It Contractor? Out Of Work? Wages Depressed?

[the end is a bit nigher]

Perhaps they are being polite and not wishing to draw attention to your lack of understanding of their usual language. You really should make some effort to fit in.

p-o-p

Or perhaps it is because someone speaking in Hindi might have as much chance of understanding someone speaking Telugu as you or I. Or perhaps it is because English is recognised as an official language of the Republic of India.

Try and have a clue before you post your nonsense. Have you ever even set foot in the country or worked with any of the people there?

[pl1]

You talk such absolute bl00dy rubbish. If it's employment where are all my perks please?

And why do I have to pay EMPLOYERS NI.

Never read such absolute tosh.

I think pop is a bit without a clue when it comes to this. I think he seems to think every IT contractor is still paying themselves dividends.

[the end is a bit nigher]

Like I said earlier you would have to be able to do the work of 10 Indians to justify the difference in cost so you would have to be very good or be able to do work that the Indians can't do.

Go on, how much do you think it costs per day to outsource to India and what do you think the benefits are?

[LiveAndLetBuy]

Great Idea.

Here's my name to put on it: Nick Griffin.

Strange, Arthur Scargill was the first name that came to my mind.

[whiterabbit]

I must say I would find it really difficult to sign a petition to support someone to get a £450 per day job which is what's being asked and also why there is a lot of bad feeling on this board.

Wickywackywoo, do you really think you are worth £450 per day when there are Indians willing to do the same job for a fraction of the price?

Well funny thing is on deals I have seen lately the client is still paying about 600 a day. Difference is instead of the agency or MS company (Capita, EDS, IBM etc) paying 450 to a UK contractor they are instead exploiting the law and paying 150 a day plus housing to Indians.

[quine]

The IT job market for UK workers in the UK is absolutely shattered for the next 12-24 months and it will never recover to the dizzy heights of the late 1990's, it's on a long-term downward spiral. What a con! When we were all told to do Computer Science at University because of the skills shortage.

"When we were all told to do Computer Science at University because of the skills shortage."

This is like being told to buy property innit! A certain (large) amount of people follow the lead and end up in deep doo doo. Might have been better to have done something that the masses weren't doing?

[wickywackywoo]

Oh get lost. IT contractors have been milking it for years. Clueless and overpaid during the good times. Now slightly less overpaid during the bad times. Get over it or get a proper job.

Another low earning envious monkey boy

[whiterabbit]

Looks like most of the countries in the world fit your description then.

I think most of you might be surprised by the Conservatives when they get in. They learnt not to talk about immigration/cutting public services etc because of people like you. When they get in my bet is they start reversing some of this damage. Cameron might be a pillock but not everybody in the party will be. Some will be able to exercise common sense and see that business can't have it all at the expense of everybody else.

I hope your are right.

[wickywackywoo]

Well funny thing is on deals I have seen lately the client is still paying about 600 a day. Difference is instead of the agency or MS company (Capita, EDS, IBM etc) paying 450 to a UK contractor they are instead exploiting the law and paying 150 a day plus housing to Indians.

But it's ok if the money goes to a big company and ends up in some enormously rich b@stards pocket. The people doing the actual work in the UK should not be allowed to earn more than an Indian earns because, er, this would make lots of losers happy.

In fact, it's clear from this thread that many people would be happy to see wages in the UK capped at, let's say, about what they earn - obviously they're worth it.

[mfp123]

FWIW my answer would be 'No', but I don't see how the question is relevant to the discussion; Tesco presumably plays on the same playing field as its competitors, in whatever territory they're competing.

Do you at least acknowledge that the UK labourer is at a competitive disadvantage because of high UK property prices?

but you also have to acknowledge tesco imports most of its food and goods from abroad. the same goods can be produced in the uk.

you cant just block off certain industries.

discouraging outsourcing is no different from arguing that we should discourage imports of any goods.

the irony is that most IT systems are designed to make businesses more efficient so that that business can cut waste and make people redundant.

Edited August 26, 2009 by mfp123

[PSmith]

Go on, how much do you think it costs per day to outsource to India and what do you think the benefits are?

The wage an Indian gets is about £30 per day in India. The company I work for has several offices in Mumbai and an Indian costs about £80 to per day on the charge out rate but that rate includes their pc, office space administration and management charges. I was just comparing the wage of an Indian with the wage of a contractor.

The benefits are cost.

Edited August 26, 2009 by PSmith

[Cygnus Alpha]

Another low earning envious monkey boy

Ha ha. Get a job loser.

[SNACR]

FWIW my answer would be 'No', but I don't see how the question is relevant to the discussion; Tesco presumably plays on the same playing field as its competitors, in whatever territory they're competing.

Do you at least acknowledge that the UK labourer is at a competitive disadvantage because of high UK property prices?

