It Contractor? Out Of Work? Wages Depressed?

[wickywackywoo]

Protectionism doesn't work.

I use a newsagent next to Tesco. He is more expensive than Tesco and doesn't compete on range. I still shop with him because her offers speed and now knows what I want.

If you are going to compete, you are going to have to come up with something better than cost.

p-o-p

But, er, it clearly does work. Just go back ten years prior to Labour's mad immigration polices.

Why do I have to keep repeating this? Why can't people see the obvious?

[piece of paper]

But, er, it clearly does work. Just go back ten years prior to Labour's mad immigration polices.

Why do I have to keep repeating this? Why can't people see the obvious?

Do you mean that it worked for you?

p-o-p

[Grime- skint wouldbe ftb]

What's inevitable? That every British person ends up on the dole? I can assure you it isn't inevitable, not if we get a sensible Government in again and people shed their pussy defeatist attitudes.

Don't bring race or skin colour into it please. It has no bearing on the issue. I'd be just as p1ssed off if it was Americans flooding over here working for peanuts.

This is what government has been doing to workers since the 1950s, using a spurious need for more workers. They hated and feared the power of unionised labour to bargain for wage settlements and dictate terms to their bosses... the punishment was the mass importation of millions from the 3rd world to compete with them, along with the invention of "racism" (and multiculturalism, a concept that is unquestionably "good") to crush any dissent.

How much longer before this point of view is the majority view?

If you think voting right-wing and therefore Tory is going to make the blindest bit of difference, check recent history, as well as Cameron's treatment of anyone in his party stepping away from the LibLabCon consensus on immigration.

[UncleKev]

Driving past in car, just an observation, also something I have not seen in 15 years, a black man being chased down the street. On a 'what I'd do' note? get stuck in.

Yes that is my point about the man bites dog syndrome. I have seen black men being chased down the road in London before (Barking, Lewisham) but usually by a posse of other black men or asians. BTW most of the skinheads that I saw in South London were black guys with shaven heads. Its very easy to get your head kicked in the London burbs if you look at someone the wrong way, or stumble into the wrong place at the wrong time, but racism is probably very low down the list of motivators behind it. You are more likely to get a kicking or get stabbed in London if you are wearing an ipod or sporting a flashy watch.

[youthoftoday]

No. Most MoD etc work you need at least SC clearance. For anything sensitive they make you go through DV clearance (a painfully nosy experience). An imported Indian cannot qualify.

An Indian will pass a Basic Check though. Then the company goes through it's IT systems and ensures that as little as possible is on a restricted or secret network. Then the Indians can work on the unrestricted stuff. Doesn't save money though. The imported Indians require so much extra managing and the quality of the work is crap. I was regularly surprised at the gaping holes in their education and technical expertise too.

[wickywackywoo]

The most practical post here. Some things just can't be changed and all the crying and petitions in the world won't be worth a hill of beans when a foreign worker ends up doing your job for one third of your pay. I have asked this before on the numerous threads that get posted on this topic but it is rarely answered, it was touched upon here earlier I think: "Are there any IT roles, which are somewhat protected from the outsourcing model". My friend, for instance, is a Software Test Manager and he has absolutely no trouble finding contracts and he actively employs Indians. Is this because Indians et al are "yes men", technicaly competent but useless man-management skills? Does anyone have any real life anecdotes?

He probably employs Indians because they always say 'Yes, it passed the test'

[Tonkers]

Wondered how long it would take for some idiot to bring up the 'R' word. Save yourself the bother, there's not need, it's not wanted or required.

Hang on, I say what I see, today it was a joke, tomorrow? These people are not racist, just simplistic, why on the heaven hell on eartjhy delights of sherry have you not seen that?

[wickywackywoo]

Wicky,

Just out of interest what are your skill sets in?

I am not being faceatious just market knowledge to know what these Indian chappies are doing.

.NET and SQL Server, Design and Development.

[SNACR]

Quite possibly sympathetic, if either:

1. they were out-competing you due to cheaper prices in their home country, prices that you couldn't access. For someone selling his labour, that's basically property prices. For retail, imagine that they have sole import rights from their home economy while you're constrained to source goods from your own high-cost economy (silly example but hey, it's your parallel I'm trying to sustain here ).

