More IT layoffs, but not in India

Here's globalization for you in light of the Microsoft announcement that 5,000 are to be laid off:

The layoff, however, would not be impacting the Indian operations. "It's not going to impact us. No job cuts in India," a Microsoft India spokesperson said in New Delhi.

I'm unclear as to the answer here, other than more domestic layoffs mean less income to actually purchase Microsoft product.

Information technology is a referral or word of mouth business. No one begrudges software companies having operations in India, as there is a real business need for 24/7 development. But when the layoffs are not universally felt, than one has to question their loyalty to the Microsoft product stack. The new model for a startup company is not spending on expensive software licenses in order to be able to have budget to actually spend on human beings to write customizations.

In our own state, we had the infamous Judicial Information System. So while there's plenty of laid off Microsoft talent soon to be looking for work, your tax dollars just paid for software built overseas. I'm not sure how that dovetails with the state's plan to getting people back to work, but there you have it.

It all becomes one vicious spiral downward for all involved. One wonders when IT workers will finally don longshoreman's caps and stop viewing themselves as superior "knowledge workers" not constrained by the forces of history.