You're suggesting that Tesco turns up, with access to ultra low-cost goods through a global supply chain, and the local chain is on a level playing field.

No different to some Indian IT workers turning up with access to a low-cost currency, except it puts more middle class noses out of joint because it affects them.

I don't acknowledge that access to our labour markets should be restricted because a better educated, slightly more articulate breed of British worker is finally feeling the squeeze of globalisation.

[the end is a bit nigher]

Whichever way you try and dress up the proposed solution to you remuneration predicament any strategy with a central plank that is the exclusion or discrimination of foreigners is the politics of the BNP. Regardless of how uncomfortable you find this.

The only thing I find uncomfortable is that people such as yourself refuse to discuss this issue without trying to play the racism card. I certainly am not racist and I doubt many other people who feel the same way are either. Do you even know what racism is because by saying what you say you clearly don't.

[wickywackywoo]

Ha ha. Get a job loser.

Try and get a job paying decent money then you needn't go through life envious and bitter.

Monkey boy

[the end is a bit nigher]

The wage an Indian gets is about £30 per day in India. The company I work for has several offices in Mumbai and an Indian costs about £80 to per day on the charge out rate but that rate includes their pc, office space administration and management charges. I was just comparing the wage of an Indian with the wage of a contractor.

The benefits are cost.

A possible benefit is cost.

The average cost of the main Indian outsourcing firms for IT development work is between $450 and $700 per day.

You won't get anything but basic skills for £80/dayin India with the equivalent resource over here costing far far less than £450/day.

[The Masked Tulip]

I have seen a huge change in the UK IT industry in the past decade.

There was enormous potential to make the UK IT industry in a global leader generating new technologies, new ideas, new long-term revenue streams for this country that would benefit us all.

However, it has ended up being exploited by the City and then by the Government who has basically, and criminally IMPO, de-skilled, outsourced and deliberately run-down perhaps the best opportunity this country has had since the discovery of North Sea oil to turn around our Economy long-term.

I have deep suspicions about the eagerness in which some former Cabinet members have outsourced UK IT jobs to India only for, sometime later, those same Cabinet members to end up as executives on Indian companies or on British QUANGOs associated with India.

Now, frankly IT is very stressful, the list of skills asked for get longer and longer and are nearly always asked for by people who have trouble switching on their PCs, and I have seen way too many IT workers become seriously stressed and ill as a result of the demands of keeping up to date.

It seems to me that the only way to earn a good living in IT nowadays and to have no stress is to be a manager of the people who can actually do it. This is the way that the UK usually destroys its own industries - the people who know, who can do and who actually understand are sidelined, marginalised and 'reduced' by those who can't but who know how to play the system.

I think the emergence of the 'big' IT consultancies has been a hugely detrimental affect on UK IT - IMPO they are to IT what the CIA is to Latin America!

[huw]

but you also have to acknowledge tesco imports most of its food and goods from abroad. the same goods can be produced in the uk.

you cant just block off certain industries.

discouraging outsourcing is no different from arguing that we should discourage imports of any goods.

the irony is that most IT systems are designed to make businesses more efficient so that that business can cut waste and make people redundant.

That's a fair point. SNACR's question was about whether he'd get any sympathy if in a similar competitive predicament; I have sympathy for anybody who's clobbered by high UK property (and related) prices, particularly if it makes the difference between them being able to make a living, and not.

[The Masked Tulip]

A possible benefit is cost.

The average cost of the main Indian outsourcing firms for IT development work is between $450 and $700 per day.

You won't get anything but basic skills for £80/dayin India with the equivalent resource over here costing far far less than £450/day.

I know of at least one IT consultancy which has Indian workers working here in Wales whilst playing them Indian salaries! They pay the Welsh workers, IMPO, peanuts but the Welsh salaries look wonderful compared to what the Indians are getting.

[SNACR]

The only thing I find uncomfortable is that people such as yourself refuse to discuss this issue without trying to play the racism card. I certainly am not racist and I doubt many other people who feel the same way are either. Do you even know what racism is because by saying what you say you clearly don't.

You're the one unwittingly endorsing the policies of a racist politcal party so you tell me.

We cannot exclude EU workers, in any case, and this exclusion seems to be directed at, almost exclusively Indians, but tries to pretend not to be.

What you are inescapably advocating is the compilation of a blacklist of races you want to ban from travelling here to work even if it's demonstrable that their skills are needed as local labour is pricing itself too expensively in the current economic climate.

[wickywackywoo]

I'll hold my hand up, I get paid too much. I would strongly consider taking a pay cut under the right circumstances. The right circumstances being that I also win the lottery

Seriously though, thinking about downsizing. There's only so much useless tat you can buy before you start to realise the importance of quality of life.

