Will WFH be outsourced to cheaper countries?

[Alongcameacat]

Following on from a recent thread where the majority of people believe that they will remain working from home permanently, is anyone concerned that their jobs are now high risk?

Why would companies continue paying people their current salaries when there is no need for people to be in the same place at the same time?

Surely it makes sense that companies will outsource most if not all of their WFH workforce to countries like India and Eastern Europe where labour is significantly cheaper?

As for going to the office one or two days a week - Zoom, Google Teams, would suffice for the most part and any inconveniences would be more than offset by huge financial savings?

I'm talking about rich, stuck up know it alls

So who are these people? I'm a born & raised Londoner, am I one of these?

The biggest problem with shifting work offshore is eventually you drive up the rates offshore until it can be more expensive than doing it in the UK. And then UK companies whine they "can't get the staff".

There's also a definite skill to managing work sent offshore.

I wonder if there’s a pretty low threshold to offshoring. Ie by the time you put in management structures to do it the cost of labour has to be a lot cheaper. Cheaper than most countries.

@ForrestTrump

The problem, OP, is that nobody wants to believe (or admit) that they're replaceable. Some aren't, but with time a large proportion of workers could be replaced with overseas staff.

This.

I work in process "improvement" and "optimization", including AI and automation. 80% of today's jobs will go up in smoke over the next 20 years. In a very real way, the teams I work on are like the grim reaper for jobs.

No one wants to hear it though, people change the subject or walk away rather than discuss it...

20 years from now, the arts subjects will be the ones that get jobs. All these kids learning to code etc, mostly a waste of time unless those kids are also highly creative/have people skills. But again, no one will hear it.

Some outsourcing already happens - I managed a mixed team of polish and Indian highly educated grads at one point. But a few things happens

These people are in demand in their own country - they don't stay cheap for long and there are more opportunities for progression in working for companies serving their home market. Their economies are typically growing much faster than the UK.

They lack the knowledge of UK consumers markets/regulatory frameworks. The soft skill side is much harder to acquire from a different cultural background and when you are not immersed in it.

So what actually happens is less UK grads are taken on. But the ones in the UK become even more in demand/well paid when they get to middle management as there are less of them. And the outsourcing people can't progress to that middle management level in the UK due to reasons above.

I will still go to the office sometimes, just no where near as much. But even once a week makes me worth a lot more than an outsourced person.

It's not simple. DH has been WFH since March and he finds it difficult to conduct a proper team meeting over Zoom: he wants to be able to sit down with someone and sketch out a diagram, and he can't do that. He's found he spends ages writing elaborate emails instead.

TBH I think he will end up having to go into the office 1 or 2 days a week with the rest of the team, because some stuff is just much easier face to face.

To clarify, I'm talking about jobs in western countries. Technical/quantitative/financial jobs will be offshored en masse very shortly. Anyone working in accounts will not have a job shortly. Etc.

People-facing, language-rich jobs will become the most stable types of employment. Anything artistic, or dealing with peoples emotions.

The world needs taxes on billionaires and universal basic income, and sharpish

@MarshaBradyo

I wonder if there’s a pretty low threshold to offshoring. Ie by the time you put in management structures to do it the cost of labour has to be a lot cheaper. Cheaper than most countries.

I've seen a lot of fudge in offshoring ... as with a lot of things it can be made to look cheap on paper, until you add in indirect costs. By which time the sharp suits have moved on.

My experience is in IT, and I've seen projects fall rapidly behind schedule as work is sent out and returned "to spec" but totally unusable. Then you realise that the actual hard work was interpreting the specs (and that's the bit you "let go"). So then you need to hire a shit hot spec-writer and implement a regime where you keep the offshore team close to it (daily calls etc).

I've managed a few offshore teams in India and Pakistan. My takeaway learning was Microsoft and IBM managed to snaffle the top talent ....

[quote Menomosso]@damnthatanxiety people may have PhDs (no need for an apostrophe, btw) but they are not comparable. Would you rather someone had one from Bucharest or Oxford?[/quote]
I am well aware that there is no need for an apostrophe. Auto correct. There is no possession, it is a plural.

You suggest everyone in the UK has a PhD from Oxford. Lol. That is hilarious. It is also hilarious that you think the average Brit is educated. Fact is that there are literally millions of highly educated and committed people living in other countries and if you think they won't be recruited then you are living with the mentality of people who thought colour TV and the motor car wouldn't catch on.

