[ohio_eric]

U.S. News On the Great Education Myth | Campaign for America's Future

Even college grads might want to consider blue-collar careers. Last year, because U.S. News readers tend to be college educated, we included only careers that typically require at least a bachelor's degree. This year we've added four careers that don't. Why? More and more students are graduating from college at the same time that employers are offshoring more professional jobs. So, many holders of a bachelor's degree are having trouble finding jobs that require college-graduate skills.

Free trade is only called that because that's what they want everyone to work for.

[Leon]

you pretty much have to go to grad school to get anything good. at least, if you studied a base science. i'm sure it's a little easier for engineers.

[noodles]

1950:

School -> College -> Job -> Retirement -> Death

2000:

School -> College -> Wait tables -> Grad school -> Job -> Laid off -> Job -> outsourced -> Job -> Company tanks -> Job -> More grad school -> Laid off -> Job -> 401K tanks -> Death

[ohio_eric]

Originally Posted by noodles

1950:

School -> College -> Job -> Retirement -> Death

2000:

School -> College -> Wait tables -> Grad school -> Job -> Laid off -> Job -> outsourced -> Job -> Company tanks -> Job -> More grad school -> Laid off -> Job -> 401K tanks -> Death

Sad but true

[Drew]

Tom Friedman is an idiot, is the irony...

I've, um, let's just say that I could write a BOOK on this. This is the second time I've started to write a long response on the subject, and the second time I've deleted it - it'd be too easy to discount my opinion as simple racism (which it isn't), and anyway I spent a lot of time in the office in a sevenstring.org t-shirt and I don't really want any of the staff I trained out there reading my thoughts on outsourcing that were based in part on my experiences working with them.

Suffice to say, I firmly believe the only reason labor is continuing to be outsourced is 1.) either upper management is way stupider than I'm giving them credit for and really likes their ivory tower, or 2.) it's sort of Mutually Assured Destruction applied to labor arbitrage - so many companies have already done it that if you want to stay in the game then you have to do it too, and if someone raises the stakes you have to match them. Additionally, if you're being pressured to reduce costs to meet growth targets, outsourcing jobs to "low cost operational centers" is the easiest way to do that. This just augments the pressure on other industry players to follow suit. The danger of course is that with nuclear weapons, mutually assured destruction involved everyone having them so no one would use them - with outsourced labor, the very fact that everyone DOES have it is what's going to cause all the fallout.

Outsourced labor will die when one of two things happen - first, that the rising cost of labor (in india, it's rising 20% a year - 14 years from now, an indian will be making MORE than I am, if current trends continue) will gradually make the cost/benefit ratio less and less desireable.

Second, and more importantly (hence the new paragraph), the "cost" of a financial product is definitely tied to the labor costs associated with its' delivery, but it's also just as much tied to the perceived "value" of that product. And perceptions of value can most certainly be manipulated, especially when there's a certain basis for what forms those perceptions. The first nail will be driven into the outsourcing coffin the day that a major financial vendor begins advertizing a product by saying it costs more because they're giving you the very best money can buy, with all analysis being done by skilled American professionals. I give it ten years, tops, especially as the labor arbitrage gap continues to shrink.

ore and more students are graduating from college at the same time that employers are offshoring more professional jobs. So, many holders of a bachelor's degree are having trouble finding jobs that require college-graduate skills.

This is one of my big issues with outsourcing, too - those entry level college grad jobs may be able to be done more cheaply in India or China, but they're also great proving grounds to find potential candidates for more skilled positions elsewhere within the company. I'm damned good at my job, if you'll forgive momentary immodesty, yet I would have never gotten a chance to prove that had I not spent the better part of two years in the trenches doing the sort of raw numbers-crunching accounting work that's being outsourced to cut costs.

[noodles]

Originally Posted by Drew

This is one of my big issues with outsourcing, too - those entry level college grad jobs may be able to be done more cheaply in India or China, but they're also great proving grounds to find potential candidates for more skilled positions elsewhere within the company. I'm damned good at my job, if you'll forgive momentary immodesty, yet I would have never gotten a chance to prove that had I not spent the better part of two years in the trenches doing the sort of raw numbers-crunching accounting work that's being outsourced to cut costs.

