Notice who they surveyed and their methodology. They have financial incentives, especially since H1-B and L-1 and L-2 visa allotments are being discussed by Congress, not to report reality, but to report what they want us to hear.

It depends on what the definition of Winning the War is. The same folks think we're winning in Iraq, but an objective viewpoint would not agree with either statement.

I see we have an agenda! Of course none of this matches with observed reality. I especially like the part about the H1-B visas.
The only reason that we offshore is because we can't hire practical slave labor and pay them pennies on the dollar in the US.

If I didn't PERSONALLY know people that lost their jobs to India, China or the Philippines, I MIGHT believe this. However, I DO know people who have. I know people who were told "Your job is moving to India. This is XXX. Please train him to do your job." Six months later, my friend was out of a job and his job went back to India. My lat employer, a LARGE software manufacturer, sent a TON of development and tech support jobs to India. The people who were in those jobs were given a severance package and had to find new jobs...AS DEVELOPERS. I know developers to this day who can't find work because darn near every place they look have development overseas for a lot less money, and they can't live on overseas wages.

To say that offshoring doesn't cost jobs is absolutely false. Whoever did the survey and whoever paid for the survey are so wrong it isn't even funny. Frankly, I think the results were rigged, because MANY of us have the proof that this is inaccurate.

imho. Sure, outsourcing doesn't affect software houses that want those H1-B visas. How about surveying corporate American companies that now have "contractors" outnumber full time personnel 2 to 1? I beleive it is those jobs that are being displaced by outsourcing.

I believe your survey is not accurate. I work for a phone company that doesn't have near the development positions like it had 6 years ago. Talk to anyone in the phone industry. The jobs have been offshored to reduce costs. Bellsouth doesn't even have an IT department anymore.

Much of the new software for billing and ordering products is bought off-the-shelf from companies that use offshore developers.

So, myself and all the other people I know that lost our jobs are insignificant?

Actually, some don't lose their jobs directly. Turns out that their programming teams are rarely able to deliver a product that will come close to our QA standards, yet managers are often seduced into adding these teams instead of local people.

Often individuals are not interviewed on the remote team--I have seen a few individuals with good talents, but they are bogged in a sea of incompetence--so much so that the net contribution is a HUGE time sync for the American side of the team.

After going through this repeatedly (most recently with TATA-ELXI, a respected Indian corporation), I can offer only one way to make a programming team work.

You MUST have one programmer for each two over there doing nothing but design work to ensure they are fed legitamate designs, and you MUST understand that you will not gain ANY productivity for a year--you will actually lose it in the beginning.

The survey doesn't square with all the cases of American programmers being forced to train a foreign replacement on pain of termination without a severance payment. Some of that happened inside my own company. It also doesn't square with all the phoney employment ads that result in hiring only H1-B candidates. Select the right questions and the right audience and you can get any survey result you want.

My company went through a round of layoffs for the express purpose of gaining twice the number of programmers in India. Don't tell me offshoring doesn't cost jobs. I can name names.

The sad part is, several years later the programming team in India is still not as productive as the two members of my team that were laid off.

Sorry to disagree. At my old company (a software company), I was a Sr. Software Engineer. The Board of Directors decided to save a few bucks and move development of the product to Vietnam. The entire engineering department was let go. I also have several friends at other companies who have suffered the same fate.

Explain why I haven't been able to get a mainframe programming job since January 2002 except for a four month contract between Oct. 2005 and Feb. 2006. Since IBM brought offshore consultant in back in 1992. RCG hired offshore consultants in 1998. First Data Merchant Services got stung by offshore consultants in 2001 for double posting Wal-Mart credit card purchases, because the Consultants from India removed checks from a process that was suppose to caught duplicate records being posted.

All I can say is what a load of crap. Having been replaced by foriegn workers in the past, I can say this from experience. Is the SIIA just a talking head for corporate America? Shaking head in disgust...

A load of crap, as someone whose lost a job due to off shoring, this survey is DEAD WRONG!!

Well, it seems that expansion into the home country should come first before seeking cut-rate employees elsewhere.

If my kids are hurting for food and I'm feeding the neighbour's children instead, what kind of provider am I?

Granted, companies aren't parents but it's hard to feel any admiration or loyalty to companies that don't support the citizens of the country in which they are based.

hhmm doubtful. Esso funded serveys saying climate change doesn't exist, just as the software industry funds a servey saying that outsourcing of software jobs doesn't cost jobs.

