It's India calling for US white collar exodus

NEW DELHI: The United States of America is currently facing a double whammy, thanks to the growing tide of "outsourcing" worldwide. While high-paying tech jobs are moving overseas - especially to India, US workers are being replaced by their less demanding (in terms of dollars) foreign counterparts.

Just as millions of American manufacturing jobs were lost in the 1980s and 1990s, it's now turn for the white-collar American jobs to disappear. Foreign nationals on special work visas are filling some positions but most jobs are simply contracted out overseas.

A US media report said that till now nearly half-a-million American tech jobs have already found their way offshore, and India has been the hottest spot for these migrants. The other destinations include Philippines, Malaysia and China.

A survey done by Gartner Inc. says that one out of 10 jobs in the US computer services and software industry could shift to lower-cost emerging markets by the end of 2004.

Research director at Forrester Research, John McCarthy, who has studied the exodus of white-collar jobs overseas, was quoted as saying in ABC TV, "The train has left the station, the cows have left the barn, the toothpaste is out of the tube... you're not going to turn the tide on this in the same way we couldn't turn the tide on the manufacturing shift."

After all, it's all about cost savings that matters. Indians are all working at a fraction of the cost paid to the American workers. For example, American computer programmers earn about $60,000, while their Indian counterparts only make $6,000.

California-based consulting company - NeoIT - that advises American firms interested in "offshoring" jobs previously held by Americans feels, "They need to significantly reduce their cost of doing business."

While, Wipro's Vivek Paul notes that American workers might resent the "offshoring" trend, but all Americans will benefit in the long run.

You forgot - You can just change careers, as many will tell you here. Just find a new career after 10, 15, 20 years honing your skills at your last job.

I've done it, and expect that I'll do it again. My father did it--TWICE. Gosh, LOTS of people do it every day.

Well good for you. I am in the process of doing this but it takes time unless you don't mind $10 per hour and can live on it. Anybody that claims they shifted overnight from one skilled profession to another at a similar competitive salary is probably just a good bull$hit artist that will be quickly exposed.

Yea, that's right - overnight, shouldn't take more than a minute.

That pesky eating thing should be a good motivator.

And of course, just keep repeating all of the "global economy", "wake up and smell the capitalism", "just maintaining competitive edge", "they're all international companies now" mantras as you lose everything you ever worked for as I am right now.

If you're "losing everything you ever worked for," then you never had it in the first place. Yet another American discovers that he doesn't actually own anything except the debts he ran up spending on his "lifestyle."

What do you mean by that? - I never had it in the first place? And what the hell do you know about my "lifestyle"? I have lost investments and tangible personal property, but mostly straight out cash. My lifestyle would bore the hell out of most people. Never bought a house, never married or started a family, old car, no vacations in 5 years more than 3 days - all of this by choice. I knew that any of these things would take money that might be needed by my company. My previous business was very successful for a few years right up to the time I sold it. I could have bought the "big house" with cash, a nice car, started a family...etc. Instead I started another company and hired a few good people. Through a variety of circumstances it has all gone to hell and the company and I are broke. Regrets? Many, I should have pulled the plug when several of our key customers went out of business and stiffed us on payment killing our cash reserve. I should have just closed the doors and let everyone go. I could have walked away debt free with plenty of money in the bank to find a new career / business opportunity.

It'll give you a warm feeling for a moment while you are realizing that money really is the most important thing in life when you are out of it.

As more than one sage FReeper has observed, "Don't live within your means--live UNDER your means."

Today's Free Trade is NOT about the free market. The free market is the system our founders based our commerce on, where the intrinsic, underlying moral values of the people involved in the free market governed the equitable, free exchange of goods and services for other goods and services or currency.

Amen, Jeff!

And not only are our economy and our trade policies no longer free, but what we have chosen as the focus of both is potentially deadly.

