The human side of offshoring

Read this article from this month's Fast Company to get a very humanized view of offshoring from the perspective of people that have lost their jobs because their companies are off-shoring jobs.

From the article:

"Whether you believe such dislocations are ultimately good or bad, they're here, they're real, and they're happening at speeds and levels unforeseen just a few years ago."

Companies can cut 20% to 70% of their labor costs by moving jobs to low-wage nations--assuming that the work is of comparable quality.

"Equally dramatic are the displacement, downward mobility, and suffering of the people left behind. So far, at least, that enhanced productivity hasn't translated into jobs at home. Offshoring is steadily eating its way into the educated classes, both in the United States and elsewhere, affecting jobs traditionally considered secure. People whose livelihoods could now be at risk include everyone from IT experts to accountants, medical transcriptionists to customer-service representatives. "

What's the answer here? Unfortunately offshoring seem to be inevitable. The real answer is, for those of you that are bound to be effected, reinvent yourself! Pick up a copy of Tom Peters' book Re-Imagine! and read it. Focus especially on Chapter 3, entitled "White-Collar Cataclysm." Peters may not be the only one that saw this coming, but he was the first one that truly put it into perspective for me.