The Offshoring of America's Top Jobs

CAREERPLANNER.COM ^ | Michael T. Robinson

[Momaw Nadon]

The Offshoring of America's Top Jobs

Many of America's top jobs are moving offshore. Which jobs are most likely to be hit by "offshoring" and what can you do to protect and safeguard your career?

Jobs that are most likely to be moved offshore have these Characteristics:

• Work is highly repetitive (accounting)
• Work is predictable and well defined (customer service)
• Can be broken down into small manageable projects (software development)
• Can be turned into a routine (Tele-marketing)
• Proximity to the end customer is not important (phone based tech support of consumer products)
• End customer has already moved offshore (semiconductor sales)

Jobs that are unlikely to move offshore have these Characteristics?

• High degree of ambiguity (top management positions)
• Unpredictable (hands on technical troubleshooting)
• Understanding of the culture is critical (authoring books, marketing, comedians)
• Time is of the essence (fast product development)
• Requires a high degree of collaboration (making a movie)
• Requires close proximity to the end customer (firefighting, auto repair, dental work)
• Requires high degree of creativity and innovation (creating new products, technical breakthroughs, writing music)

What can you do to protect and safeguard your Job?

• Be the best in your field. Be much better than the next guy.
• Demonstrate the ability to be creative and innovative.
• Market your accomplishments to your management.
• Get out of any highly repetitive jobs that do not require close proximity to the customer.
• Choose a career where the demand will be so high that even tapping into the huge, low cost labor markets of China and India will not fill all the jobs.
• Choose a career from the "safe" list of jobs below.

Going, Going Gone
Our list of secure jobs and high risk Jobs

The list below shows four categories of jobs:

1. Safe / No Risk: Most of these jobs are safe from offshoring due to the need for being physically close to the customer.
2. Moderate Risk: These jobs might be starting to move offshore. There is no trend yet, but the nature of the work fits the pattern of a job that can be moved out of the US.
3. High Risk: Many of these jobs have already started to move offshore. The nature of these jobs matches those that can be moved easily and managed remotely.

4. Extreme Risk: You would have to be blind to not see that many of these jobs have already moved. The trend towards offshoring has been visible for more than a few years.

Finally, there is good news. The list of jobs that are safe from offshoring is much longer than the lists of jobs that are expected to be hit by offshoring.

Risk of Job Offshoring List

[CapnJack]

"No, don’t work with SAP, work with an American ERP company Oracle! ;-)". Quiet you! The Germans got it right with this software ... and any more complaints from you and you will be shot, court marshaled, and sent to the Russian Front!!!!

[CapnJack]

“No, don’t work with SAP, work with an American ERP company Oracle! ;-)
This is very sound advice. Also, Oracle contractors can get $100+ an hour for their work.”

SAP contractors get $150+ an hour. ;-)

[rodguy911]

Probably not yet, we are relegated to the Southeast, Key Largo Rods,I own the company.

[Alberta's Child]

The unemployment rate is a political number subject to manipulation. Show me the number of people filing a 1040 each year and the amounts they earn. That is what matters, not some ficticious politically manipulated number.

That's a very good point, but it also works both ways.

I don't know a single person who is currently unemployed. In fact, I know a lot of people who are always worried about unemployment, outsourcing, etc. -- but none of these people have ever been unemployed in their lives.

[Caipirabob]

SAP contractors get $150+ an hour. ;-)

Wow, that's good to know. I'm not entirely familiar with SAP. Kind of lost in my own world.

I'm checking out the web for references and just found this: SAP References

I'll read on...thanks again!

[webstersII]

“Get set for major Democratic majorities. Job security will be the real issue in this campaign, with national security following up. Some people may have different names for these things, but that’s where it’s going to go.”

Your analysis is very thought-provoking.

I see it a bit differently, though.

There are two big issues for the electorate: 1) jobs/offshoring, and 2) illegal immigration.

I agree that the GOP, with their support of NAFTA and offshoring in general, has shot themselves in the foot with many of the semi-skilled workers. These people are strongly in the Obama camp now.

But the Democrats (and certain liberal Republicans like McCain) have shot themselves in the foot over Amnesty. Emotions over that issue run at least as high as NAFTA or globalization.

People won’t vote for a candidate who supports both NAFTA and Amnesty. Obama supports Amnesty but not NAFTA so he can win if the Amnesty issue never is brought to the forefront.

McCain supports both NAFTA and Amnesty but claims he doesn’t support Amnesty. He has come out for building a border fence FIRST but I don’t believe most people trust him on this issue.

Here’s where McCain still has a chance, though: if he were to admit that he was wrong on Amnesty and make border security a priority then he might be able to get a good share of the conservatives back in his camp. I believe that conservatives would be willing to vote for McCain as the lesser of two evils, but McCain still has to convince people on the Amnesty issue.