During Alan Greenspan's most recent testimony before the House Financial Services Committee he lectured -- condescendingly -- that we Americans need to get used to the fact that our 'new economy' is a 'cerebral economy' (He didn't use the word 'cerebral,' but I'll be darned if I can remember the exact adjective. At any rate, it had the same general meaning). He went on to explain that we have progressed to the point where we no longer have to rely on manufacturing tangible, nuts-and-bolts products in order to thrive as a society.

My reaction to that statement bordered on terror. I had always considered this man to be simply inept. Now I suspect he is much more cunning -- and agenda-driven. And his agenda is not focused on benefiting America.

I am sick of so-called economic 'pundits' applauding the fact that we have evolved -- a term that generally connotes progress, or movement to a higher plane -- into a 'service-based' economy. They condescendingly make note of the fact that we no longer really have to manufacture -- or compete in the manufacture -- of such mundane 'things' as steel, farm machinery, automobiles, construction equipment, heating/cooling equipment, electronics, and the like (i.e., nuts and bolts).

They are right about the fact that we have become a service-based economy. They are dead wrong about the fact that we should be proud (not to mention secure) about the fact that we manufacture fewer and fewer of the necessities of life .... and liberty.

Greenspan himself basked in the glow of the fact that, as a result of his manipulative monetary policy, serial refinancing has been responsible for a large portion of our recent economic activity. When the nation's (puported) leading economic guru feels the need to point to the refinancing of private/corporate/government debt as the foremost sign of healthy economic activity, there's trouble in River City.

We have become a society focused on communication, retail and wholesale trade, finance, real estate, education, health and welfare, recreation, personal services, and accommodations. We talk, write, schedule, transfer money, bureaucratize, push paper, and arrange things.

We design and build very little anymore.

Yet we live in a world in which terrorism -- and the emergence, and increasing power, of serious ideological enemies -- is a real and present danger, and threatens to be so for the foreseeable future. Imagine your own terrorist scenario -- i.e., What do you see as a horrific act, with long-term catastrophic effects, that could be perpetrated on this country? Now ask yourself, what would be needed in order to (1) recover from the attack, and (2) see to it that a recurrence is inconceivable?

Will talking, writing, scheduling, transferring money, bureaucratizing, pushing paper, and arranging things go a long way toward defending and protecting our liberties .... when the world finally acknowledges the fact that 'weapons of mass destruction' is not simply a political phrase of convenience -- and that regimes led by evil men will continue to barter with one another to obtain them?

Or will sophisticated technology, weaponry/intelligence/aircraft electronics, methods of transportation, methods of heating and cooling our homes, the means to repair infrastructure, the wherewithal to grow, harvest, and preserve our food, the means of transporting ourselves from one place to another, waterpurification methods, health/lifesaving devices, and communications equipment prove to be far more valuable in preparing ourselves to defend against (and recover from potential attacks by) the Saddam Husseins/Kim Jong Ils/Osama bin Ladens/Muammar Qaddafis of this world (and their future ideological progeny)?

If the answer to the above is ‘yes’ .... and we are forced to depend on the likes of China, Japan, Hong Kong, South Korea, Brazil (or any of the endless list of other less-than-America-friendly countries that have wisely decided that a manufacturing economy is essential to survival in these troubling times) to provide us with the necessities of life (in the absolute literal sense) ... our glorious service-based economy will be the death of us (in the absolute literal sense).

We can survive economically for a time (England and Germany have), but our days of economic greatness are past. We have apathetically subscribed to the message of the elite leftist economic Pied Pipers, and sold our once thriving birthright in the process.

What a collection of greedy fools, amoral opportunists, frauds, cheats and liars we have running thegovernment and economic system in the USA these days. General Douglas MacArthur's "Duty, Honor, Country," has been changed to "Amoral Opportunism, Deceit and Globalism," by the current crowd in power. People in the USA today are like the peasants of the Middle Ages, looking at Roman monuments and not being able to read the Latin. How our Founding Fathers would weep at we have done to their Republic.