[quote ploopgh]@damnthatanxiety are you worried about your job? [/quote]
Not particularly but that is because I work for myself and am not really in need of an income.

Interesting DG and agree about the structure that can required to get decent work back

20 years from now, the arts subjects will be the ones that get jobs. All these kids learning to code etc, mostly a waste of time unless those kids are also highly creative/have people skills. But again, no one will hear it.

This is why I feel my work as a writer is fairly safe - the only people who can write to the standard of a native English speaker is another native English speaker. Workers in the US, Canada, New Zealand and Australia aren't "cheap". Workers in countries where English is spoken like West Africa or south Asia might be cheap, but they just can't write to the same standard as a native speaker. And that's before you get into cultural references and local knowledge.

If you job isn't customer facing, or involves things like accounts or IT which probably can be done from anywhere, your job is definitely at more risk.

@ploopgh No, I didn't mean to generalise in the context of a birth place, it's rather about those who have developed this deluded, superior mentality through working in the city, which isn't necessarily linked to being born there.

@damnthatanxiety of course!

@PurplePansy05 personally I think those who do that are likely to be like that regardless where they work.

@damnthatanxiety

“ You suggest everyone in the UK has a PhD from Oxford. Lol. That is hilarious”

Of course they don’t, but the fact is we have educational institutions with far higher standards than those in developing countries. Not hilarious, just the truth.

It is also hilarious that you think the average Brit is educated.

With the obvious note that "education" is a moveable feast, I would have thought a casual scan of the last 6 months UK media would immediately disabuse anyone of that notion.

50% of Brits are below average intelligence. As indeed are 50% of the worlds population. (Which is only a worry if they all live in the same country )

@ploopgh Personally, I've met many former city workers in my profession being exactly that and they are by far the most annoying people to be around. Maybe it's easier to notice outside London. Maybe you're right. We can only speak from our own experience.

@Menomosso - which countries do you class as developing nations with lower educational standards than the U.K. I’m assuming you are thinking of countries the UK outsources to?

Who will the customers be for these businesses if the bulk of the UK workforce is made redundant?

@Parker231
Use Romania as an example if you like. Yes I’ve been there, many times, and know people who live and work there. Standards are not the same as in the UK, not in business and certainly not in education.

Tbh, UK's educational standards are varied. My Central and Eastern European friends are mortified at the lack of skills amongst the British when it comes to maths in particular, but also general knowledge, history, languages etc. Truthfully, in many cases they are right.

We shouldn't be feeling superior at all as this gives a false sense of security. If anything, we should become more competitive, continue to learn new skills and languages as we're lacking in that regard as a nation. But again, this is not a pandemic or WFH-linked observation, I've noticed this a while ago.

@user12642379742146

Who will the customers be for these businesses if the bulk of the UK workforce is made redundant?

Well that's the point. There's going to be a see-saw oscillation as countries taking outsourced work become richer and countries sending them the work see fewer and fewer people with enough money to power the economy.

I'm sure everything will come out in the wash.

Of course if you make outsourcing a national pastime and use it to avoid investing in your own education and development, then eventually the day will come when Outsource Corp. Inc. turns around to you and says:

"You know what, we've had a chat with our rivals the Corporation for Outsourcing Inc., and we reckon we need to double our rates to your as of now. Thanks.". And UK.plc simply has to pay as the option to do it in the UK has long since gone.

There's a wonderful clip from 1973 where a reporter whinges to one of the members of OPEC:

But if you double your prices, it will cause chaos in our economy

and the Sheikh being interviewed just smiles and says "Yes."

Several million of the highest educated people in Romania, Bulgaria and Poland have already left! They are in many ways the most desirable to employ in the UK, as they will work for lower wages, and gain excellent English which is hard to obtain from abroad, even if on paper their English is good (we have this problem with students all the time that passed the English exams but don't feel confident enough to speak in class). That's why for years the NHS has recruited dentists from these countries, for example.

I don't believe that outsourcing highly skilled teams and keeping them in that country would be a desirable option. Also wages in those countries are climbing quite high now esp pegged or in the Eurozone and with expensive living expenses, they are certainly not as cheap as they used to be.

I know Tui took all its call centres offshore to Cyprus before corona, no idea if it worked out well for them, they took some Brits with them but not that many.

Meno - I can’t comment. I don’t know Romania and am not aware of outsourcing from the UK to there. At work we outsource, primarily to Poland and India.