In the latest issue of the New Yorker, there is an article about one firm in India that has taken on a lot of the outsourcing that has been at the top of people's minds. It is not a call center, but seems to be more like a multidimensional business center, handling everything from banking to document preparation. Unfortunately the article isn't online, but amongst you latte drinking liberals, there are probably enough of you who read the New Yorker that some of you will see it or have already seen it.
The article is by Katherine Boo, who has done profiles of the working poor in Oklahoma, and other interesting work. The firm she profiles here is in Chennai, a city that is on the one hand booming with new outsourcing business, but also running out of water and in many places still mired in poverty.
As an aside, the company itself was founded in the last 5 years, by a pair of Princetonians a class below mine (I haven't quite decided if they should be on the "in the Nation's disservice" list along with Nader, Frist, and Rumsfeld, although interestingly, they want to become "Bloomberg Republicans"--ie so rich that they won't be beholden to anyone). The many many applicants to this firm go through a rigorous application and testing process, after which they are trained on everything from how to do a powerpoint presentation to how to adopt an American accent for talking to clients. Business is now through the roof. It's really rather fascinating.
What struck me was the pervasive sense of a work ethic from the founders down (with so many to choose from, the company is getting the people most likely to fall into this mode--if anyone slacks off, there are hundreds of potential replacements waiting. No surfing dailykos for these people). I'm not really interested in that lifestyle if it's not absolutely necessary, but it was impressive in a way.
I've sometimes observed in the discussion of outsourcing to India, on this board and elsewhere, a sort of xenophobia or contempt (wow, those people are willing to work for so little--oh and they have accents) mixed with despair (how can we compete when those people are willing to work for so little?) I don't have answers to that. India is still a very poor country, but it has certain resources that make it ideal in this situation. One--with such a large population, you can afford to pick and choose the best of the best and still have a relatively large pool of workers. Two--English is already one of the mother tongues, so you have people ready to work in fields outside of simple manufacturing (which seems to be the bulk of outsourcing to China).
I don't really want to offer more of a judgment on this. My own view is that outsourcing, like "free trade" and "globalization" is the wave of the present, for good or bad, and we're long past the point where we can hold it back artificially. Our best bet is to find ways to manage it to best serve people in our country (1st) and the world (2nd). What those are, I'm not sure, but I think that's what we need to be focusing on, rather than clinging to a past that's not going to come back.