I started in the IT industry like most people: manning a phone on the help desk, which is the kind of job that now lives in large call centers in India. This is also why senior technical staff is growing thinner every day. Not too many people in America are getting into IT because they can't get their foot in the door, and less people are immigrating here from India because they can get a job at home.

On the other hand, though, it is sort of hard to complain, since it makes me exponentially more valuable on the open market. However, it is ruining the field as a whole.

[7StringofAblicK]

This goes hand in hand with the idea of advancing within one company (like I have). I started out a customer service rep, got promoted to a National account rep, and now that I'm getting closer to finishing my studies I've been applying for sales and marketing jobs.

Building up within a company over a few years a) adds value to our resume, b) exponentially adds to our work ethic and c) gives us the advantage to apply elsewhere because of the credibility gained by points A and B.

But it's a catch 22. The jobs we used to bulid upon are slowly being outsourced, so future employees that wish to do things the way we did are unable to. However, since we were able to utilize it while it existed we can hopefully make the best of what we are dealt next.

I'm more likely to get a better job within my company than someone applying outside - but that's obvious. People who graduate with a bachelors have to fight against people like us. Grad school is becoming more and more common just gain grounds of even HIGHER education (of course getting a masters is a good thing )

[drshock]

Not specifically related to this exact topic but something else that's ridiculous is our education system is horribly ineffective. (you can look up 90% you learn in college in a book/internet)

Not to mention how it gets us borrowing money early in our lives when we can hardly pay the rent as it is. Just another addition to the staggering pool of debt in this country.

[Drew]

Originally Posted by drshock

Not specifically related to this exact topic but something else that's ridiculous is our education system is horribly ineffective. (you can look up 90% you learn in college in a book/internet)

Nah, you're missing the point. Of a POOR college education, sure, but a good college education isn't about aquiring facts and figures. That was actually one of the biggest problems I came across in India, that all the MBA's I was working with could probably calculate the present value of a fixed annuity faster than I could, because they've memorized the formula. You know, the bit you can look up in a text book. However, the bit you can't, what to do with that knowledge, was completely absent. So, while they know all the facts and figures, the ability to reason creatively and apply that information wasn't there.

And for me, that's why a college degree is valuable. I've always said that in college I didn't learn "what" to think as much as I learned "how" to - learning to approach problems from different perspectives, working wiith people from different backgrounds than mine who brought different things to the table, and engaging in open discussion and learning from that discussion. The facts and figures are important, but I'd say they're more important because they force you to engage with the material deeply, and that engagement is really what you're learning.

so, your comment's on topic for this discussion... it just happens to be dead wrong. I think in noodles' case, in an interview for an IT position, they're less concerned with whether or not you know the proper coding sequence to fix a certain server glitch, and more concerned with whether or not you have the background and the research abilities to properly identify and diagnose the issue so you know it even NEEDS to be fixed.

[drshock]

Originally Posted by Drew

Nah, you're missing the point. Of a POOR college education, sure, but a good college education isn't about aquiring facts and figures. That was actually one of the biggest problems I came across in India, that all the MBA's I was working with could probably calculate the present value of a fixed annuity faster than I could, because they've memorized the formula. You know, the bit you can look up in a text book. However, the bit you can't, what to do with that knowledge, was completely absent. So, while they know all the facts and figures, the ability to reason creatively and apply that information wasn't there.

And for me, that's why a college degree is valuable. I've always said that in college I didn't learn "what" to think as much as I learned "how" to - learning to approach problems from different perspectives, working wiith people from different backgrounds than mine who brought different things to the table, and engaging in open discussion and learning from that discussion. The facts and figures are important, but I'd say they're more important because they force you to engage with the material deeply, and that engagement is really what you're learning.

so, your comment's on topic for this discussion... it just happens to be dead wrong. I think in noodles' case, in an interview for an IT position, they're less concerned with whether or not you know the proper coding sequence to fix a certain server glitch, and more concerned with whether or not you have the background and the research abilities to properly identify and diagnose the issue so you know it even NEEDS to be fixed.

Well that wasnt the only point I was trying to make with it. I was mainly referring to the downward slope our nation has on the graph compared to other countries.