LABOR HAS NO VALUE:

Outsourcing Works, So India Is Exporting Jobs (ANAND GIRIDHARADAS, 9/25/07, NY Times)

India is outsourcing outsourcing.

One of the constants of the global economy has been companies moving their tasks — and jobs — to India. But rising wages and a stronger currency here, demands for workers who speak languages other than English, and competition from countries looking to emulate India’s success as a back office — including China, Morocco and Mexico — are challenging that model.

Many executives here acknowledge that outsourcing, having rained most heavily on India, will increasingly sprinkle tasks around the globe. Or, as Ashok Vemuri, an Infosys senior vice president, put it, the future of outsourcing is “to take the work from any part of the world and do it in any part of the world.”

To fight on the shifting terrain, and to beat back emerging rivals, Indian companies are hiring workers and opening offices in developing countries themselves, before their clients do.

One of the great delusions of those who think China has a future is that it can retain the easy jobs we hired them to do cheap.

Posted by Orrin Judd at September 25, 2007 12:07 AM