Just think of it this way, you have now added 1/30th or so more Australian to the company

FormulaNova said...
Sadly, it is all about price now. I worked for a company that would outsource things to India on behalf of a lot of other companies.

The story going around was that they could afford to get the guys in India to do it 3 times before it became cheaper to do it locally, so that's what they chose, even though it wasn't often done right the first time.

The companies that used these services were happy to do this, unless they had to deal directly with the resources in India themselves, at which point they preferred an Australian resource.

Yep, I'm in the same industry as you FM. So what do you think we should do in the next 10 years?

Should we just accept, that third world countries will inevitably, take over our livelihoods and get out of the industry altogether;

or should we plod on, adapt, continue to skill up and move into other roles, in attempt to stay one step ahead of them?

pierrec45 said...
Adolf, your topic is an observation, not a rant. Good on you.

The ever dropping value of the local working force has been known and discussed within companies (tech field and banks anyways) for at least 10 years. It's the impetus for the numerous "the changing workforce" studies I've been involved in. All nice PC wording around the fact that we get little implication and competitiveness from the newly grads. "I don't want to work like my parents", "I have a right to Facebook at work", that sort of stuff - seen it all.

The answer for many managers I know is in-sourcing (my own word), a non-written policy consisting of hiring mostly for the newly arrived, highly qualified immigrant workforce. I've seen amazing things in that field the last few years, years later I am still in awe about this.

The only reason I voice this friendly warning is that I'm mostly done working - other people give me their money now. I no longer risk losing business for saying what a lot of people think. There is absolutely great local talent in the new generation, attitude and competitiveness will have to come to the party.

'luck.

I think I'm on the same page as you.

The people I'm working with are very clever and are very committed to promoting their own lives - and I've learned a lot from them.

A minority of them, will never be Australian - I wish they would just f' off.

The workplace conversations are not the same as they once were. Common banter about football, the Melbourne Cup, Julia Gillard, or who you rooted on the w/e etc mean nothing to them, which kind of makes me feel like I'm living in a foreign country. Unfortunately, smalltalk seems to be restricted to Melbourne's unusual weather.

I do find it interesting hearing a bit about their local culture though, and some of the weird things they've found while living here. Like the Hindu woman who had a cremation of her grandmother and watched it with her own family only to see the body go up in a a few seconds, instead of a slow burn which they were accustomed too was particularly amusing to me. I try my best to listen and teach them about Australia, our culture, and places they should visit.

But you are spot on. There is so much talent here in Australia now - wtf are we going overseas to get cheap work for? Plenty of very hungry intelligent people here, who are far more qualified.

I'm also glad my working life is nearing it's end - I'd love to make a difference though.

Yet people whinge about local shops ripping them of because they can buy it cheaper over the interweb.

Hmmmmm, I must be a wee bit thick but I can't see the difference between outsourcing and what the pubelic is doing to local bussiness's

adolf said...


Yep, I'm in the same industry as you FM. So what do you think we should do in the next 10 years?

Should we just accept, that third world countries will inevitably, take over our livelihoods and get out of the industry altogether;

or should we plod on, adapt, continue to skill up and move into other roles, in attempt to stay one step ahead of them?

I am not sure where to go from here.

I don't think its going to change as the size of the workforce in India, and any other country where there are outsourcing opportunities, means that the wages will never go up to a point where we are competitive locally. So, yes, I think we should accept it is going to happen.

One thing I have noticed is that they often need people here that are the contact points for these people. So generally, managers, and project managers are still needed locally, albeit a few of these roles are already outsourced overseas. So, maybe a move into these roles would be wise? The actual people that do the work are still needed here, but less and less each year.

I think I am at the point in my career where I need to make some sort of change and when I figure it out I will be happy.

It seems we have become a banana republic, although its one built on mining instead.

adolf said...

I think I'm on the same page as you.

The people I'm working with are very clever and are very committed to promoting their own lives - and I've learned a lot from them.

A minority of them, will never be Australian - I wish they would just f' off.

The workplace conversations are not the same as they once were. Common banter about football, the Melbourne Cup, Julia Gillard, or who you rooted on the w/e etc mean nothing to them, which kind of makes me feel like I'm living in a foreign country. Unfortunately, smalltalk seems to be restricted to Melbourne's unusual weather.

<snip>

In time, the people that settle here will become 'Australian', but it has changed a bit. I guess if you have come from a country where you need to compete a lot, your attitude will be that way.

Like or not, after the third generation, their offspring will become like us and used to the Australian way of life, and get the attitude to match. Which to my mind, tells me that immigration is a very short term solution.

Nova- you've replied enough to your own post now. My turn now

But we've protested for years for higher wages and rights. But now if someone need an IT guy, rather than hiring they can just get the IT services done from India or China. If we need a new Wetsuit or pair of shoes we can buy it from the US or OS.

The dollar has gone up and suddenly it makes us no longer competitive in pretty much anything.

And as far as ... "you get what you pay for"
Does us having significantly higher wages than China or Germany make us deliver far
better products or services?

Id probably say they are more diligent and harder workers than us on all fronts.

Rant over and out

The World Is Flat | Thomas L. Friedman... read it.

Globalization, yes with a Z is here and disintegration is very unlikely.
Within a generation Australia will have more Asians than Caucasians, and within 2 Caucasians will be a minority.

The only thing that would make Australia uncompetitive, is uncompetitive imagination and management.

adolf, PM delivering PHP apps?