Wasn't this the one that was paid for by the Indian National Chamber of Commerce?

I was out of work after 9/11 for 9 months from a cellular software company having at that point 15 years engineering experiance. Durring this time Microsoft and other local software companies were hiring and begging for an increase in H1-B visas. I know engineers who had to go bankrupt. I took a job two states away and commuted back home once a month.

This is not political talk. It's reality. Unfortunately our Democrat Senators caved to Microsoft and voted the H1-B increase.

This is absolutely crazy. Offshoring is taking jobs that would be created in the US and sending them to developers overseas. How is that not costing developers jobs?

I personally worked in a Music store for 8 months after college before I could find work. Two colleagues of mine worked in supermarkets and movie theaters for 2 years before they got jobs. I'm pretty sure that if companies were creating jobs in the US, we would have had some actualy work.

I think the biggest problem I have with these studies is that it tries to justify outsourcing by saying it's done for perfomance or improved efficiency. I'm sure the fact that a developer in India makes 1/10 the salary of a developer in the US has not impact on the decision.

Total Propaganda!

Tell a big enough lie,
and the Politicians will believe it!

If a job which would have been created in the US is instead created overseas then yes, there was a job lost in America.

On top of that, those US dollars which would have gone back into the local US economy were forever lost by sending them overseas instead. So yes, the US local economy lost money as well.

Add to that tax dollars for social security, medicare (which is already threatened by the aging baby boomers) and we are all hurt by this offshoring of jobs.

No matter how you look at it America suffers when jobs are offshored.

The only people who profit from offshoring of American jobs are the greedy corporations who cut costs and the non-American economy the money is sent to.

The "Findings" of this survey are absolutely biased and absurd. I have seen hundreds of positions cut due to their jobs being outsourced to overseas code sweat houses.

I am personally aware of dozens of very well qualified developers that are not being offered positions because of outsourcing.

The SIIA is buke!

This study is a farce. I really want someone to explain how removing the opportunity for a U.S. citizen to obtain a job can possibly be seen as not costing Americans a job. Granted, these positions are not always the most sought-after but, if someone needs to feed and house a family, they would not turn down the position. Instead the money is going overseas at a lower cost to companies. A profit margin and, by proxy, better stock presentation are what this is about. I can't think of a single person that honestly read this and was truly convinced. I would ask the SIIA to please think hard before accepting whoever's money and publishing trash like this.

The problem with this survey is that it only accounts for development jobs at software companies. There are many, many other types of companies that are now offshoring their software development and that is costing many American developers their jobs.

This is nauseating disinformation. There is no shortage of engineers. There is, however, a shortage of engineers in the U.S. who will work for nickels on the dollar. And if no jobs are lost to offshoring, why are so many engineers (and others) unemployed or under-employed because their jobs got offshored? The only ones who benefit from offshoring jobs are the obscenely over compensated executives and the shareholders, who would sell their grannies into prostitution for a dime.

The migration of work to overseas companies is throttling more than just software development jobs. In ALL cases for ALL job types the move is NOT done for the sake of expansion but for lower cost labor. For every person bragging about quality improvements from overseas resources you can find two more people with poor quality stories to share. No one can dispute these facts and I don't care what study anyone does do to refute them. Want proof? Look no further than the large unenmployment and especially the harder to measure underemployment numbers for various parts of the United States. Also, I have heard Indian companies are outsourcing work to even lower costs part of the globe such as Cambodia, Malaysia, etc. This problem is real and somebody at some point better take it seriously. The problem is that all of us out here in the corporate jungle who are impacted cannot do anything about it. All of this happens just so some manager or CEO somewhere can leave with more company profits. It is pretty sad.

My company shut down an office in Illinois with over 50 employees in 2006 and shipped all of the work over to HITEC city. This office was working on a $10M project that was nearly complete. Now we're all wondering how long the Hydrabad teams will take to finish it. Offshoring was directly responsible for losses in U.S. jobs in this case!

There is NO shortage of qualified developers in the USA. However there is a dire shortage of qualified developers willing to work for $15/hr or less, with no benefits.

I lost my job 2 years ago to offshoring my job. I am now hearing that my new job will be sent offshore in about 2 years. Two jobs, lost to India.

