http://networkcomputing.in/News-003Feb009-IBM-Offers-To-Move-Laid-Off-Workers-To-India.aspx

The climate is warm, there's no shortage of exotic food, and the cost of living is rock bottom. That's IBM's pitch to the laid-off American workers it's offering to place in India. The catch: Wages in the country are pennies-on-the-dollar compared to U.S. salaries.

Under a program called Project Match, IBM will help workers laid off from domestic sites obtain travel and visa assistance for countries in which Big Blue has openings. Mostly that's developing markets like India, China, and Brazil.

"IBM has established Project Match to help you locate potential job opportunities in growth markets where your skills are in demand," IBM says in an internal notice on the initiative. "Should you accept a position in one of these countries, IBM offers financial assistance to offset moving costs, provides immigration support, such as visa assistance, and other support to help ease the transition of an international move."
The document states that the program is limited to "satisfactory performers who have been notified of separation from IBM U.S. or Canada and are willing to work on local terms and conditions." The latter indicates that workers will be paid according to prevailing norms in the countries to which they relocate. In many cases, that could be substantially less than what they earned in North America.

IBM has laid off more than 4,000 workers in the United States since the beginning of January, according to an employee group. The company has confirmed layoffs but won't comment on specific numbers.

A spokesman for Alliance@IBM, a workers' group that's affiliated with the Communications Workers of America but which does not have official union status at IBM, slammed the program. "IBM is not only offshoring IBM U.S. jobs but they want employees to offshore themselves through Project Match," said the spokesman.

An IBM spokesman said the program shouldn't be seen in that light. "It's more of a vehicle for people who want to expand their life experience by working somewhere else," said the spokesman. "A lot of people want to work in India."

In addition to India, China, and Brazil, IBM is offering to relocate redundant U.S. workers to a number of other developing markets, including Mexico, the Czech Republic, Russia, South Africa, Nigeria, and the United Arab Emirates.

2/5/2009 4:27:01 PM

it's not only india - they have a spreadsheet available that lists the opportunities in each country - most of them require you to know the local language - that coupled with the idea of picking up and moving to a different country just to stay loyal to a company that laid you off means almost nobody will utilize this crappy program

Quote :

"Argentina Brazil China Czech Republic Hungary India Mexico Nigeria Poland Romania Russia Slovakia Slovenia South Africa Turkey United Arab Emirates"

i thought this was old news - the program was announced jan 22

2/5/2009 4:29:37 PM

it's pretty insulting

2/5/2009 4:36:54 PM

that's messed up

2/5/2009 4:41:53 PM

I hear Nigeria is quite the safe place to relocate to these days
what no Zimbabwe on that list? awwww

2/5/2009 4:46:39 PM

I imagine it's designed as a way to let foreign nationals keep their jobs when they return to their home countries. I know a lot of tech companies over the last few years have hired a LOT of foreign nationals and moved them to the US.

2/5/2009 4:47:51 PM

I'm really starting to dislike IBM.

2/5/2009 6:34:06 PM

it's not like this sort of thing is new, ibm has always put the bottom line first

2/5/2009 6:52:26 PM

i'd move to czech

2/5/2009 7:24:43 PM

I'd consider

Czech Repub, Argentina, Turkey, Hungry, or South Africa


No way in hell i'd go to

India- To fucking hot and humid, people smell bad, over crowded, Abu is everywhere, women don't put out

UAE- Hot eventhough i think i'd be more tolearable than India thanks to no humidity

Nigeria- Don't feel like getting mugged and murdered.

Slovakia- compared to Czech really rural and shitty.

Russia- to cold and despotic

2/5/2009 7:52:45 PM

Quote :

"Hungry"

2/5/2009 7:58:54 PM

they offered my dad kinda the same thing except IBM is outsourcing to India in which India will outsource to my dad here in the US as a liaison pretty much.

2/5/2009 8:19:28 PM

glad I left that shithole on my own terms.

Throwing your badge at your boss FTW!!!!

2/5/2009 8:33:26 PM

Quote :

"I imagine it's designed as a way to let foreign nationals keep their jobs when they return to their home countries. I know a lot of tech companies over the last few years have hired a LOT of foreign nationals and moved them to the US."

that makes sense

2/5/2009 8:37:23 PM

If the relative salary is the same then it's not a big deal. Shit, if you can get the same size house, maintain the same standard of living, etc. but the only draw back is that you're living in India (or Brazil, or Czech republic, etc.) then look at it as an opportunity to travel.

2/5/2009 9:17:55 PM

Sure, if you have no family here and don't mind making 1/3rd of what you do now, which will result in it being very difficult to afford tickets back here.

2/5/2009 9:23:07 PM

Hell, it still beats not having a job.

2/5/2009 9:31:35 PM

Kind of insulting on the one hand, but on the other hand a)it is indeed good for foreign nationals who moved here to go to school/find jobs and ended up not leaving and b)some of the places, like the Czech Republic, Brazil, Hungary or Turkey, might be kind of cool for an adventurous person to move for a few years. Having to know the language already is a major catch though.

2/5/2009 9:39:40 PM

Quote :

"A lot of people want to work in India."

This has to be the stupidest thing I've ever heard someone say. The only people I know who want to work in India are the unemployed people in India. But like many other people I wouldn't put it past IBM to try cut cost while faking they care.

I don't really care at this point. Most of the customers that we work with at the company I work for have had to deal with stupid offshore programmers and support for so long they're ready to pay the extra few thousand to get it done right the first time instead of paying out more to fix crappy code that wouldn't get a passing grade if you turned it in here.

2/5/2009 11:46:39 PM

Quote :

"India- To fucking hot and humid, people smell bad, over crowded, Abu is everywhere, women don't put out "

Are you sure about that? You realize there are nearly 1.5 billion people in India...

