Those Whom the Gods Destroy — First They Outsource

Monday, August 21, 2006 11:50 am. Clinton Labor Secretary Reich revealed (in a book some years ago) that factory worker employment in China is falling. ... So the Chinese stole our rust belt jobs, and then apparently just burned them and threw them away! ... No no what happened is robots are still cheaper than even Chinese!

I’m not sure I know exactly what it all means, but still it’s obvious — to me anyway — that the same fate awaits call centers and IT staffs and whatever other categories face the grim reaper. ... First they’ll be done by Indians, and then they’ll be done by nobody. ... Basically, I guess, if a category of activity becomes so comparmentalized that Mr. Big Biz can think of outsourcing it, that means in the not too distant future it’ll be automated out of existence.

And while I’m at it, how about ...

... One of the set-pieces of the continuing outsourcing melodrama is the pitiful employees forced to train their Indian sub-continent replacements before they depart their well-paying high-tech jobs forever. (Which training, apparently, rarely takes more than a few weeks, see above.)

... What I think when I read these stories is how, to coin a phrase, you can outsource a stupid American company, but it’s still a stupid American company. ... I mean, this has to be the worst-trained group in the history of mankind! ... “Yeah sure Tariq, that’s right you want to erase all the old stuff every time you start the new project, that’s what we all do!” ...