I think as Americans we all need to look at the much much bigger picture, during the cold war we were and still are, the leader in promoting capitalism. Capitalism is mean, it doesn't make exceptions, it doesn't care what's fair or who gets hurt, that would be the socialist thing to do. In this country we keep demanding a heads I win tails you lose reality with the rest of the world, we want cheap reliable safe cars but we dont want our auto worker jobs to go elsewhere, same goes for technology. I am not taking sides here, not because I dont have one, its just, I think we wont solve the real problem. What we really need to do (taking sides now) is only allow off-shoring with countries (both american companies hiring people elsewhere and the import of any products) that play by the same economic rules. The reality is that initially a programmer in india will work for less AND in SOME cases do a better job, but in the long run, your company will want you back, the guy in india is already demanding more pay and benefits and he's on the other side of the world, its a short term gain. In the long run however we will see the slow migration of lower end lower tech jobs off to less successful countries, which, in the long run is good for us, we end up with the best jobs as a country, in the short run this means unemployment for a UAW worker, but if we change our ways to make sure he can keep the same job for the same pay, we are no longer truely capitalist, a system that is only fair at the highest level; the best shall always win in the long run.

as for tech jobs, when has it NOT been this way? COBOL programmers didnt need off-shoring for their jobs to go away, our work changes so utterly fast these days that it makes becoming a doctor or lawyer look like childs play, that is why it is SUPPOSED to pay well, and for some, it does, namely those consultants.

If you get into this game like I did, with the assumption that what you are the very best at today will be worthless, scripted or off-shored in 18months, you will be fine, you wont spend gobs of cash on worthless training, you will stay on your game, be smarter at business than the business people who you work for, and always stay 12 steps ahead.

If we could all get a tad smarter at this, we would stop giving away such valuable brain power for free in the first place, many of us can honestly say that we do the work of hundreds of people, we get so into our work that we forget, this is america, you can only get what the market will bear.

I’m an Engineer at a large 3 letter company, and I beg to differ. What it boils down to is a “Global Resource� is seen by management as costing $55k PY VS “US Resource� $180K PY. Another factor is age – and very well qualified Engineers enter the zone of retirement vesting, they get the boot.

Face it, it’s expensive to keep a US engineer, when you can gain an almost 4/1 ratio of cost. You also have to consider the long term burden that a long lived retired soul will place on your bottom line.

The method used to explain off shoring is based on “Annual Efficiencies Gains�. By yearly raising the bar for “Efficiency�, Executive Leadership provides both the impetus and a resource path to gain those efficiencies via “Global Resources�

I’ve seen exceptionally qualified Engineers laid-off, only to be replaced with a “Global Resource� that could not find its butt in a dark room with a flash light. But hey, if you have four clueless 3rd world Engineers working at 30% of the replaced Engineer – you have a 20% gain in productivity!

I've been offshored twice now. Fortunately I'm able to stay in the industry. I was out for 9 months in '01, and have two friends with simillar stories....both divorced.

A question worth asking is not just about jobs lost, but rates cut down. I've worked for a major Telco where it was clear that American/local contractors had to compete with the offshore rates. The result is a rate about half of what I made at the "top".

Off-shoring of software development by software companies is not costing Americans jobs, according to a report being announced Thursday by an association of software executives with a personal interest in promoting off-shoring, worsening the glut of software developers in the USA, guest-worker abuse and driving down compensation to software developers.

Enough said.

SIIA should be indicted for research fraud. This is the result that was paid for, no doubt. There is no shortage of American engineers according to the AEA.

http://www.aea.org

I am deeply concerned by the logic of this survey and it's findings. Outsourcing does not cost jobs because there is a shortage of Engineers and H1-B visas? How does sending the jobs elsewhere stimulate the necessary incentives to improve the population of engineering workers or develop and improve engineering maturity.

How do we maintain a level of expertise when we undermine both the incentives and the opportunities for engineering talent.

The law of supply and demand is so often thrown in our faces. The benefits of competition are waved in the wind as banners for the capitalist cause; however, when it comes time to belly up to the bar Corporate America commits treason.

The mantra steering executives to maximize shareholder value has placed long term American security at risk. We are leeching off the lifeblood talent of our future generations for quarterly gains today.

At what point will America become the outsourcing benefactor, when will American workers become the cheap labor and unskilled talent pool of choice?

In the absence of expertise and opportunity, what will American workers ultimately be able to provide?

