What About Offshoring – Will I have a Job in 5 years?

If you’ve read Thomas Friedman’s book The World Is Flat: A Brief History of the Twenty-first Century, you’ll know that the hype of offshoring, that all of our programming and call center jobs are being sent overseas, is not entirely true.
The reason offshoring has received such media attention is that it makes a great story, and there are numbers to back it up. The problem with the attention is that it’s pretty one-sided. The papers never show how many jobs are being created back in the U.S.
due to offshoring. They also tend to shy away from the still-dire need for skilled programmers we have in the U.S. If you followed Dell Computer’s foray into offshoring they call centers, you may have heard that they:

…have even pulled some of their call center work back to the U.S. after complaints from customers about everything from foreign accents to the quality of support.

 Companies have discovered that although it’s less expensive on the front-end to offshore jobs, it’s not always a true net gain once you deal with the time difference, communication differences, lack of physical meetings, and other issues that have caused some to pull back in their offshore ambitions. That’s not to say that offshoring is not a very real thing that’s happening in our economy, but the fact is that very few white collar jobs are safe from offshoring. Accounting, electrical engineering, mechanical engineering…all are being offshored to one extent or another. Unless you plan to become CEO, an administrative assistant (although virtual assistants are taking over there, as well), or take on a job where you have to be physically present, you’re going to run the risk of your job being sent overseas.
 The unemployment rate for computer and mathematical occupations was 37% lower than the overall U.S. unemployment rate in 2007 and 43% lower in October 2008, even given our current financial crisis. Also, check out this graph, showing data from 2000 to 2004, with the trend of Computer Occupation unemployment substantially below overall U.S. unemployment.
We all know the world is in financial crisis, yet I’ve received 3 emails this week from recruiters asking if I know of .NET developers to fill their open positions. And I started a new project for a client who just received funding last week. Indeed, there is always programming work to be had.
 Is offshoring real? Yes. But until we’ve perfected teleportation, there will always be work for skilled developers.