Dear readers,

Its a pain difficult to digest for an American citizen to lose his/her job from a company of their own country to a so called "cheap labor" foreign nationals. Now I would say that is Globalization for you dear. Gone are the days when there were not many market places for companies to find the kind of talent pool, US offered them. Yes ofcourse since India or China got into IT bandwagon much later than US, to attract the companies they offer reduced expenses. That is no cheap labor, its just a way of getting their share in the market. Let me give an analogy, its a know fact that the once strong US textile industry has lost ground in its battle against Asian competitors. Most of the American branded clothes are now made in India, China. If China did not offer reduced labor charge to attract international market, it would have not become second biggest economy in the world it is today. I just wish what happened with US textile industry does not happen with IT industry as well. But I fear that would happen if US restricts talented foreign nationals who have advanced degrees, working in US. Companies do business in the place where they get their requirement met. They are here to do business and not charity.

Job shifting from one market to another, simply to save on labor cost even when profitable is a race to the bottom. The blind profit motive needs to be controlled by democracies. Without control this will eventually lead to the destruction of the middle class, in democracies worldwide, by a few oligarchs. In the end workers without access to land or food will be willing to work for those things, even if are being exploited. Following this path means that the jobs will eventually leave India as well, for somewhere even cheaper, until at the end feudal societies centered around the billionaires (or perhaps political oligarchs) become dominant again.

IBM is THE argument against free-markets and kapitalism..

worked there for 5 years, 80% of us ended up with serious illnesses, but they still kicked us out to save a few pennies

any company that has to publish
montly results CAN NOT be run properly, stop this nonsense and the destruction of lives

she just heard today. I guess that masters degree in CS doesn't matter that much to IBM.

Well thats one more java programmer to get a job at a startup or something. Then again , I do have to say that IBM services really does very little for the obscene money they charge.

Yea 5000 more american jobs going to India. Nice job handing out the handing out the tax Stimulis money and TARP (Troubled Asset Relief Program) to companies that give huge bonious to CEO's then they lay off 5000 US to outsource to India. Then you also have companies like AT&T also both outsource us jobs to india, singiapore and Manila and insource Indians to the US on H1B Visas and Student Visas most of whom dont speak good english or have 3rd grade grammer skills to communicate issues with american companies to groom customers when all the jobs go over seas. At least when I call time warner cable in newyork they customer service department is in the US, even though they have southern accents or hire workers from the inner citys, I would rather speak them them any dayof the week instead of some Indian in bangalador with a fake masters whom I can not communicate with!

I worked for IBM in the glory years, left when it started going down, and still have a few friends there. Even the true-blue IBMers who ranted at me when I left now say I made the right decision.

IBM *used* to be a good company to work for, but you'd be nuts to work there these days. At least in the US it's no fun anymore, and the culture is exceptionally political and from what I hear there's relatively little relationship between survival and worth.

Nothing new, IBM has been doing this for the past six or seven years. Throwing the employees out, who build the company into what it is today. I have worked on a couple of software projects there over the past 10 years. It is shocking how badly they treat people now. IBM does not even tell employees they are being laid off and doesn't even let them clear their desk out, instead they call them at home and tell them they are dismissed. Real nice company.

Because money/profit grows on trees. You don't need actual employees to actually work.