I am also in the ranks of offshoring job losses - fortunately, I was only off for 2 months before finding a replacement job that paid a comparable wage but not in software development. I fell back on my process engineering background for this job so I could keep my family fed. I know I was the lucky one this time.

The goal in my former company was to move from 3% of all engineering in India to 30%. With no 25+% increase in new projects about 25% of the engineers were laid off. Pure cause and effect in my book.

Paul:

Any statistics on whether any tax exempt nonprofit association executive positions have been lost to offshoring ? ;-)

Utter nonsense.

If I had been asked I would have told them that their H1-B program cost be 4 years 9 months and 23 days of unemployment and I only got a job by packing up and moving 1000 miles at my own expense.

I feel the plight of many of the software developers posting here. My company which has about 150 engineers has not started off shoring (thank god).

The article indicates that only expansion jobs are moving to India. But if India wasn't there then the expansion jobs would be in America or Europe. Its a stupid article made for mid-level managers to pat themselves on the back.

The issue is that US companies want to pay a total cost per employee what equates to $9 to $10 a hour in US wages when you figure in the 1/3rd extra overhead (SS, Medicare, Worker's comp, etc) of a US employee. Many many engineers, computer scientists, and technical people did not go to college to take home $9 to $10 an hour. They can get an unskilled no stress job for that wage. Please state in your offshoring headlines that US companies can't find US workers to do the engineering jobs a 2 times minimum wage. The mass offshoring has already hit hard and closed tecnical book publishers (e.g., Apress) and will hit other IT trade magazines (e.g,. infoworld) and trade shows.

and there was no holocaust either.
merely a resettlement to the east.

It is incredible that the lie gets the headline and the truth gets back pages. There are so few job opportunities out there now compared to 10 years ago. I would never encourage anyone to go into the development field or any other field subject to outsourcing. I have not found a real opportunity in well over a year. We should outsource our polititians, and our CEO's.

Sorry, my company laid off a few hundred IT workers and replaced them with personnel from Australia and India. This means actual jobs, not new ones for expansion. Article is bogus.

The expansion could easily take place on domestic soil. The fact that it doesn't, and creates jobs across an ocean, absolutely means that it costs American jobs. Can't find enough workers? Baloney. The free market works. With high enough wages, you'll find enough workers, and attract more to the field. By sending your "expansion dollars" overseas, you are discouraging American workers, who find something else to do. This survey is all about cost cutting and PR.

...
*bursts out laughing* I suppose they have a bridge they want to sell me too?

I know some people who lost their jobs because they switched to some offshore employees. I know that it's harder to get jobs now because of offshoring.

Come on. Don't pee on my back and tell me that it's raining.

Interesting, I would like to see how this study was done, and the rationale behind the results.

Personally, I was "laid-off" from my previous job by a significant software development group of a well-known American company, and all future development was moved to the "China Office" that we maintained for the purpose of selling software in China. Of course, we were allowed to interview for other job openings in the company if we were willing to re-locate to other states. I have to honestly say that losing a job that way really shakes you up, and makes you _extremely_ distrustful of future employers! That is one reason I think some people in the tech. industry are always looking for the next job, get them before they get you!

Of course these layoffs were a few years ago when most companies were cutting their development staffs. The real tragedy is that the people that were being let go are extremely bright, competent engineers that could not find work for more than a year (due to companies not hiring within the U.S.) that became very broken and distrustful due to these "Right-Sizing" efforts. I thank God that I walked out from that job and into another without missing a paycheck. I, however, believe that it was solely due to his divine intervention that I was blessed in that way.

Just go to siia.com and take a look at their board of directors member list if you want evidence that this is a fraudulent survey. If these people are saying offshoring does not cost developer jobs, let's put it bluntly: they are liars.

I worked for an electric utility that off-shored the entire IT department in an effort to save the share holders some money and to pad the 'Golden Parachute' of the new CEO, NOT because there were not enough developers or engineers. Incidentally, field engineers who use the IT products say it now takes a magnitude longer to fix any bugs and forget about any new technology.

Personally, I have seen American workers forced to do a knowledge transfer to Infosys employees only to lose their jobs afterwards. I walk down the halls and still see workers doing the work but none are American workers. The group I'm in is the last surviving group; however, this group is in the process of replacing us.

I don't know where they ones who did this survey or the ones surveyed learned their math. This whole survey is one big canard.

I don't understand what kind of 'reassurance' this purports to be.

