UK Perspective on Outsourcing

Outsourcing is a concern not only here in the United States, but also in the UK, Australia and other developed countries that are seeing their job base being exported to low-cost locations such as China, India and the Philippines. Here are a few salient points on the issue from the UK perspective:

1. The UK, US and Australian governments are continuing their support for businesses with the full knowledge that those businesses are replacing local workers with offshore labour. It is hard to fathom whether these governments have been hoodwinked by business lobbyists or genuinely believe that what amounts to a sacrifice of a certain section of professional workers is highly desirable for the rest of their citizens. What is easy to fathom is that displaced high tech workers were also good spenders and good taxpayers and that a loss income to these people will have consequences right across the local economy.

2. It has been predicted that only about 500,000 U.S. IT jobs, roughly 5% of the workforce, will move offshore by 2015. It is difficult to know who to believe when others are saying that 10% or even 20% of IT jobs could disappear from the US in the next five years. Whichever figure is correct, it still means a double-whammy because the number of unemployed IT professionals will increase and there will be fewer jobs to employ them.

3. Information technology is becoming another utility, much like electricity or water, and like with most utilities, the cost is seen as more important that the quality, at least until something serious goes wrong. It is cost more than anything that is driving the jobs offshore to countries where the knowledge is comparable or even better t certain levels. The simple truth is that any almost job that can be done solely by telephone or data link is a candidate for offshore outsourcing.

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