Outsourcing, is it a help to you or a hinderence to the country?

What are the advantages of outsourcing and who benefits?

There have been a lot of heated debates out there about the outsourcing of work and technology from America to foreign countries. Looking strictly from the perspective of the average American, it can hardly be said that we, the people, reap benefits from corporate advantages of outsourcing. Basically if you need help with something then it is easy to go and do it yourself. On the other hand, the large corporations and even some of our State governments who are outsourcing do benefit from this practice.

For example, perhaps you've noticed that when you call your ISP's 800 number to resolve a problem, the person you end up speaking with is not a native English speaker. Quite likely, this telephone operator lives in India, where he or she attempts to answer your query. The corporation who hires this individual needn't worry about minimum wage laws here in the U.S. This is not particularly beneficial for you because you don't even know how to get the help you need. This results in larger profits for the corporation and a larger unemployment rate here in the U.S. Again, the advantages of outsourcing come to the corporate coffers.

When it comes to technology, the corporations have shot themselves in the foot, although you'll not hear them saying so. When the outsourcing concept initially took off, the corporations went crazy, figuring they could outsource almost everything, including engineering and programming systems. Again, these projects were handed off to foreign nationals who were willing to work for a pittance compared with an American engineer, even the average small business will settle with help from a cheap foreign worker, even if the quality is awful.

It took several years for the supposed advantages of outsourcing to be proven deleterious to the corporations' profits, as well as the now unemployed American engineers. Another stunningly catastrophic effect of this outsourcing was the loss of America's technological edge in the world market. Prior to the outsourcing of technology, better than 50% of America's GDP derived from IT.

In the final analysis, a few corporations admitted that outsourcing such work ended up costing them 20% more than if they had retained Americans for the same project. The loss of technological advances through piracy and copy-cat technology is immeasurable and the effects will be felt well into the future. This makes it even harder to help ourselves to new technologies that have been developed by other countries.

So it seems that a solid argument can be made in favor of corporate greed breeding the advantages of outsourcing for a very few people to the detriment of many working people here in the U.S. Ironically, this greed backfired and the corporations lost as well. However, you can use outsourcing to your benefit because there are legit Americans out there trying to make a decent wage as a freelancer. They may cost a bit more but you will be able to get the quality help you need.

Looking for more information on Outsourcing?

Wikipedia's Definition of Outsourcing - Outsourcing is subcontracting a process, such as product design or manufacturing...
The Outsourcing Institute - A great source of outsourcing opportunity...
Elance.com - Proveds high quality outsourcing...