My Job was Outsourced to India

I received the bad news in a closed door meeting with my manager at my Fortune 50 Company: My job was being "outsourced" to India and I had three months notice. It was to be kept rather hush-hush and to this day a lot of my co-workers do not know why I changed positions.

What was I going to do? I had held my data entry/accounts payable position for a year. I had only a year with the company and had short job tenure, and thus was on the chopping block. I am a single mother collecting zero child support from my ex-spouse, who was claiming to be unemployed. Should I write to my Congressman? There are no unions at my company; in fact, looking around, I see that many of the people working at the company are contractors from India in the first place. They mostly work in the IT Department and I've learned that they rotate here in the US - working for 7 or 8 months until their visa expires. I had turned a blind eye to all that and when I got my personal news, I took it hard.

I did some research online and learned that many manufacturing jobs have gone overseas already - we've all heard about the assembly line workers who were displaced by cheap labor in China and other countries. Now, there is a large, growing trend among white collar jobs being replaced by cheap Indian labor. You're no doubt used to calling a help desk or call center toll free number and you are connected directly to an Indian speaking customer service representative. It's just a fact of life nowadays. But, now it was hitting me personally. I did not know anyone that this had happened to.

I didn't write my Congressman, although I did compose a nice letter asking "Why is this happening in America?" and "What can we do about it?" I did not send it because I knew deep down that nobody was going to help me besides myself. I was also worried about possible repercussions. I had checked enough online to determine that it wasn't illegal for a company to outsource their positions. It does appear that there is legislation prohibiting certain government jobs from being outsourced. There is pending legislation which aims at limiting work related visas. None of the current laws were going to help me.

In the three months I had, I spruced up my resume, and was given encouragement to find a position within the company. After about a month, I found a position that looked interesting, and I applied for it. I had to interview with the new managers and I ended up being offered the position; a lucky day for me. I would start in a month and in the meantime had to train the Indian replacement at my desk. He was a week late getting here due to visa problems. Was that related to the new legislation around work related visas? Or maybe it was in response to the new terrorist travel regulations? I'm glad that I had found the new position, or training the man would have stretched my professionalism to say the least. I ended up training him and have since heard that he has gone back to India and there are now six people doing the job that I used to do here! And the company is still probably saving a ton of money.

Keep Your Eyes and Ears Open
If your job is currently one in which involves a lot of data entry, is a customer call center, or in IT, think about how easily your job could be performed in India. Even if you think there is no way that the position could be performed offshore, think again. A customer can fax, email, or call on toll free numbers directly to India and not be the wiser. Simply by re-routing incoming calls, emails, mail and faxes, and with new technological advances in digitization, a company can send all their customers' requests for data directly to India. Your whole department can be seamlessly eliminated overnight. Keep your eyes and ears open to this growing trend. If your company V.P. goes over to tour in India to check out business practices, that should be a clue that your company is looking into outsourcing!

Jobs that have a lot of customer interface will continue to be important here in the U.S. Try and increase your customer interface. Think about how easily you might be replaced. The more customer contacts you make every day and the more those customers are dependent on you will be invaluable as companies make decisions on which positions to eliminate here. Volunteer for more responsibility if you can so that you can make more customer contacts. Any job that involves face to face interacting will be sure to stay in the U.S.
Until enough white collar workers here in the U.S. put up a revolt, this practice is going to continue.

A word to the wise: protect yourself by making yourself more valuable to your employer.