"For expansion, not replacement"? Under the headline "Offshoring not costing developer jobs"? So, there's some expansion work to be done, which requires developers. Which can either provide jobs for Americans or foreigners, right? But if it goes to foreigners, that's not actually a loss in jobs for Americans? By which logic, we could offshore all future 'expansion' and be none the worse for it. I suppose we've done that with cars and look at all the thriving American auto-workers.

I don't know whether this SIIA bunch are the loons, or the people that put this slant on those results.

What a ludicrous article. I can understand the survey being so full of disinformation. Surveys are skewed to fit the desired outcome of who pays for it. But, where is the hint of objectivity by the author of this article in pointing out the obvious flaws?

We do have a problem with the use of foreign, low skilled programmers whose code is simply awful. Whether the low skilled programmer is here on a visa or back home in some backwards country, better skilled US programmers are being replaced by cheaper, less skilled programmers that write junk. It takes time for companies to realize this, and go back to good US programmers. Even Microsoft has succumbed to this. Their products have gotten worse over time as they use more foriegn labor.

Whether Microsoft or a local Mom and Pop company hiring a single programmer, it is more cost effective in the long run to hire qualified US programmers.

Ever wonder what would happen to all those companies that outsource to India the next time India and Pakistan get into a spat and start lobbing nuclear weapons at each other?

In addition, if your code is a valuable part of your business, do you really think the people in those countries who already hate us, would hesitate one minute to sell off your valuable code to some 3rd party? There is no legal recourse with them being in another country.

The survey is bogus! I have no sympathy for big business in America. College students are wise to this fact and there is no need for more H1-B visas. What will happen when executives and politicians are outsourced?

Go talk to former Travelocity/GetThere/Sabre employees. Trust me when I say this "report" is nothing more than your typical offshoring proponents propaganda

Foreign competition for software developer jobs certainly cost me several opportunites. I have over 20 years of intense software development experience and I recently went almost 2 years without working because I could not find a decent job. By decent I mean one that paid at least 70% of what I was making.

So all the work, and opportunity, goes off-shore because AMERICAN industry cannot find cheap software development talent HERE AT HOME. Perhaps the reason the traitors cannot find talent is because our education system has deteriorated to the point that college graduates cannot construct a grammatically correct sentence. Taking all the opportunity offshore removes any chance we will collectively IMPROVE the educational system here at home. American industry, like the rest of us, should be forced to take the more difficult road and improve the situation here at home instead of simply taking the easiest path.

I came here to blast this ridiculous, self-serving report but I see others have done an admirable job. I would add that it is trade agreements like NAFTA and WTO that are creating the situation (think Ross Perot's "Giant sucking sound" -- he was right). Not only that, but these agreements have created misery and poverty in the lower wage countries. Bangalore has a nasty surprise awaiting it after spending decades building a software dev infrastructure. Guess what? All those idle Chinese PHDs will work for less!

InfoWorld should be ashamed of printing such an inaccurate piece of bunk. I personally know of multiple companies that have reduced force so that they could benefit from offshoring.

Without the L-1 and H1B guestworker visa program, accelerated offshoring could not have occurred.

Not to worry though, the Dollar will crash and the entire world will pay the price.

We are sliding into a SERVICE as oppose to a TECHNOLOGY based country. The middle class is shrinking all because of good paying engineering and manufacturing jobs being transfered overseas. It is ridiculous to hear from some association claiming that "offshoring is not costing developer jobs" in this country. I am an Embedded engineer myself and fortunately still have a job. My daughter once asked for my advise for a major in college and advised her to go into a medical/health profession. Why? The aging of America should keep her employed for a long while. It is sad, but because of all these offshoring news, kids bound for college have lost interest in engineering ...

Even if the "facts" in the article are correct, the slightest amount of critical thinking would bring up the fact that outsourcing a job to another country reduces demand in this country, serving to keep wages low. So even if you're fortunate enough to be employed, don't think for a minute that outsourcing doesn't affect you.

Dear Infoworld,

I get that your article is reporting on someone else's survey. But are you a journalistic publication or a mouthpiece for the SIAA?

I mean seriously, off shoring costs no jobs here? No really, can you actually mean that?

My wife and I have a saying that we often send to members of the media who report stories like this one: Do your #$&!%# job.

Get out there and find out if this is a real survey or not, what are this guys motivations? how does he know that? what metrics did he use.

