[xrp]

Doom and gloom talk. Most of my customers who I visit and sell to in the Midwest are increasing IT staff. Now, a lot of the low-level/helpdesk jobs that involve basic troubleshooting are outsourced to India, but much of the network administration, server support (hardware especially), information security, deployments, etc has to be done in the USA and is not outsourced.

[expatpat]

I suspect that people like Pardon would be better off taking the view that the grunge jobs can go to India, while upgrading their activity to things like software specification, software design, project management that still need to be done here and are more creative activities than programming.

[RolandBurnam]

I agree. I am in IT for almost 15 years, and an outsourced software project would have to go flawlessly to not crash and burn, trying to get bugs fixed and software revised from across the globe would be a huge headache. That said, I can see outsourcing call centers or support. We aren't assigned our jobs by the local party official, if you aren't good enough at something, choose something else and try it. I have thought about going to india myself and trying to start a company. If the trend is as hot as the media says, it would be a cinch. hmmm

[CasearianDaoist]

Well this is not the case nationally - particularly in the eastern seaboard, the Bay area, LA and the southren Tech centers. I have been in the business 35 years and I have not seen a market slimp like this. Ever.

[Euro-American Scum]

Now, a lot of the low-level/helpdesk jobs that involve basic troubleshooting are outsourced to India, but much of the network administration, server support (hardware especially), information security, deployments, etc has to be done in the USA and is not outsourced.

I don't know where you live, or where you work, but on the west coast, all of our customers, not some or a few, shipped everything out except perhaps one or two local coders to fix the Indian software that comes in for deployment and doesn't work.

Software development, software support, network engineering, R&D, web development, database design and administration are all gone and are not coming back.

That's a little bit more than just a help desk. And talking to the headhunters I know, nobody is adding staff this year, not even H1-B or L1 applicants.

[Havoc]

Uh, it isn't doom and gloom - it's happening and it's snowballing. It has consumed data entry jobs accross professions ranging from medical to clerical billing. It has taken the 1st and 2nd level IT desks of many outfits and will take part of third level that doesn't require hands on. To be frank, you're either a liar or don't know what in hell you're talking about and I don't know which.

I work for EDS at a desk that just basically finished outsourcing the IT information security division in advance of displacing the tier one desk. Request management will be gone in roughly another 6-7 weeks and they were notified last week. The first level desk was tasked through the tail end of last year with hurredly switching to software being used in India and coverting our knowledge base for presentation to that format; but, strategy changed prior to their notifying us and they decided to outsource to Mexico instead of india. If someone is telling you IT admin has to be done here, they're pulling your chain. I'm in the midwest. And nobody here is increasing staff. And because of that, displaced IT workers here have no where to go.

[InABunkerUnderSF]

Doom and gloom talk. Most of my customers who I visit and sell to in the Midwest are increasing IT staff. Now, a lot of the low-level/helpdesk jobs that involve basic troubleshooting are outsourced to India...

So, if we outsource all of the "low-level/helpdesk jobs", how do we bring new people into the field? These are the entry level jobs. I used to poach all my good guys for network management from the Helpdesk and Desktop groups. They had better trouble shooting skills and better work ethic than people we hired in from outside.

At the company I worked at they "insourced" everything to Indians on L-1 visas - Helpdesk went first, followed by software development, then desktop, server admin. and network management, which included security. Those of us who held those jobs originally had the choice of "providing knowledge transfer" or leaving then without benefits, cobra, etc. We stayed.

I really don't think you understand the situation. I hope you don't get the opportunity to see it first hand.

[sakic]

Doom and gloom talk. Most of my customers who I visit and sell to in the Midwest are increasing IT staff.

In NYC it's not just talk. Companies continue laying off IT people at an alarming rate and it's hard finding jobs. Very hard.

Olympus recently took 800 jobs from Long Island to the Lehigh Valley so that the President of the company could have a shorter drive to work.