Outsourced Workers Do the Core Job. Then Everyone Acts Surprised When They Stop Caring.

A few years ago, an outsourced operations engineer was changing a script at a client site. He copied the vendor’s script, changed half the parameters, and missed one. He did not look again before running it. The client side blew up.

At the review, the cause was obvious. Later, the company stopped letting outsourced workers touch critical operations. Later still, Big Tech followed. The man said he did the same work as full-time employees but earned half the pay. Every morning he had to spend time adjusting his mindset before he could leave the house. Not long after the incident was handled, he left and joined another company, continuing to do outsourcing.

On the surface, this looks like a problem of responsibility. One layer down, the job made it hard for anyone to care over the long term.

A formal contract can never spell out everything an employee should do. How many times should a script be checked? How much should be said during a handover? Should you speak up when you notice someone else made a mistake? Should you take one more look at the system before leaving? None of this is paid for. None of it is written into the contract. None of it is measured in performance reviews. A company runs on these tiny acts of filling the gaps.

Full-time employees do them because they have an account in their head: work hard, get promoted, get a raise, do better and better in this industry. The company assumes this person will stay for years and is worth training. Neither side says it outright, but both treat the other as a long-term relationship. This is the psychological contract.

Outsourcing cuts this contract off.

An outsourced worker works at the client company. The client will not promote him, because he is not the client’s employee. The parent company cannot see him, because he is not on its turf. If he does well, the client manager will not put his name in the year-end review. If he does badly, one call from the client sends him back. His ceiling is the floor of full-time employees. Equal work, unequal pay. Different badge colors. Different system permissions. Excluded from weekly meetings. Not invited to team-building. Cafeteria seating is segregated. Over time, people withdraw to the edge themselves.

At first, many people are still ambitious. They think: work hard, maybe I can convert to full-time; maybe the client manager will like me and pull me over; maybe after a few years I can become a full-time employee. The reality is that conversion slots are extremely few, and one sentence, “headcount freeze,” dismisses them. The longer they work, the more they find that effort and reward are not proportional. Gradually, it turns into drifting one day at a time. This is not innate laziness. It is a choice after doing the math. Work more, get no more. Work well, get no promotion. Make a mistake, maybe take the blame. Keeping investment at the minimum is the most cost-effective move.

Fear can keep people from making mistakes, but fear is not a positive thing. Fear produces resentment, and resentment plants landmines. Nothing shows for a while, but over time something may blow up.

A company can operate normally not only because of processes and systems, but also because many people do work outside the contract. They take one more look at the system before leaving, say two more words during a handover, speak up when they notice someone else made a mistake, report a risk when they see one. None of this is paid for. None of it is written into the contract. Doing a little more does not necessarily make the company money. But these tiny, spontaneous, unmeasured acts of filling the gaps make up organizational redundancy.

This redundancy is like having two kidneys. With only one, you can still live, but the margin for error is much lower. Usually you cannot see the difference. But once there is pressure, a failure, an emergency, whether you have redundancy is the difference between life and death.

Redundancy has a cost. The best way to buy it is a long-term contract. Full-time employees are willing to care more because the company gives them security, an identity, a feeling that “this is my turf.” They know they are leaving, and they know the company wants them to stay. Only when both sides have long-term expectations are they willing to go one step further for each other.

The problem with outsourcing is that most companies using it neither want to spend the money nor maintain the long-term relationship. They want the sense of responsibility of full-time employees, but are only willing to pay outsourced wages. They want stability in critical positions, but only give the status of a temp worker. This is acting in bad faith.

Outsourcing keeps snowballing because it saves companies money.

Do the math from the boss’s perspective. Hiring a full-time employee at a salary of 10,000, plus social insurance, housing fund, and year-end bonus, the actual cost may head toward 15,000. Find an outsourced worker for the same job, and 6,000 does it. If something goes wrong, you can send them back anytime. If you let them go, you do not have to pay N+1 severance. After being sent back to the parent company, many just pay a base salary and make you clock in, wearing you down until you leave. In big cities, time is also a cost. Most people cannot stand it for long.

There is also a chain reaction. Your competitor uses outsourced workers, lowers costs, and dares to bid lower than you. If you do not use them, the contract gets taken. So you have to use them too. Once one company uses them, the whole industry has to follow. No one can escape. Falling product quality, rising safety incidents, and broken knowledge accumulation are future matters. The key now is to survive.

So outsourcing goes from supplementary employment to mainstream employment, spreading from marginal positions to core positions. Banks, state-owned enterprises, Big Tech, and the public sector all use outsourcing. Many people doing core work are, by status, people who might leave at any time.