Who, what where when and how.

Oh, I forgot, that would be journalism not just regurgitating someone's press release. I can see that SIAA's PR firm did a nice number on you folks.

By publishing this kind of PR inspired nonsense, Infoworld is neither "info" nor living in the same "world" as the rest us.

Shame on you.

I completeley disagree that offshoring is not costing US developer jobs. I am currently a consulting developer at a company where people from India are here for being trained to work on applications that have been supported by US developers in the past. The company laid off developers who were US Citizens in early 2006 and has actually made it clear that there will be large cuts at the end of January 2007. This is all while there are still developers from India working here and planning to return to India soon after the training is over.

The story printed here is more of the same lies and propaganda that the SIIA has been spreading for the past 10+ years because the large software companies are wanting to get the salaries in IT down to an even lower level.

I am witnessing first hand that the survey is innacurate.

Wow! I didn't read all the comments, but it's pretty unanimous. And I agree. Mr. Thomas is not giving an accurate description. I wonder what color the sky is in his world?

What a bunch of garbage. I lost my job (after 9 years of employment) to India Outsourcing this year and so did 70% of the programming staff at my old place of employment. Yes, I said SEVENTY PERCENT OF THE USA PROGRAMMERS JOBS WERE OUTSOURCED TO INDIA AT THIS COMPANY.

Not only did the India programmers get our jobs, but we had to train them.

30% of USA programmers are left at my old company and more layoffs are slated to occur next year.

It is insulting and patronizing for the author of this article to try to make us believe that outsourcing does not take USA jobs. We are outsourced, but not stupid.

I guess you really stepped in it on this one. How anyone could believe these corporate lobbyists and publish their crap is beyond me. On the face of it, it is obvious that if jobs are moved offshore, then American jobs are lost. True, some companies initially add complimentary positions. But that just means that the next time there is a downturn, the cheap labor will stay on, and the now expensive American labor will be let go.

Sharing is loving. www.everestuncensored.org has many such issues. Outsourcing does not remove jobs but expands opportunity for Americans. The Americans can go to offshore site , lead a life which ios cheaper than in US and help other countries grow and again cutting US costs in Software Industry. If you lose job during LayOff, you are not eligible to work.

The party line when companies were driving jobs over seas with what I would call greed-fueld recklessness just a few short years ago was that it wasn't just about slashing jobs, but rather breaking into new markets overseas. In order to stay competitive companies far and wide made the case for the importance of breaking into new markets to be competitive and eventually the boomerang effect would swing into effect, so said the suits making the drastic and often economically crushing decisions for those here in the U.S., but they were quick to add that they anticipated more job stateside when it was all said and done. The jury is most certainly still out as to whether those who made the argument of the necessity of breaking into new markets asserted it with a straight face or were just hiding their greed behind a halfway plausible but highly debateable argument.

The party line when companies were driving jobs over seas with what I would call greed-fueld recklessness just a few short years ago was that it wasn't just about slashing jobs, but rather breaking into new markets overseas. In order to stay competitive companies far and wide made the case for the importance of breaking into new markets to be competitive and eventually the boomerang effect would swing into effect, so said the suits making the drastic and often economically crushing decisions for those here in the U.S., but they were quick to add that they anticipated more job stateside when it was all said and done. The jury is most certainly still out as to whether those who made the argument of the necessity of breaking into new markets asserted it with a straight face or were just hiding their greed behind a halfway plausible but highly debateable argument.

It is just plain greed that forces employers to look for offshoring jobs - the only jobs left in this country would be for plumbers, doctors & lawyers. I wonder how much these professions would suffer after all the 'other' jobs have been 'offshored'

If Mr Thomas of the Software & Information Industry Association (SIIA) would care to come and meet with a few real-live USA (out-of work)developers (in a very private, up front, and personal setting) I think we could "explain" the reality of outsourcing to him.

His statement is soooo SMELLY, its hard to believe that he could actually speak it and keep a straight face.

Hummm... lets try..All those millions of textile jobs that appeared in China, that was an expansion of the industry and didn't cost US workers any jobs....Yea that sounds good too!
if some gullible US voter buys that lets try:
.... All those furniture plants in China...
and ... All those steel mills in ...
and ... All those chip factories in ....
and don't forget...
All those illegial aliens from Mexico..