There's very little chance of real wage increases, unless you get in first in nascent industry and you're in high demand.
Bioinformatics, Nanotech, AI for autonomous systems (drones), Flux pinning, 3D printing (I'm looking at the Mojo)...

Web Sites? 10 years from now it's all going to be cloud based with 1/2 dozen big players (AWS @ #1), with 0 demand for bespoke development... migrating people on to the cloud is in demand now.
Large scale virtualization (yes with a Z) is in demand too, HP, IBM, Fijitsu, Amazon are building some really amazing data centers here (yes centers not centres)... massive multitenant on demand virtual processing farms with pricing by processing cycles, memory, I/O ops and storage.

In my last job all my colleagues were foreign, Chinese, Japanese and Indian. I haven't worked with Australians for quite a while. I've gotten used to no after work beers, lunch time slurping/open mouth eating, little to no creative thinking...

I don't think there's anything wrong in perceived racism, any time you have a preference for anything it's a form of racism, and humans being social mammals have a built-in desire to associate with humans of similar characteristics.

So adolf welcome to today.

And for those bitching about people buying OS... WTF do you think Australian retailers are doing?
Even your small players buy in bulk from Alibaba mark it up by 50-100% and sell it to you with GST, so they can claim theirs back... they can wake up and smell the farking coffee too.
That business model is going to be like printed books... and when 3D printers get in the act...

If it's made in Australia, I buy it in Australia... even when Australian wine is cheaper in farking Tesco's.

And don't give me no BS about high wages/currency can't compete... Spain's Inditex en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inditex largest textile company and a lot is made in Spain.

Australia's Cochlear en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cochlear_Limited, #1 in hearing aids.
Infact most top companies are in high wage/currency countries... JUST look at Japan... OK I know their economy has moved sideways for the past 20 years, but their still in the game with the highest costs in the world.

Bottom line: Companies with good business models do well, those without, bitch, ask for subsidies, help or want you to feel sorry for them.

pierrec45 said...
BTW, when you call and get support or sales from a foreign country (Egypt, India, etc.), call the Australian office and INSIST on speaking with someone in Australia, and being called back by someone in Australia. Dell comes to mind, but there are many more examples.

You are entitled to it, they'll do it and some ocker will call you back.
Every little bit counts...

Given the amount we spend on education here, shouldn't we have better things to do than answer phones?

So how much of a premium should we be paying for Australian staff, Australian made, Australian grown etc?

In many cases the foreign supplied product or service is less than 50%, sometimes similar quality, sometimes a bit less

If I'm a business and I can outsource some of the 'grunt' work - reception, customer service, basic (and sometimes not so basic) analysis and save 50% on wages - plus get more "employer friendly" conditions - well lets just say that that leaves quite a lot of margin to fix problems with. Even more if I manage to grab market share but undercutting my competition. Lets face it the developed world is now in direct competition with the 3rd world - and they're offering a better deal.

As for the original post who's employer is hiring "non Australians" - there must be a reason for this - given it's in Australia I doubt they're paying significantly less than for Australian staff - maybe the work ethic is better, maybe they do a better job, maybe they take less sick leave. I don't think it's up to your employer to consider how much they value the Australian way of life.

nebbian said...
Every month or so I get a phone call from someone saying that they have gotten a website done overseas, it's "90% complete", and "only requires a bit of tweaking"... Har har har. You won't believe how shoddy some of this work turns out to be. It's always better to start again rather than put lipstick on the pig.


You still get what you pay for...

Hahahaha, the outsources don't follow best practices, and occasionally the whole project will need be started from scratch. However, the company I'm working for are committed to continue down this sad route.

I guess as long as there are problems, there will be work for me in my field, maybe outsourcing is a good thing.

Suppose working in a place like that, she'd hear you coming.

FlySurfer said...

pierrec45 said...
BTW, when you call and get support or sales from a foreign country (Egypt, India, etc.), call the Australian office and INSIST on speaking with someone in Australia, and being called back by someone in Australia. Dell comes to mind, but there are many more examples.

You are entitled to it, they'll do it and some ocker will call you back.
Every little bit counts...

Given the amount we spend on education here, shouldn't we have better things to do than answer phones?

It's a sales job, there are plenty of people in Australia that can and would do these jobs. If 500 people follow my recommendation once, it's one less job gone, and one more local job.

That's exactly the problem: I hire a Java guy, and he says "I got this-that qualif", I want $25k more than what you offer. So I move on to someone who's more interested, and may be equally qualified. I put him on probation just in case. The original guy stays unemployed, complaining that there are no jobs in Australia.

I know it's not you, but I see that very often. I'll bet you know guys that try to oversell and aren't working.

Related to this topic: I get one of those marketing call the other day. Had been yonks.

Obviously an Indian, and likely from India. "We work with your bank and we have a deal for you."

So I go: "OK, so what's my bank?"

He, puzzled: "What do you mean?"

"You said you work with my bank, so what's the name of my bank?"

He: "Sir, I can't disclose that for security reasons".

I ask again, he angers: "You know damn well what your bank is". (no joke)

Wished I had recorded.. It seems we outsource even rackets and scams...

BulldogPup said...
gather those thoughts of the next working 5-10 years now mate - if you're pulling that pin get something cooking beforehand .....

Fully agreed. Even more difficult: do pretend you're committed until then. It's gonna get even more unpleasant if you come to work half-hearted.
Until then, try to get something out of this - training, learning new stuff, branching out in new projects, that sort of stuff.