I know. It's a controversial topic right now. But why the big deal about it?

Ok. Let's back up. The company I work for uses off shore developers to help on projects. Not every project. Just some of the bigger ones. Why? Well, first, it is cost effective to do so. We aren't a huge company. With off shore, we can ramp up people quickly and don't have to worry about what happens when that project goes away (I'm a consultant. Projects come and go on a weekly basis around here). Before we started off shoring, we were struggling. We dropped over 10% of our staff in a month because of hard times.

Now, with off shoring, we have grown over the past two years by over 50%, and projections (yeah, I know) have us growing by 100% over the next 5 years. Why? Because we have the capacity to take on bigger projects. Of course, the jobs we're hiring aren't the same jobs we hired for in the past. They're actually for more skilled positions (and hence, higher pay). We don't hire people who don't have the experience we need. We need lead developers and architects who understand how to implement big systems. The "Commodity work" goes off shore. Anyone can code the easy stuff; so why pay someone a lot of money and underutilize thier skills? Our clients definitely don't want that.

So while everyone talks about how off shoring costs us jobs, I think it saved mine. And I can look around the office, and see a handful of people who are employed because of off shoring.