Massive investment in India by IBM

[DimPrawn]

That's great but not how 99% of large UK businesses operate. There cost is the only deciding factor.

Therefore although there will be a tiny pool of clients looking for the best at any price, the talent pool from all the job losses mean rates will tumble and even the best will be on minimum wage.

Enjoy.

[Tex]

I will not take some mumbling coding monkey that just so happens to put all the right buzz words on his badly spelt CV regardless of his nationality or his cost.

spelled

[Fungus]

I understand what you are saying but Telecoms and Windows are both commodity items , so it does not suprise me that they both together command such a low fee.

In the tailored end of the market , cost is not an issue .

If I am a PM and I am looking to fill a position for a guy in a small team then I will be looking for some guarantees , like a personal reference from someone I trust , the impression I get from the contractor with regards to their CV , their communication skills and their technical ability. They may also have skills in other areas like finance , legal issues or mechanics.

I will not take some mumbling coding monkey that just so happens to put all the right buzz words on his badly spelt CV regardless of his nationality or his cost.

I wish I knew what you were talking about. Some Windows is indeed low grade but the term Windows encompasses a lot of technologies. Similarly in telecoms many jobs I see go to Indians require considerable skill. And many Indians communicate very well.

I don't understand the relevance of the last paragraph. If you are suggesting that Indians are mumbling code monkeys, then you are misguided.

At present Indians outsource to us. But they are now starting to produce in India. Maybe we will become mainly an employer of low wage Eastern Europeans, an exporter of financial services and a tourism site. If banking goes to India, which I doubt, we are stuffed.

[Fungus]

spelled

spelt, spelled.

http://www.thefreedictionary.com/spelt

[bfg]

Competition

As for competing in a global economy then fine, lets get rid of the NHS, 90% of the rest of government and the public services, let 70% of the population live on <$1 a day and 50% be illiterate, lets have the city pavements so packed with sleeping bodies at night you cannot walk on them, lets have children making fine shirts I can buy for $2, food and 10% of what it costs here and I'll undercut an Indian anyday. Because, to Benn0 and the like, THAT is what being a 'ragged trousered philanthropist' is going to bring to this country and for my sins I will probably be OK but there are MILLIONS that won't.

[Bitbucket]

I wish I knew what you were talking about. Some Windows is indeed low grade but the term Windows encompasses a lot of technologies. Similarly in telecoms many jobs I see go to Indians require considerable skill. And many Indians communicate very well.

I don't understand the relevance of the last paragraph. If you are suggesting that Indians are mumbling code monkeys, then you are misguided.

At present Indians outsource to us. But they are now starting to produce in India. Maybe we will become mainly an employer of low wage Eastern Europeans, an exporter of financial services and a tourism site. If banking goes to India, which I doubt, we are stuffed.

What I am saying is that immediately you advertise the job as a Windows based one then its considered more commodity. Windows is available everywhere and so are the development environments like C , anyone in the world who has a laptop and the time and patience to sit down and learn has these facilities available , and pirate copying has made this more accessable.

Its not hard for someone who has some resonable communication skills then to apply for such positions.

Im not saying that its a low skill job at all , it may require more skills than a mainframe job of the same type , but less people will have had access to a mainframe so they will be in a more niche market.

I am not convinced that skilled foreigners are also rushing to go to the UK , there are better options in other countries.

I have not suggested anything about Indians being bad communicators , my previous post says regardless of nationality , this is a global market and its not just Indians that are in this market .

I am still on a contract at 420 quid a day , and if you read this post http://www.contractoruk.com/news/002685.html then you will see that there are many contractors on more than me.

I have herd all the scaremongering over many years but I still get a good wage so why havent all these low cost foreigners taken my job ? In fact the agent did tell me when I was asking for this rate that rates were dropping because of outsourcing etc. etc. , and I then asked him why he was bothering to ring me back if that was the case.