2. your market was open while theirs was protected (not saying this is the case in IT; I have no idea if a UK IT person would be able to get a visa to work in India or wherever).

I take it you do read this forum as well as posting.

Should Tesco close all its foreign stores immediately?

[pl1]

An Indian will pass a Basic Check though. Then the company goes through it's IT systems and ensures that as little as possible is on a restricted or secret network. Then the Indians can work on the unrestricted stuff. Doesn't save money though. The imported Indians require so much extra managing and the quality of the work is crap. I was regularly surprised at the gaping holes in their education and technical expertise too.

Can you elaborate a bit? What were some of the technologies they were incompetent at?

[ralphmalph]

.NET and SQL Server, Design and Development.

Interesting. .NET is quite a skill, the MS inmplementation is very bad though.

[manchester50]

An Indian will pass a Basic Check though. Then the company goes through it's IT systems and ensures that as little as possible is on a restricted or secret network. Then the Indians can work on the unrestricted stuff. Doesn't save money though.

We tried this with a couple of Defence projects and it was too much hassle - the MoD (unsurprisingly) don't want the data going offshore or components which make clear their business rules. We originally thought some of the UI would be developed offshore but again there was nervousness about what could be deducted about business processes.

You can get Indians onshore doing some bits but it's shaky ground and a hassle - all case-by-case

[ralphmalph]

Tbh you've made it abundantly clear that you don't care about your follow Brit in that follow up post, which in turn, means you don't care about any unforeseen consequences that may arise from decimating the UK's IT industry.

Secondly, Dubai is a special case as they can employ infidels to work instead of doing the jobs themselves because they have the black gold. Wait until it runs out, then the picture will be different.

Thirdly, those skilled management jobs don't impact on the average Dubian worker do they?

And finally, flogging stuff (i.e. your example isn't really comparing like with like) isn't really a skill is it?

Price is everything in retail.

I mean any monkey can do it. Let's be fair.

At least with IT it can and does frequently add value to those which use it. (And no I'm not in IT, but can see where it would add value to the UK as a whole.)

Dubai has no Oil.

[slurms mackenzie]

Interesting. .NET is quite a skill,

Really ?

and i say that as a permie .Net developer, i thought we were the ones under the cosh!

[pl1]

.NET and SQL Server, Design and Development.

This double-confirms Manchesters good anecdote. Have you ever considered a more management focused role Wicky and if not why not?

[youthoftoday]

Driving past in car, just an observation, also something I have not seen in 15 years, a black man being chased down the street. On a 'what I'd do' note? get stuck in.

Why did you assume it was a racist assault?

[The General]

Hang on, I say what I see, today it was a joke, tomorrow? These people are not racist, just simplistic, why on the heaven hell on eartjhy delights of sherry have you not seen that?

who is simplistic? And if they are not racist why bang on about pastiche of 70's and 80's racism?

I think you'll find that they are not simplistic but simply pissed off at fighting their corner, adapting to a globalised world plus being undermined by Labour. I think you are right though, the best way to deal with the argument is to kill it by comparing them to 70's racists..... I'm sure their resentment won't boil over in the future.

[manchester50]

Really ?

and i say that as a permie .Net developer, i thought we were the ones under the cosh!

Isn't .NET doing 'relatively' (bar India/outsourcing/economy) well compared to other dev skills? I know it's the only dev skill we recruited in earlier this year and at the time we were struggling to find good people.

[ralphmalph]

Interesting. .NET is quite a skill, the MS inmplementation is very bad though.

Compared to what we do, adding accounts to ms exchange, etc.

[markinspain]

Not having a pop WWW, but why haven't you retired? Most of the people in my era knew it was only a short term cash grab. We even had a little song. (Thanks to the Sex Pistols)

People said we couldn't program,

They called us geeky snobs,

But the only digits that really count,

Are the ones on our timesheets,

Permies screamed, the air turned blue,

When they saw our rates,

Filthy lucre ain't nothing new,

But we all get cash from chaos!

