Ethics Paper Topic # 1: Option Two
Outsourcing is defined as sending out (work, for example) to an outside provider or manufacturer in order to cut costs. This although creates a moral dilemma, we then wonder is it good or bad? It takes jobs away from people here at home in the United States, but it is cheap labor which means lower costs. There are both pros and cons in this situation. To take a closer look at the "problem" of outsourcing we will take a look at Information Technology (IT) Outsourcing overseas in which a company hires another company abroad to take over some of its software associated tasks like managing data center, handling technical support and software maintenance. It has become a growing trend today. Technological corporations is America today are desperate to cut costs and are outsourcing jobs to the developing countries with a large talented human resource pool for significantly lesser wages.
IT market research firm Gartner Dataquest says that "companies outsourcing their software jobs see lower cost foreign labor as a key to growth in 2003 because of large pool of highly educated English speaking workers in countries like India and Philippines who get relatively low wages"(Gartner). As of year-end 2002, there were at least 14 mega deals worth a total of $28.4 billion compared with nine mega deals in 2001 worth a total of $15.1 billion. Companies are lured towards the savings obtained by hiring a programmer in India who would be paid $2500 per year whereas the same job would require a wage of at least $45000 in US. According to Forrester Research, the percentage of offshore outsourcing for U.S. IT budgets "took a leap from 12 percent in 2000 to 28 percent in 2003 ...