North American Network Operators Group
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Re: Cisco moves even more to china.

  • From: Stephen Sprunk
  • Date: Fri Sep 24 19:56:51 2004

Thus spake "Nicole" <[email protected]>
On 24-Sep-04 the GW commando coersion squad reported Peter Galbavy said :

Nicole wrote: 
So.. I guess we will be cranking out those H1b's...Plan to kiss your
raises
and or jobs bye bye to some specialized cheap imported Cisco trained
networking person from China.

There is an implicit assumption here that the objective of 100% of these
trainees will be to move as economic migrants to "the West". Wrong folks.
Very very wrong. Notice how China as a *consumer* is growing faster than
anyone else around ? While there may well be some (what's the right word ?)
"retro-sourcing" of cheap labour into the US (and the EU), I suspect that
once any initial levelling of the field happens, there will be just as much,
if not more, movement the other way.

China is a communist and closed loop society. Thats teh real problem. The
company that claims it "runs the internet" (or some such phrase) is now saying
we prefer communist China than America and American Jobs.

Cisco investing 0.1% of their revenue into China is hardly a preference for that country over America. They spend more than that buying (er, contributing to campaigns for) politicians in the US.

This bashing of overseas workers always comes down to Americans not willing to accept that demanding obscene salaries will lose them jobs when there are people elsewhere willing to work for four figures (or even three); welcome to Supply and Demand 101. Also, having worked there at the time, Cisco started moving "sustaining" work on IOS to India because American coders simply refused to work on bug-fixing projects and demanded assignments working on new features. If the cost of hiring Americans is hundreds of times more, why would any sane company insist on hiring more Americans -- if they can even find any to do the work?

The problem with China and several other countries in that region is the fact the people are effectively slave laborers -- assigned to jobs by (in effect) a military dictatorship and jailed or executed if they complain about the work or wages. We would be rightfully outraged if this were happening in the US, and IMHO this is the _only_ legitimate reason to complain about Cisco's investment in that particular country.

Cisco's also in a rough position. Investors and analysts expect Cisco to maintain 70% margins overall, and customers want lower prices and more aggressive discounts or they'll go to competitors. The only way Cisco can make both sides happy is to find cheaper labor, hence India, Mexico, and China. Before you complain about this, take a close look at your 401k and see how much money you have invested in Cisco -- you're probably part of the problem, if only indirectly.

China is very very good and writing into their contacts that most all training
and workers are Chineese. No one can reasonably assume that any
number larger than you have fingers and toes will be imported to work on
Cisco gear. Let alone any other networking.

That's standard practice in int'l business. Many European countries require that on-site techs, engineers, etc. be citizens of that country. The US Govt even does the same on many contracts, requiring foreign companies hire a certain percentage of US citizens to work on the project.

What company woudl not want to hire someone who puts on his resume
"helped configure and work on the largest new networking buildout since 1993."
Or "trained in Cisco training center".

When I'm hiring folks, all I care about is whether they're competent at the particular job I have a req for. Typically that requires skills far above anything offerred in a Cisco training class; CCNAs in particular are a pain to hire since so much of the training is outdated or downright wrong.

S

Stephen Sprunk "God does not play dice." --Albert Einstein
CCIE #3723 "God is an inveterate gambler, and He throws the
K5SSS dice at every possible opportunity." --Stephen Hawking