You've finally written something I agree with.

[Confusion of VIs]

There will ALWAYS be a Market for UK based Contractors. OK some of the technical roles can be outsourced.

1)Are you telling me that a Project Manager, Business Analyst, Systems Analyst or a Specialist third line software support role is going to be outsourced to India?

2) Corporate environments are generally populated by Sycophantic, Parasitic staff members - interested only in clinging to their jobs as long as possible. Generally dumping all the real work on to contractors, cherry picking their work, and avoiding the awkward jobs.

We contractors should celebrate this behaviour from our permanent colleagues because this guarantees us a long and lucrative career contracting.

I wouldn't so certain about this, its a shrinking market with falling pay rates and has been for years. Back in 1990 I was getting £700 a day as a database designer, probably worth about £450 today. Basic coders back then were getting £320 probably £250 today.

Coming developments in virtulisation are going to move your data centre and another raft of skills offshore. Why would you want your second and third line support in the UK when your datacentre, databases and code are all located thousands of miles away.

[wickywackywoo]

You're the one unwittingly endorsing the policies of a racist politcal party so you tell me.

We cannot exclude EU workers, in any case, and this exclusion seems to be directed at, almost exclusively Indians, but tries to pretend not to be.

What you are inescapably advocating is the compilation of a blacklist of races you want to ban from travelling here to work even if it's demonstrable that their skills are needed as local labour is pricing itself too expensively in the current economic climate.

It's not a blacklist of races, it's an immigration policy change for non-EU (which just happens to affect largely Indians, so what?). Africans can't just wonder over here at will (well technically). Is our Government discriminating against them? In fact, is it discriminating against everybody in the world who can't just walk in?

You're just not making any sense? You're not logically following through to the results of what you're saying which is essentially we should have completely open borders.

Contractors are only expensive now when compared to other cheaper countries.

[mfp123]

I have seen a huge change in the UK IT industry in the past decade.

There was enormous potential to make the UK IT industry in a global leader generating new technologies, new ideas, new long-term revenue streams for this country that would benefit us all.

However, it has ended up being exploited by the City and then by the Government who has basically, and criminally IMPO, de-skilled, outsourced and deliberately run-down perhaps the best opportunity this country has had since the discovery of North Sea oil to turn around our Economy long-term.

I have deep suspicions about the eagerness in which some former Cabinet members have outsourced UK IT jobs to India only for, sometime later, those same Cabinet members to end up as executives on Indian companies or on British QUANGOs associated with India.

Now, frankly IT is very stressful, the list of skills asked for get longer and longer and are nearly always asked for by people who have trouble switching on their PCs, and I have seen way too many IT workers become seriously stressed and ill as a result of the demands of keeping up to date.

It seems to me that the only way to earn a good living in IT nowadays and to have no stress is to be a manager of the people who can actually do it. This is the way that the UK usually destroys its own industries - the people who know, who can do and who actually understand are sidelined, marginalised and 'reduced' by those who can't but who know how to play the system.

I think the emergence of the 'big' IT consultancies has been a hugely detrimental affect on UK IT - IMPO they are to IT what the CIA is to Latin America!

but then that is the very nature of IT. you can argue that the rapid pace of change in IT is what keeps IT workers in jobs.

if the pace of change in IT was slow there would be less need to change/update systems with new technology and thus less need to employ IT workers in the first place.

Edited August 26, 2009 by mfp123

[swissy_fit]

here is my 2 cents worth and i am going to mention the company as i dont give a fluck anymore!

I worked as an IT contractor via Manpower for Hewlett Packard CDS (a so called non profit org of HP). I was earning 32k a year as a contractor - every 3 months our contracts came up for renew. After 2 years HP told us they had a 52 week rule on contractors (although clearly employing us for 2 years, they broke there own 52 week rule) i asked for a copy of the rule, they could not produce it, hence why i think they are full of shite! And also lied to us!!!

They gave us a take it or leave it deal - the new deal was to work directly for them but for 19K - this made it unafordable for me to travel 84 miles a day and have therfore have asked them to end my contract end of September - most bizzare thing of all is the fact they are hiring another contractor under there 52 week rule to replace me whom will be paid 32k

Please Please avoid buying HP products as they continue to screw what remains of there UK workforce!

You were being ripped off, or else not in a skillset that's much sought after.

The least I have ever earned in a year where I worked (there were two where I didn't since 1997) was about 50k, the most was a multiple of that.

What is the point of contracting on permie wages? You give up your career for nothing.

Returning to the point of the main thread, moaning about foreign programmers won't help, it's adapt or die.

So either you learn to do something they can't do so well due to cultural issues, or you accept lower pay, or you ship out.

My time and luck are running out, so I'll be taking the third option when I get the boot from my current client.