Offshoring -- bad for EVERYBODY in the long run

Hi guys

Having seen the really savage cutbacks in I.T in most Western countries due to a HUGE amount of "Globalisation" and "Off-shoring" I can see this really does NOT work to the benefit of ANYBODY in the long run.

Without turning this into a Political argument - lets look at what actually happens.

1) Many highly qualified people in the Original country lose their jobs -- this costs a HUGE amount for the original country in lost tax revenue. It's a generalized rule of thumb that each time a skilled job is lost between 3 - 5 other jobs are also lost as well due to the fact that the original higly paid skilled person can't afford to purchase services from other people such as say Restaurants, Bars, etc etc.

2) The skill set becomes lost since the displaced people either emigrate or take lower paid less skilled jobs or even just collect unemployement pay costing the original country even more money. This means that future innovation and creativity become lost generating even LESS revenue in future for the original country.

3) For the people working in the Offshored country the gain is only temporary - whilst in the short term jobs are created in places like India, Thailand etc they become dependent on the "outsourcing company" which when the market goes South means they will lose thier jobs too. The skilled people here will try and leave locking in the "off shored country" to never developing their own markets and inhibiting their growth.

4) The local (off shored) economy will not reach (or will even be encouraged to reach) its full potential since there is no pressure to do so if an overseas firm is supplying what seems to be "the golden goose".

The only people who benefit (and that in the short term) are Fat Cats and some shareholders.

Some stuff CAN be decently off shored such as providing hardware infrastructure but it needs VERY careful management. Functional analysis , development of new products and providing DECENT customer service should NEVER be off-shored.

As we come out of recession we are entering a very interesting time. Merits of "Globalisation" itself are being questioned for all sorts of reasons -- not purely economic but looking at "Green Issues", climate change, life-styles, society in general etc.

There has also been a HUGE consumer backlash - people are often going for more expensively quality produced LOCAL products than cheaper imports and a few large companies are finally "bringing back home" loads of previously off shored facilities such as Call centres and development work .

Some globalisation will work -- but companies who have benefited from Government investment etc should be forced to pay a Social Levy tax on every job it off-shores.

Cheers
jimbo