This mentality also spreads to full-time employees. When full-time employees see that outsourced workers are cheaper, more obedient, and can be returned anytime, the boss naturally thinks: Why should I keep such expensive full-time employees? So full-time employees also start feeling insecure, start protecting themselves, start reducing work outside the contract. Responsibility is hollowed out further.

Some say this is moral decline. More precisely, it is the destruction of the expectation of reciprocity.

People are not born indifferent. People are willing to take responsibility because they feel this matter is related to them, their effort will be seen, and their long-term investment will be rewarded. Once this expectation is broken, people become rationally indifferent.

You let an outsourced worker do core work, but tell him: You are not one of us. You might leave at any time. No matter how well you do, you will not be promoted. If you make a mistake, you might be sent back. Then you demand that he have a sense of ownership, demand that he check one more time, demand that he treat the company’s business as his own. This is not management. This is taking advantage.

When more and more people find that long-termism loses, that being serious and responsible loses, and that drifting is the most cost-effective, the trust cost of the whole society rises. People no longer believe that working hard leads to a future. They no longer believe the company will remember their effort. They no longer believe their work will be seen. The system makes people afraid to be noble. Outsourced workers are not morally low.

Some say: If the pay is low, you can refuse. Many people have no choice. Laid off at 35, industry in decline, mortgage and car loans pressing down, outsourcing is the only option that gets you working quickly. When young, you say, “Even dogs will not do it.” Once forced onto that road, it becomes, “If dogs will not do it, I will.”

Some say: Work hard and you can convert to full-time. The reality is that conversion slots are extremely few. Many companies use conversion as a carrot, dangling it to make outsourced workers work desperately, and then dismiss them with one sentence: headcount freeze. Even if they convert, they often pay a price far beyond that of a regular full-time employee.

Some say: Outsourcing is just flexible employment; there is no need to blow it out of proportion. Reasonable outsourcing is fine. Standardized, temporary, non-core positions can improve efficiency. The problem is proliferation and abuse. Core business, critical operations, and long-term positions are also outsourced, and a two-track system of equal work with unequal pay is created. That is the source of risk.

Some also say: Full-time employees are not necessarily more responsible. Right. Institutions determine responsibility, not status. If full-time employees also face being laid off at any time, no hope of promotion, and no reward for effort, they will lie flat too. The problem sits in this employment logic that makes everyone feel insecure.

The spread of outsourcing cannot be solved by simply abolishing or allowing it.

The people most opposed to completely abolishing outsourcing may not be bosses, but the outsourced workers inside the system. They know very well that the system will not casually expand headcount. If outsourcing were completely abolished, they might lose their jobs. Companies are the same. Many have gotten used to the cost advantage brought by outsourcing. If everyone were suddenly converted to full-time, the profit statement would immediately look ugly.

The final answer will not be a one-size-fits-all solution. It will be a balance point repeatedly negotiated by society. Some companies will find that heavy use of outsourcing lowers costs, but also lowers product quality, raises accident rates, and breaks knowledge accumulation. In the end, they will start avoiding large-scale use. The proportion of outsourcing may fall, but this process will take a long time. For an individual, it may last an entire career.

If we do not want responsibility to keep being hollowed out, there are at least a few things that can be done.

Limit the proportion of outsourcing in core positions. Critical operations, core systems, and positions involving safety risks cannot be handed over long-term to people who might leave at any time. This is basic risk control.

Equal pay for equal work. The same job, the same responsibility, should come with roughly similar treatment. If you cannot make it exactly the same, at least do not pay half and still demand a sense of ownership.

Provide a path to full-time conversion. Even if slots are few, there must be clear, transparent, predictable rules, not permanent empty promises.

Two-person verification for critical operations. Accidents cannot be backstopped only by individual responsibility. Processes, permissions, testing, and review, these institutional redundancies must be added.

Improve basic protections for outsourced workers. After being sent back, they cannot just be paid a base salary to wear them down. They cannot be casually fired. Labor arbitration costs too much, and ordinary workers cannot afford the time. This itself is tolerance of violations.

Companies need to calculate the long-term account. The labor cost saved may come back doubled in the form of accidents, rework, lost customers, and broken knowledge. Outsourcing is not unusable, but you cannot outsource responsibility itself.

He goes back to the parent company and clocks in. The base salary arrives. The badge is still blue. In the client company group chat, someone posts: “Version freeze next week.” No one replies to him. The bullet fired will most likely hit you years later.