Is Oversea's Outsourcing Another Form Of Slavery

Justin,

I believe I saw a similar post about this a while back. Could it have been yours? :p

But in either case, before I read the post I still had the "I used to work in IT" mentality and loathed anything to do with outsourcing. It has been the death of a lot of IT jobs and the death of a lot of manufacturing jobs in the USA as well.

But this is my new mentality of it. As long as you are paying them competitive rates for their local market, then it isn't slavery. Because essentially this is just bartering. Native Americans traded goods... and there is no difference in trading 2 services than trading a service for cold hard cash.

As long as the trade is fair and isn't like paying them poverty wages based on the standards of living in their area, then I say it is not slavery.

Now back to the issue with the economy. The economy is business and trade. You either adapt or get left behind. The days of the USA dominating marketplaces and dictating prices for whatever goods they may be selling are over. We are now full swing into a global economy.

It is more or less every man or woman for themselves. Put the shoe on the other foot though. You may be paying them a certain wage... but there are also other foreigners that are paying US residents cash. So it isn't really affecting the economy.

The USA is quickly learning that they better adapt to the global marketplace that exists now or the economy here locally could crumble in a matter of decades.

But when it comes down to it everyone is trying to get products and services produced for as cheap of a cost as they can. Now that other nations are being used for goods and services this is helping their economies grow... in a sense providing decent wages for people that 20 years ago may have never had the same opportunities to make that kind of money.

Some countries are so economically poor that $5k a year is like a six figure income in the USA. So to me it is not slavery, and it is helping the global economy evolve into a more equal playing field for all nations.

Dennis

It's all relative on who you ask. I hire Filipino's to help me with my business and $4/hr is a lot for them. Their standard of living is completely different from ours. Their currency is weaker than ours. Comparing their minimum wage workers to ours is like comparing apples and oranges. We are such an egocentric country. We compare everything in the world based on our standard of living and our economy. Not realizing these countries have their own standard of living, their own currency and a local economy independent of ours here in the U.S. There is no true comparison. Most Filipino's that freelance would love to work for anyone that would pay them that rate. Believe it or not they live VERY comfortably on that salary.

On the outsourcing issue. I find overseas freelancers have a different work ethic than MOST workers here. Not much complaining, whining, grunting, pouting, etc. They do the tasks presented to them and they do it to the best of their capability. This is just my experience. Yours maybe different.

I have experimented hiring local freelancers but I do not get the loyalty,trust, and work ethic that I normally find hiring overseas freelancers. Don't get me wrong. Not saying that freelancers locally here are not good at what they do, just a completely different work ethic is what I noticed. When you have a business to run and you have goals to meet, you need a team in place that will get the job done with little to no hassles . Especially if their getting paid what THEY asked for. Just my .02 cents

@justin

Oooh... you dirty rat... you killed my brothers... um... IT job.

Can you elaborate? What is that in terms of US pay? Is that like making $40k a year in the US?

The person who wrote that to your blog is what you call a "clueless person." Simple as that. You paying someone who lives in US 4$/hour is slavery. Paying someone from Filipines 4$/hour is likely a dream job otherwise they wouldn't take it.

Money has different value in different countires, what is considred borderline poverty in US (say 20k a year) is a dream salary in many countires that majority of people don't get even anywhere close to.

Anyway, since you aren't rounding up Filipinos with a gun in your hand, and in fact if 4$ wasn't enough no one would bid/take your job, it's only logical to assume that to them, 4$/hour is pretty darn good.

Classic piece of parody... especially the outome of the news piece.

Priceless!!

Whoever your writer is very lucky..

I outsource to a Filipina linkbuilder and I pay her $6 per hour and I am a Filipino. That linkbuilder earns about 8k-10k pesos ($200-250) weekly for her work. With that income, she can live comfortably in the Philippines.

this has been an entertaining thread... The bottom line is you're always
going to run across a few disgruntle people that are sensitive to every possible issue out there... If the parties involved have agreed on the wage then no harm done...

In the US, $4 an hour is unacceptable but in other countries this is already a huge amount for them, even above minimum wage. It all depends on the standard of living of the person and obviously the exchange rate. We cannot arrive at a misinformed conclusion that just because the person agreed to a rate which is undoubtedly way beyond our imagination, well based on the POV of someone who lives in the US for example, that it is indeed slave wages.