San Francisco university lays off IT workers, jobs head to India
Reuters By Rory Carroll ReutersFebruary 28, 2017 0:10 / 2:00
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By Rory Carroll
SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) - The University of California, San Francisco on Tuesday laid off 49 information technology (IT) employees and outsourced their work to a company based in India, ending a year-long process that has brought the public university under fire.
The university announced the plan last July as a way to save $30 million over five years. The University of California system, which includes health care and research-focused UCSF, has been struggling to raise revenue and cut expenses.
Globalization and outsourcing have become hot-button political issues in the United States, as more employers cut costs by farming out work to low-cost workers in far-flung parts of the world. President Donald Trump campaigned on promises to restore lost U.S. jobs and to penalize companies that move factories overseas.
This was the University of California's first outsourcing, said a spokeswoman who added that the layoffs were necessary due to rising costs of technology. In addition to the 49 staff layoffs, another 48 positions that were vacant or filled by contractors were eliminated.
California Senator Dianne Feinstein last year said the university had a responsibility to keep jobs in the United States and pledged to seek reforms to stop domestic jobs being outsourced.
Kurt Ho, 58, a laid off systems administrator, carried a box of his personal items with an American flag draped over it, and said the university's decision will hurt service for a medical staff that relies on a smoothly running and secure computer network.
"It's a downgrading of services and a slap in the face for the customers," said Ho, who has worked in IT in the Bay Area for 25 years. He said he plans to look for a job but worries that outsourcing of IT services is a growing trend.
Last year UCSF entered into a $50 million contract over five years with India-based HCL Technologies Ltd to do the work.
Mena: It doesnt make any sense for a USA citizen or resident to go to College or University to get a Bachelor or Master degree to be educated and get a good job and after they get the good paying job the employer decide after a while to offshore their job to China and India. The American worker or professional have bill to pays, family to take care off and student loan to pay.
Offshoring jobs in the short term may help a company but in the long term offshoring hurts the USA economy. Offshoring good paying job destroying the consumer base of corporate America. Americans without good paying professional and manufacturing jobs and low paying service jobs cannot afford corporate America products like cars, houses, iphone etc. Industrialist Henry Ford use to say the reason I pay my workers well is because I want them to be able to afford my Ford cars. The reason department store like Sears, Kmart, JC Penney and Macys are closing hundred of store each is because the American consumers no longer have the money to shop in those stores like they use to in the past because of offshoring of good paying jobs.
Posts: 5374 | From: sepedat/sirius | Registered: Jul 2012
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It is a really good topic. I know that a lot of India citizens work like freelancers and take outsourcing tasks from companies from more developed countries. In my work, I used to hire them when you need to do not very difficult tasks. I can say that they are lazy and there such a problem like control. Seriously, when you are trying to control their work they become very angry. They hate when someone is trying to control them by some apps or just watching. I prefer to find some outsourcing software development company from the Soviet Union counties. They have much more responsibility and they agree with you when you wanna control their work. I have read this https://headworks.io/blog/How-to-manage-outsourcing-development-team and I think that there are a lot of many ways how to do it. In my personal point of view, you can trust anyone but also, you need to check it, cause it is you own money resources.
Posts: 1 | From: New York | Registered: May 2019
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