The folks above put it pretty clearly. Show me a survey of domestic industry jobs in the last 10 years vs. the number of jobs supported offshore. Survey persons in the industry 50 years of age and over ten years ago. (You might use your own mailing lists). Find out what they are doing now and if the employment changed, how and why.

Whether or not offshoring seriously impacts domestic employment, domestic management needs to broaden its perspectives.

There is a definite disconnect between customer and out-sourcerer generally and off-shoring is a compounding of that disconnect.

I perceive a growing disinterest of managers in this country without a science and engineering background to work with engineers of any sort.

While management's promotion of self-directed career development is well intentioned, management does not hesitate to change technological strategies with little warning and leave its experienced employees stranded.

Based on my experience, I think domestic project management spends too little attention on technical training compared to the 1970's and 1980's while the technology and layered architectures are more complex.

What is this guy smoking what planet is he on? If you have nothing to do with the industry, all you have to do is be in need of technical support - pick up your phone for software support or DSL support and what do you get - Outsourced foreign help that mostly tends to piss people off due to the language barrier. Who's jobs did thses folks replace? As an aside: The vendors have "good news" for us to help with the communications problems - they now have software that can detect when a caller gets frustrated or highly annoyed. Just at the point when your about to pull your hair out and never use the vendor again, this software detects your mood and escalate the issue - WOW! I bet your all impressed.

in some years offshoring will come full circle. the quality of indian developers means US-based developers often have to fix the stuff they send back. offshore attrition and billing rates are rising, and there will come a point where it is cheaper to homeshore to TX or IL than offshore. offshoring is ok for basic follow-the-sun support.

SIIA is a lobbyist organization that wants to provide the cheapest labor for a their clients (big companies). They do not care about the well-being of citizens (such as programmers), they are in it for money. Thus, they are biased. It is like asking Microsoft if Linux is any good. Their "studies" will always say Windows is better.

Dear all,

I believe it costs developer's job, but it adds many other jobs like consultant, analyst etc

The SIAA is engaged in research fraud and is tailoring their findings to suit their financial backers. It is worth noting that this preposterous study is being published while lobbyists are pushing for additional H-1b visas. If Infoworld were a magazine that printed actual industry news rather than paid advertisements masquarading as news then the study would have more weight. The American Engineering Association says there is no shortage of engineers in the USA and this follows my own impiracle evidence. See http://www.aea.org

I asked a fox if I needed to put a fence around my hen-house to keep my chickens safe...he said "No". Boy, I sure feel better now!

InfoWorld - If you can't do a better job then this in reporting, I will stop reading your magazine. The notion that off-shoring and H1-b visas are not costing Americans jobs is contrary to common sense. You have a duty to investigate! It won't be difficult to prove how rediculous the claims from the study are.

The concept of the USA as a land of opportunity and a democratic nation is now a joke after years of self serving corruption, especially under the lastest bought and paid for imposter king. The USA is run by the super rich, for the super rich, and every one else including those that put their very lives on the line to protect these losers can go to hell as far as they are concerned, and if they have to punp out propaganda such as this BS to quiet the discontent of the masses they will.

This report is as absurd as the notion that there was an imminent WMD threat from Iraq or that the rich and thick son of a rich presidential dynasty and brother of a FL state governor would be the natural choice for president. In short it's nothing but bought and paid for made up BS. Hundreds of thousands of US engineers have had their careers nothing short of completely ruined by greedy self-serving corporate titans (idiots), and the security of the USA is highly comprimised as a direct result of that fact.

Illegal immigrants were encouraged to build my house despite my protests, and a flood of Indian and Chinese, etc engineers are brought here for one reason - they'll work long hours cheap!

I learnt economics from one of our reputed universities in the east coast and I know my basics.

What we have here in the board is a wave of comments. The voice was not loud when Detroit jobs were lost. It is loud now only because 'White collar' jobs are being lost. Let us take Coca-Cola for example. When they expanded in Asia (To name, China, India, Vietnam, Phillipines) they made almost all the local beverage manufacturers to close shop. The numbers are mind-boggling as two of these countries have a 1 Billion+ population now. Now this is the effect of capitalism. No economic theory is perfect. It is more of a give and take.
One more thing to ponder - If telecom companies have not offshored our phone bills might have been as much as we pay for our car loan each month. Interesting, right?
We have lead the world in science and technology through most of last century and we must maintain that pace. That is the way to lead the world economy, not on rueing these 'lost jobs'.