The time is right to do it now,

The greatest contractor swindle,

The time is right to do it now.

R&R if there are any here who remember!

[PSmith]

I have a permanent job with an IT company. We have started offshoring and on-shoring work. All contractors have gone and are now replaced with on and offshore workers. They get paid about £7,000 pa in India to do the same job we do here. When they come over here they are given their Indian wage (£7k) and a living allowance for living expenses over here which amounted to £2,600 per month (after tax); this is cheaper than a contractors who normally charge about £2,000 to £2,500 per week. The £2,600 is for living expenses but they normally take the cheapest bedsit they can find for about £140 per month, live off eggs, toast and lentils and save every penny they can to take back to their families. If you are a contractor the competition is tough, Indians come out of University with Microsoft certificates included with their degree. They can afford to work for less money as for example a policeman in Mumbai will earn £500 per year and be expected to support a family on this. So if they can work in the UK and save £2,000 per month that equates to big bucks in India.

Recently our company have saved even more money by finding accommodation for the Indians and paying the bills (council tax, electricity, water rates...). These are normally two bedroomed flats that they will put two Indians in. For finding accommodation they reduced their living allowance to about £1,200 per month (a £1,400 reduction). You can imagine that the Indians now aren't too happy with the reduction in their allowance either. Meanwhile, all the British workers are getting pay freezes. It doesn't seem great whoever you are, a contractor, an Indian, a permanent member of staff; things are getting worse. There is no way in the current climate that a firm will willingly take on a contractor for £450 per day if they can get the same work done in India for £30 per day. In fact even if a contractor could do 10 times the amount of work an Indian could do they wouldn't get a job. There are over one billion Indians a lot of them are young and have degrees in Computer Science and have professional certificates.

We have to face it, we are living in a global market, we buy our electronic items from China, our software from India, our industry has been offshored to Eastern Europe. It's simple market forces. Luckily for us though we have our banks and financial markets to rescue us.

(not)

[impatient_mug]

Keeping the IT analogies going, it's a bit like the iPod vs Zen/Zune/Walkman augment. The Zen for example performs the same function as the iPod - in fact with it's radio tuner it does slightly more - and costs £80. The iPod is subjectively 'better' but costs £140. A lot may be willing to pay the £140 for the iPod.

Swap iPod for UK contractor and Zen for Indian contractor. Change the price difference from less than double to more than 5 times, then work out what a company is likely to do. Before screaming 'it shouldn't be allowed!!!!!' question what you would buy if the Zen mp3 player was £50 and the iPod £400, and apply the same thinking to everything else you buy (cars, holidays, food, energy etc).

I will be replaced with an Indian. Does that bother me? Yes. Do I understand why, and also understand that it's fair enough - yes. No-one owes me, or the UK a living.

[SNACR]

Tbh you've made it abundantly clear that you don't care about your follow Brit in that follow up post, which in turn, means you don't care about any unforeseen consequences that may arise from decimating the UK's IT industry.

Secondly, Dubai is a special case as they can employ infidels to work instead of doing the jobs themselves because they have the black gold. Wait until it runs out, then the picture will be different.

Thirdly, those skilled management jobs don't impact on the average Dubian worker do they?

And finally, flogging stuff (i.e. your example isn't really comparing like with like) isn't really a skill is it?

Price is everything in retail.

I mean any monkey can do it. Let's be fair.

At least with IT it can and does frequently add value to those which use it. (And no I'm not in IT, but can see where it would add value to the UK as a whole.)

There you are then retrain to an easier more lucrative area.

Retail's just selling stuff, now how many times have I heard that.....

[youthoftoday]

Can you elaborate a bit? What were some of the technologies they were incompetent at?

Mostly SQL development work.

[wickywackywoo]

Do you mean that it worked for you?

p-o-p

It worked for the country. Don't be silly please.

Under the last Government there was no general public awareness that there was an immigration issue. It's not just IT people, many people right across the board are p1ssed off at current levels. A return to a sensible immigration policy would benefit may British people.