"Vitaliy" wrote in message news:070501c90439$cbc43410$6f02a8c0@ws11... > Put another way, productivity drives wages -- wages do not drive > productivity. Want to make more money? Make yourself more productive! All other things being equal this is true. Unfortunately, many of us are now competing with off shore jobs that upper management sees as being 1/4 the cost of our jobs. In order to become more productive, and earn more pay, you've got to be at least 4x as productive as the offshore employee. There are precious few developers who are *that* productive, and they're the ones with 20+ years of experience. Luckily, the off shore employees currently have little experience (five years or less compared to an average of at least 20 years here). They're in such high demand they hop from job to job, never truly gaining much applicable experience. So, management wants to keep you on for now. They give you just enough of a raise each year to keep you employed, so you can keep training the off shore workers. I've no doubt that the long term goal of management is to eliminate development in the US. Whether they can ever reach that goal, due to the extreme difficulties of working with off shore developers half way around the world, is uncertain. Jeff -- A clever person solves a problem. A wise person avoids it. -- Einstein -- http://www.piclist.com PIC/SX FAQ & list archive View/change your membership options at http://mailman.mit.edu/mailman/listinfo/piclist