Likewise, in all the local and state elections people won’t necessarily vote for the Democrats — unless the GOP candidates are part of the “neo-Rockefeller wing of the Stupid party” as you say. Hopefully some of the people in the local races will get a clue, as they usually are more in tune with the local voters. It’s a guarantee that no local politician outside of California will be supporting Amnesty. After what happened last year they all know that it’s the 3rd rail of politics.

[ears_to_hear]

You are right even more than you have posted that you are. Many who are unemployed do not file for unemployment benefits, and it is the number of unemployed filing which represents the percentage of unemployed.

Correct, and when the unemployment runs out they are taken off the count, even if they are now on welfare.

[Woodman]

Ding Ding Ding, we have a winner (not a whiner). Good IT jobs are still there, but you need to have the flexibility and build the proper skill sets to take advantage of them.

[Woodman]

I fit the management bill, and since I am not quite competent, I can’t seem to continue justifying reducing costs by outsourcing. So through my incompetence I now have to try to bring the work back on-shore, but am having a real hard time finding non-entry level workers who are as incompetent as myself. Maybe if you apply for one of my open positions we can find a match?

[JasonC]

The number employed is at record levels and so is the amount they make. Unsurprising, since the product of the two basically is the economy, which grows continually.

[JasonC]

Actually, protection is a stone cold political loser and always will be, and any party that embraces it will simply toss itself out of national office for a generation.

[Woodman]

As overseas markets gain strength and grow, there are less and less overseas resources available to outsource to. What is happening in India, China and other growing economies is that the most competent and best are finding more wealth working for smaller companies or providing Asian solutions. As a result of this, the big outsourceree’s Like WIPRO, TATA, etc are becoming like a K-Mart of resource pools, they can do the job cheaply and that’s about it.

[Non-Sequitur]

Are there any opinions on which Information Technology sector or jobs are least likely to be outsourced?

Management and jobs that are customer facing. Project managers and program managers, businaess analysts to a lesser extent. Software developers are at most risk.

[Non-Sequitur]

As the dimocrats start taxing high paying jobs to death for socialized projects, I would not be surprised at all of these type jobs leaving, as well as the people who work in them.

I've got news for you. Offshoring has been accelerating over the last 7 years like never before, and income taxes have absolutely nothing to do with it. Plain and simple, if you can pay a guy in India $15,000 a year for work you would pay someone in the states $45,000 for then income taxes don't enter into it. The sole reason for outsourcing is increasing business revenue. Ask anyone who works in the ares. Efficiencies don't enter in to it. Competence doesn't enter into it. Qualifications don't enter into it. It's money, pure and simple.

[Non-Sequitur]

Do you have any other examples of IT jobs that may be safe?

There aren't any.

[bvw]

There’s no business that’s in business by reducing costs. Reducing costs says one set of things clearly — your business is not so good and you don’t understand how to make it better, so you become the Obama and HOPE that by reducing costs you can survive until some magic occurs later, somehow, maybe ...

[Non-Sequitur]

IT is a good field, but programming knowledge WITH business knowledge is where to be. If you can provide a business solution as well as a IT solution, you will be a very valuable asset.

How do you develop such a skill set? You start at entry level and build up your skills and business knowledge by hands on experience over years. The problem is that the entry level jobs are gone and not returning. We're losing the jobs that used to grow our leadership in the IT and financial areas. It's the same with SAP. We outsource a lot of our SAP development to Asia.

I look at the IT area where I work and I would have to say that almost three-quarters of our resources are mid-40's or older. There is no next generation in the pipeline. Not any more.

[Woodman]

True, so I guess my combination of sarcasm and truth didn’t register.

So here it is in Black and White. I have been forced to outsource for more than 5 years. It has all been about cost savings.

I am now being requested to bring this work back in house. It is all about competence, skill sets ans Business expertise.

[guitfiddlist]

Even the Indians are outsourcing. I occasionally work with some software companies out here in Shanghai, Mphasis for example, that are coding for Indian headquarters companies back in Mumbai, on software development projects from the US and Europe. The English language skills of local Shanghainese are too low for them to interface directly with US clients - but they’re cheaper than Indian coders, and the Indian project managers can make bigger profits.

But lower costs are only part of the reason, as the Indian managers at these Shanghai branch companies tell me that competition in India for key IT skilled personnel in certain disciplines is so intense that they are forced to outsource to China.

[Non-Sequitur]

We run into the same problem. We have offshore resources in India, China, Thailand, Vietnam, the Philippines, Brazil, Mexico, you name it. Anywhere that’s cheap. It’s quite a trip arranging conference calls and dealing with the cultures. But contractually we’re required to do it, it was part of the outsourcing agreement.

As for quality, in it's U.S. heyday any programmer with a pulse could be guaranteed a job. Well the demand for IT resources hasn't diminished, it's just gone overseas. It doesn't surprise me at all that India has the same problem finding and retaining quality people that the U.S. used to have, and that they're dealing with less and less competent people.