2/6/2009 12:27:56 AM

I'm guessing there's an implied "if you're not married" at the end of that phrase.

Also the entire US would have to move to India to get them to 1.5 billion, they're at something like 1.1 right now. Though they will probably pass China in 25 or 30 years (damn if that's not some scary population growth...)

2/6/2009 10:36:55 AM

UAE??? shit, I'd take them up on that in a heart beat. Depending on which Emirate they move you to, that is one of the best places to live hands down. Or at least it used to be when I lived there.

2/6/2009 10:54:02 AM

i'd go to any of the following:

Argentina
Brazil
China
Czech Republic
Hungary
India
Slovenia
Turkey
United Arab Emirates (only if Dubai)

2/6/2009 3:36:19 PM

Quote :

"I'm guessing there's an implied "if you're not married" at the end of that phrase."

You guys are thinking of India from a couple of decades ago.

In big cities, the majority of middle class and above girls have sex before marriage.

2/7/2009 12:22:02 AM

moving to india, yay!

Nice place to visit but wouldn't want to live there.

[Edited on February 7, 2009 at 1:19 AM. Reason : nope. ]

2/7/2009 1:12:20 AM

Quote :

"United Arab Emirates (only if Dubai)"

you obviously have never heard of Abu Dhabi (the capitol city).

2/7/2009 3:29:41 PM

Quote :

"If the relative salary is the same then it's not a big deal. Shit, if you can get the same size house, maintain the same standard of living, etc. but the only draw back is that you're living in India (or Brazil, or Czech republic, etc.) then look at it as an opportunity to travel."

i've never quite understood the relationship between foreign exchange rate and price parity.

2/7/2009 4:20:13 PM

are they going to pay them the wages that they pay the people in India?

2/9/2009 1:00:54 AM

Quote :

"are willing to work on local terms and conditions." The latter indicates that workers will be paid according to prevailing norms in the countries to which they relocate."

2/9/2009 8:26:40 AM

Quote :

"it's pretty insulting"

2/9/2009 10:50:20 AM

it may be pretty insulting to most of you to live in a third world country with third world wages,

but it also may be insulting to the people over there that the developed world thinks their currency is worth shit.

i don't think $1 is worth 50 Rupees.

there is a long term (multi-decade) rebalancing underway in which the Rupee should appreciate, but only time will tell.

2/9/2009 11:16:10 AM

Every person in India that has ever tried to buy my products has asked for a ~90% discount. I will not do business with India and neither will my competitors. I don't care at all if they are insulted...

2/9/2009 12:20:50 PM

haha, 90% discount. they tend to do that..

2/9/2009 12:24:43 PM

I think that's actually close to what the actual rupee to dollar disparity is. The last guy I talked to said he would buy over one million USD worth of materials for 15% of the retail cost... I'd lose about a half million dollars if I did that, haha.

2/9/2009 12:30:45 PM

Quote :

"I don't really care at this point. Most of the customers that we work with at the company I work for have had to deal with stupid offshore programmers and support for so long they're ready to pay the extra few thousand to get it done right the first time instead of paying out more to fix crappy code that wouldn't get a passing grade if you turned it in here."

This was one of the main reasons my dad quit Enovia/DS (company who owns solidworks). He does technical writing and had to redo like 50% of the stuff that was submitted as completed/final on top of his own work and wasn't getting paid any extra. And this was after they had fired a lot of good workers under him here in the US so they could outsource. They were pretty mad when he left (along with some programmers and such - some of which were the only people who had knowledge in specific areas), but he was just fed up with the ridiculousness of them outsourcing technical writing to India just to save a few bucks.

2/9/2009 12:34:20 PM

^haha, there's TT thread on this http://www.thewolfweb.com/message_topic.aspx?topic=557807

[Edited on February 9, 2009 at 12:49 PM. Reason : s]

2/9/2009 12:47:44 PM

Quote :

"Every person in India that has ever tried to buy my products has asked for a ~90% discount. I will not do business with India and neither will my competitors. I don't care at all if they are insulted..."

this is why everytime we went shopping in the counterfeit markets all over asia i took my indian friends to haggle for me

2/9/2009 12:52:42 PM

Quote :

"A lot of people want to work in India."

aha, not even Indians want to work there

2/9/2009 1:17:07 PM

No one in their right mind would take this deal. It is IBM's weak way of trying to say we take care of their people. It is slap in the face to the people they just fired.

Thomas Watson is rolling over in his grave.

[Edited on February 9, 2009 at 1:35 PM. Reason : .]

2/9/2009 1:34:03 PM

i'd go to poland. cause i've already lived there once (study abroad)

they should just move the jobs back over here to the u.s. then i would understand tech support.

2/9/2009 8:04:18 PM

Actually at this point I'd prefer it if they just went ahead and took everything off shore... then they would lose enough business to go under and the smaller companies that have been sprouting up around here could take all their old business. Thats basically what we do. We can turn around a support call with a fix in less than half the time it takes them to even look at it. That's why a lot of the companies we work with now actually prefer us to the larger and/or off shore groups they do work with.

2/9/2009 10:23:17 PM

Quote :

"they should just move the jobs back over here to the u.s. then i would understand tech support."

do it mate. go out to some county out in the rural areas that has depressed wages but community colleges nearby where you can get a pipeline of relatively skilled workers. you can call the company "US Tech Support" or whatever.

2/9/2009 11:12:03 PM

Just saw an article saying that a new Target opening in AZ is expecting 10,000 applications for 200 jobs, so yeah, there is a market for low wage, low skill workers.

2/10/2009 7:34:48 AM