If you have a good niche skill then stick out for your rate , if you are in a more commodity type market then I agree rates will be depresssed but dont get into a price war with low cost foreign workers nobody is going to win that.

[DodgyAgent]

As for competing in a global economy then fine, lets get rid of the NHS, 90% of the rest of government and the public services, let 70% of the population live on <$1 a day and 50% be illiterate, lets have the city pavements so packed with sleeping bodies at night you cannot walk on them, lets have children making fine shirts I can buy for $2, food and 10% of what it costs here and I'll undercut an Indian anyday. Because, to Benn0 and the like, THAT is what being a 'ragged trousered philanthropist' is going to bring to this country and for my sins I will probably be OK but there are MILLIONS that won't.

Bone in the nose stuff bfg. How much did you make creating the technology that enhanced globalisation?
The challenge is not to business, because business will adapt change and move, the challenge is to government and their costly wastefulness and inefficiency.
How are governments going to encourage investment in the future? how are they going to persuade businesses to stay here? They wont be able to do it with protectionism so they will have to make the UK a better place to live (reduce crime) and to stop pushing up labour costs by wasteful taxation and silly employment laws.

Whilst I wholeheartedly support the stopping of Indians coming here to work in IT on low wages (we do after all have a large population of IT workers in Eastern Europe), I also support the offshoring concept.

[DodgyAgent]

What I am saying is that immediately you advertise the job as a Windows based one then its considered more commodity. Windows is available everywhere and so are the development environments like C , anyone in the world who has a laptop and the time and patience to sit down and learn has these facilities available , and pirate copying has made this more accessable.

Its not hard for someone who has some resonable communication skills then to apply for such positions.

Im not saying that its a low skill job at all , it may require more skills than a mainframe job of the same type , but less people will have had access to a mainframe so they will be in a more niche market.

I am not convinced that skilled foreigners are also rushing to go to the UK , there are better options in other countries.

I have not suggested anything about Indians being bad communicators , my previous post says regardless of nationality , this is a global market and its not just Indians that are in this market .

I am still on a contract at 420 quid a day , and if you read this post http://www.contractoruk.com/news/002685.html then you will see that there are many contractors on more than me.

I have herd all the scaremongering over many years but I still get a good wage so why havent all these low cost foreigners taken my job ? In fact the agent did tell me when I was asking for this rate that rates were dropping because of outsourcing etc. etc. , and I then asked him why he was bothering to ring me back if that was the case.

If you have a good niche skill then stick out for your rate , if you are in a more commodity type market then I agree rates will be depresssed but dont get into a price war with low cost foreign workers nobody is going to win that.

Someone speaking some sense at last. I will disagree with you on two points:

Firstly Indians are poor communicators, they have a habit of nodding in agreement to everything whether they understand what is going on or not. They also will not challenge their superiors (usually too late if something goes wrong). Indians are really only worthwhile doing anything other than grunt work if they have worked in a western environment.

Secondly you will be surprised at just hopw many foreigners want to work , believe me ( ) there are a lot of them. Interestingly it is not just the wages it is as much to do with the attractions of coming to the UK as anything else.

The great strength of our UK contractors is that they are so strong at forming the link between IT and business (except of course for you lot ). This is why the good ones will always do well.

[The Lone Gunman]

Dodgy: I don't want to protect the market and I dont want to stop migrant workers (I have been one for 8 years), what I want is the protections that exist to be removed.
I want to see third world goods at third world prices.
Allowing the manufacturers to source at third world costs for production but charge 1st world prices to us is going to lead to all jobs (apart from customer facing and scurity related) going abroad. We will rapidly become a tourist economy.
Even if we get third world prices we are not going to have it easy and could still end up in a deflating economy.
Business may succeed, but I am not just thinking about my own back pocket. I realy see doom in this.

I also dont see why a foreign company can come and raid the British economy when it is almost impossible for us to set up companies in those foreign lands.