I had a drink with a friend coming back from Toronto tonight. He moved to Toronto a few years ago when his company closed down the Vancouver office, outsource all the work to China. He told me that his company is going to close the research and developement center in Toronto and move the operation to Poland. He is working in software, which hit badly by the latest oursoucing trend. It is hard to competite with programmers and engineers in the third world countries who only cost 1/3 of your salary. Althought I am relatively safe working as a hardware engineer where the tools cost much more than my salary, I can feel effect of out sourcing to the high tech industry. I am not a protectionist, I don’t think we can resist the force of the invisible hand. The only job security we have is to be more productive to justify our salary, reduce the salary to stay in competition or move up the food chain to a position that can’t be outsourced. The good thing is the total supply of qualified engineers in the world is limited. The pool of engineers in Indian or China will eventually exhuasted and the global job market will reach an equalibium state, where they no longer have the cost advantage. I read an article from the Economist that it will only take 10 years from here to there. The key is not seeing them as your competitors, instead you should put yourself in the position be their superior. You can only move up if the primard grows bigger. If there is a in flow many less qualified engineers, shouldn’t you able to floated up the ladder with the influx putting them underneath yourself?