IT jobs, move east

[Phanuthier]

http://www.infoworld.com/article/08/...verseas_1.html

I commented on this in earlier threads, thought I'd start a new one here.

A trend that predates the economic recession shows IT jobs leaving North America.

[Boblobla]

Haven't they been leaving for quite some time? Pretty much all the call centers are out of places in India.

[habernac]

my last job moved to India as well.

[Phanuthier]

Yup, but I think its something that some don't really realize, more of a topic that stems from a previous thread.

Alot of production has moved to Mexico and China, obviously, and India and China (Bangalore and Shanghai in particular) are stealing IT at an alarming rate - one of the last few strongholds the USA has built their economy on IMO.

[mykalberta]

Calgary is an easy place to find an IT job IMO - so long as you have some experience (non helpdesk etc) in the field.

US is an IT bastion but difficult as hell to get a work visa down there unless you have a unique skill.

Also, Helpdesk is not an IT job. Its a telemarketer who gets phone calls - most of the time.

[Phanuthier]

Well Calgary has jobs, but realistically Calgary is not a major player in the IT market. The IT is there to supply demand within the city, and lesser so on a global demand. I think Dell's attempted facility up in the Edmonton Research Park was a pretty good indication of that.

Particularly for Canadian markets, I know Ontario and Vancouver took a big hit.

[mykalberta]

True, Calgary isnt silicon valley but it has more than double the number if viable IT jobs than a comparably sized city such as Edmonton.

I dont consider HelpDesk to be an IT job in the sense of things. Those jobs go to the place with the lowest cost base, not the highest knowledge base, hence why these jobs are going to India, Brazil, Eastern Europe where the cost/knowledge ratio is out of whack.

The Dell call centre couldnt survive in Edmonton because of the rising costs of living and it simply couldnt attract the people it needed at the costs they were willing to swallow.

Remember, the article said for a "Promising IT Jobs" Helpdesk IMO is not a promising job and not one I would relocate to go after. I tried getting a position with Lockheed Martin in the US, got passed the security clearance but couldnt get the visa level I needed.

Anyone in the IT field can tell you exactly why those cities are on the list (except for Amsterdam and Paris - not exactly sure why those two and not say London and Munich). Helpdesk, electronics manufacturing, and Internet gambling are the reasons for the rest. The only places I would consider a "Promising IT Job" would be Dublin, San Jose, and Tel Aviv. Some of the cities are good for contracting but not perma positions (Dubai, and Hong Kong)

[Phanuthier]

^ How do you miss out Bangalore and Shanghai?

[mykalberta]

Originally Posted by Phanuthier

^ How do you miss out Bangalore and Shanghai?

I didnt, they arent promising for someone coming from North America.

Both are basically sweatshop programming and or helpdesk. They are considered world IT hubs because the cost base hasnt caught up with the knowledge base, I would likely get a 50% paycut if I was doing my comparable networking job in either location. Sure I would have a much much lower cost of living but that only matters to people would would put down roots there.

Please dont try to convince me that someone who can only speak English and conversational Spanish should move to Bangalor or Shanghai for the overflowing IT job opportunities - come one.

[macker]

It's likely been said but jobs were being outsourced to India prior to the year 2000 conversion.

[icarus]

The people skills of the workers in some of these places is severely lacking. I work for a global IT company with a major centre in Bangalore and my God is it tough dealing with so many of the people there. They just have no idea how to communicate via e-mail, that questions require answers etc. It is much the same for China too. I cannot imagine how any business gets done in our company when someone in India has to deal with someone in China. Language problems aside, it's gotta be like that Russell Peters joke. Over the past year we've also established a main hub in the Philippines too, and they are quite good to deal with. But dealing with India, China, and to a lesser extent Romania is a frickin nightmare.

In short, I think companies will recognise the value in keeping a lot IT jobs that require interpersonal communication in the places where they currently are.

[HelloHockeyFans]

In our group at work, we have 7 software developers who are employees. Currently, we also have another 10 software developers on the team who are from India working contract to contract for our various projects. Cheap... very cheap. Their work is definitely not as good as the homegrown work, but it's so much cheaper, the company has decided to go 3rd party and just get them to fix their mistakes when they make them (which is pretty much every time they deliver), over hiring more Canadian employees who would definitely do the job correctly the first time.

[Resolute 14]

Originally Posted by mykalberta

I dont consider HelpDesk to be an IT job in the sense of things. Those jobs go to the place with the lowest cost base, not the highest knowledge base, hence why these jobs are going to India, Brazil, Eastern Europe where the cost/knowledge ratio is out of whack.

Depends on what you want your help desk to be. If you are only looking for a call centre, then you could haul a drug addict off the street and he'd succeed so long as he is able to read and follow a script.

If you want a service desk (that works), its gotta be in-house. People that know and have touched the equipment they are supporting. The company I worked for, now contracted too, found out what the difference between the two is the hard way.

[mykalberta]

Originally Posted by Resolute 14

Depends on what you want your help desk to be. If you are only looking for a call centre, then you could haul a drug addict off the street and he'd succeed so long as he is able to read and follow a script.

If you want a service desk (that works), its gotta be in-house. People that know and have touched the equipment they are supporting. The company I worked for, now contracted too, found out what the difference between the two is the hard way.

Correct, but in house HelpDesk isnt exactly what you would consider to be IT Mechas. The good Helpdesk (I should have used call centre earlier as the Helpdesk is vital to in house IT) persons are usually older who have level 2 experience but can handle (and enjoy handling) field users who cant understand the cleaning crew might have unplugged the network cable, hence why you have no Internet or Email.

Its one of the reasons it is so peculiar why Dell outsourced its Call Centre over seas. The Call centre is the face of the company after ordering, that should be handled by people who who are essentially customer service reps, and not IT folks. I know why they did it (in their race for the bottom they sold to many comptuers for their NA centres to handle it so they outsourced overseas and turned their biggest strength and selling feature into their biggest liability). One of the worst domino effects decisions of the tech industry IMO.

[Bobblehead]

My IT dept (small - 15 people) shifted some of the team from London Ont to Calgary in '96 (The mainframe programmers stayed behind). This year we gave up trying to find a helpdesk person in Calgary and got one in London Ont. again. It will be a pain, but we got tired of training someone then having them get a better paying job somewhere else after 18 months.