A nation gets the kind of behavior it tolerates and encourages .... The idea the game will one day end is beyond our comprehension. The foreigners are watching. The foreigners see our 44 trillion in government liabilities. They see our 500 billion dollar trade deficit. They see our 1.7 trillion dollars in personal credit card debt, our trillions in home mortgages, our weakening dollar, our Imperial arrogance and they make judgments. It is their judgment, not ours, which will decide the exact day the illusion called the United States economy will end. The day will come like a tidal wave on a beach full of sunbathing fools. The fundamentals of economic reality are not mocked forever. Consequences are coming .... Doug McIntosh

I comprehend (understatement) your speculation that your alma mater may as well adopt the ‘Have a nice day’ motto. It seems appropriate (just superficial, unrealistic, escapist, and catchy enough) for most of our institutions of higher (?) learning today. I may even write Carnegie-Mellon and suggest that they grab it, too.

P.S. to this thread:

The latest government jobs report was issued moments ago. As usual, it is laughable (if you are an American …. and a masochist).

The number of manufacturing jobs is down, but the unemployment rate has fallen, too.

Note: Government methods of calculating unemployment are real scientific. If you recently graduated from college and can’t find employment, you are not considered unemployed. If you have been unemployed longer that your unemployment compensation lasts (i.e., your government-provided safety net expires), you are no longer considered unemployed. If you are working part time because you have given up hope of finding a real job, you are no longer considered unemployed.

(etc.)

The real unemployment rate is closer to ten percent than the six percent the government claims.

Note, today (one in the latest list of warm and fuzzy economic announcements): Sun Microsystems has announced that it is doubling the size of its software development center (which employs 300+ engineers, and is the main design center for the Netscape browser, among other things) in Beijing.

I’m so happy for China.

~ joanie

THE EMPLOYMENT SITUATION: JULY 2003

Payroll employment has declined for the past 6 months. Job losses continued in manufacturing, while temporary help and other administrative services added workers.
The unemployment rate was 6.2 percent in July; the number of unemployed persons was 9.1 million....
There were 2.0 million unemployed persons who had been looking for work for 27 weeks or longer, about the same level as in June. They represented 21.7 percent of the total unemployed.
The civilian labor force decreased by 556,000 in July to 146.5 million. This decline follows an increase of a similar magnitude in June. The labor force participation rate fell to 66.2 percent. This matches the recent low for the series, previously reached in March. In July, total employment was down slightly to 137.5 million, and the employment-population ratio declined to 62.1 percent...
In July, about 1.6 million persons (not seasonally adjusted) were marginally attached to the labor force, little changed from a year earlier. These individuals wanted and were available to work and had looked for a job sometime in the prior 12 months. They were not counted as unemployed, however, because they did not actively search for work in the 4 weeks preceding the survey. Of the 1.6 million, 470,000 were discouraged workers who were not currently looking for work specifically because they believed no jobs were available for them. The other 1.1 million marginally attached had not searched for work for reasons such as child-care or transportation problems.

Again, Joanie, I apologize for not responding to this excellently written post on this thread. You always have such a succinct and articulate way of putting things. Somehow, I missed replying...so here goes now.

Greenspan said...

we no longer have to rely on manufacturing tangible, nuts-and-bolts products in order to thrive as a society

Two things with respect to this very revealing abd very foolish comment (so foolish and historically blind that I cannot belive for an instant he really believes it)...

1) If we no longer can rely on ourselves to do this, then we must unavoidably rely on someone else to do it for us...and history teaches us that there is terrible risk in so doing. As you know, that is one of the things Dragon's Fury is all about.

2) It occurs to me, that perhaps Greenspan is telling us the exact truth...we have progressed to this point...but according to whose plan, and to what end? Perhaps they are telegraphing to us that it will not be too long before we really don't need all of those manufactured goods and high tech gadgetry, so why make it here anyway.

Pardon the digression and slip into the bunker in point two...but there are sure enough enemies to our Republic, to our liberty and to our way of life in this world, both foreign and domestice, who want to see just that happen to us.

The current economic policies (among so many others) will lead us there IMHO.

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