just not equal to the work assigned to them.

[OhioChick]

2. The jobs won't stay in India much longer....

Corporations have already discovered cheaper locations.

[Skittles]

6. with better English too n/t

[KillCapitalism]

7. Yep, they're starting to look at Africa.

I wonder why?...

[OhioChick]

8. The greedy-asses

found cheaper workers there.

A race to the bottom...

[Ferd Berfle]

14. It's interesting that the clowns at the top don't mind the upheaval

and chaos - AND EXPENSE caused to a company by moving IT around like this.

The boys at the top never look at the TCO or ROI (Total Cost of Ownership and Return on Investment) for these projects. All they know is that they HATE Americans and dont want Americans to have these jobs.

[MadMaddie]

3. Turns out outsourcing isn't such a good idea after all...

and in the US if you say we need to keep good paying jobs in America then you are called an isolationist...

I say it is protecting America's infrastructure.....

[OhioChick]

4. "I say it is protecting America's infrastructure....."

And I'd say that you're absolutely right.

[ChromeFoundry]

5. more brain-drain...

You can almost hear the sound of the entire middle class getting sucked down the toilet.

[harmonicon]

10. there's a MIDDLE class?!?!??!

Hot dog!!!

[svpadgham]

13. Yes there is a middle class.

I think his name is Frank.

[harmonicon]

17. Oh, yeah! He's my girlfriend's dad.

In actuality, I think Frank may be just about all that's left of the middle class, and he's a 75 year old Korean war veteran.

[nbcouch]

9. That's the whole idea -

to depress wages across the board, that is. It has worked remarkably well, in the US, the UK, Australia - where they also have a guest worker program similar to the H-1B in the US.

Keep this in mind too: the emerging middle classes, and the markets they represent, in India and China are FAR larger than ours. As our buying power degrades, theirs is enhanced, and the numbers are on their side. The American economy is tanking? Do you really think the powers that be give a rat's ass? They've got much bigger fish to fry.

[fasttense]

12. You can combine the consumer markets in India, China,

Korea, and Vietnam and you still don't have a market a quarter size of the US consumer market at it's peak. The US consumer market was the largest market in the history of the world.

India, China, Korea and Vietnam can not buy the products they are making. Only the US can afford the crap these countries make through outsourced corporations. It will be a very long time, at least fifty years, before these countries are able to create markets close to the size and wealth that was the US consumer market.

And here is the kicker. That huge consumer market was NOT created by corporations but by a vast wealthy Middle Class. The American Middle Class is the market and corporations are destroying it. A middle class America was created by spreading just a small portion of the wealth produced by capitalism. Just think what we could create by insuring all the wealth of capitalism is shared.

[nbcouch]

15. The US market WAS the largest

I'm talking about the number of people in the EMERGING markets in Asia. Their numbers dwarf us, and as they build their middle class, their MARKETS will dwarf us.

Why are corporations destroying the US middle class, as you say? Why would they do that to their biggest market? Because, as I said, they've got much, MUCH bigger markets just over the horizon. All we are to them in the long term is a drain on profits due to our comparatively higher labor cost.

[The2ndWheel]

11. Instant global communication means outsourcing

Even though "outsourcing" doesn't really exist since there is no place anymore.

[phusion]

16. I've been in IT for 8 years...

And wages have not increased considerably since that time, certainly not enough to keep up with inflation, etc. While some IT positions pay well I think most of the support-type jobs (end-user support, server admins) are way underpaid and under appreciated. The money, at the moment at least, is in DBA type jobs which are highly competitive and boring as hell. :)

No more for me...I'm slowly moving into education (yeah, no pay there right) because I'm sick of IT.