IBM Now Has More Employees in India Than in the U.S

Post by samstave » Fri, Sep 29, 2017, 4:21 PM UTC

davesque wrote: post #55

pavanred wrote: post #42

Everyone seems to be making the assumption that all the work IBM India does is outsourced from US. IBM India is the biggest domestic IT player in India with clients like Airtel, Indian Railways, HDFC etc.; IBM India also services clients from other countries in the world (which wouldn't have happened otherwise because its too expensive in the US). And, IBM India, has a few research labs setup that do independent rese…

The reason people are comparing US and Indian employees is because the doubling of IBM's India workforce since 2007 seems to be, in many ways, a result of labor arbitrage, as the linked article is arguing. You can slice things any way you want, but the fact is that this is a problem for the average American worker. In other words, it's something that readers of the NYT would care about.

Post by njarboe » Fri, Sep 29, 2017, 4:24 PM UTC

timthelion wrote: post #14

sriram_sun wrote: post #9

I've heard some B-school grads refer to this as some "inflection point". They were talking about more overseas workers for IBM in 2006 or so. The more important question is in which direction does the money flow? It has to be net positive for the US albeit not to US upper middle class programmers. My simple rule of thumb is if the move is not filling up CxO level coffers, it won't happen.

Why would it have to be net positive for the US? If $100 million flows from AT&T to IBM. And IBM pockets $10 million and sends $90 million to India, that would be a net -$90 million for the US economy.

Post by pavanky » Fri, Sep 29, 2017, 4:26 PM UTC

timthelion wrote: post #5

I think that this is a good example of how racism, conscious and unconscious is making us worse at predicting the future. Ten years ago, so many Americans were making jokes about poor quality Indian code and Indian accents. The idea of Indians actually working innovative jobs seemed laughable to many Americans. But there wasn't actually strong evidence that Indians were less good at doing cutting edge research. This…

Post by samstave » Fri, Sep 29, 2017, 4:26 PM UTC

burger_moon wrote: post #34

e40 wrote: post #24

The real question is (and this is serious): how is it working out for them?

20 straight quarters (from Arpil this year) of revenue decline would tell me IBM has problems, though they may have nothing to do with where they source the labor from. http://www.businessinsider.com/ibm-revenue-decline-20-straig...

Post by kitten_mittens_ » Fri, Sep 29, 2017, 4:27 PM UTC

burger_moon wrote: post #28

timthelion wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"the quality of life, while debatable, would be considered a downgrade for many who could potentially be poached from other regions". Why would it be a downgrade. If they paid an American $120k a year to live in Bangalore, that would buy the American a nice villa, pay for several servants, and allow for frequent travel. In SF, that same money gets you a shoe-box apartment.

I guess you could also use that money to buy a diesel generator so you don't suffer from the daily power outages and you can buy a great water filtration system so you don't have to worry about ever drinking unclean water either.