Thousands of federal jobs may go abroad, U.S. says

Statesman ^ | 9/11/03 | Marilyn Geewax

[Mark Felton]

WASHINGTON -- President Bush's push to outsource hundreds of thousands of federal jobs could end up shifting some high-tech employment to foreign workers, administration and industry officials said Thursday.

Although Bush has been calling for the creation of more jobs, his administration has been promoting a plan to open roughly 425,000 federal jobs to competition from private companies.

Harris Miller, president of the trade group Information Technology Association of America, nodded "yes" Thursday when asked whether that move inevitably would mean some federal jobs would go to contractors or subcontractors operating over- seas.

The use of offshore labor has become increasingly controversial as the unemployment rate has remained stubbornly high. The U.S. economy has lost 2.6 million jobs since Bush became president.

Many unemployed technology workers are blaming their job losses on employers -- including Dell Inc., Intel Corp., Motorola Inc., Computer Sciences Corp. -- who send work to low-wage countries, such as India and Ireland.

In his Labor Day address, Bush said that stemming the loss of jobs has become his top domestic policy goal. But while meeting with the Chamber of Commerce in Kansas City, Mo., on Thursday, Bush also said that although there's a "down- side in the short term" when employers slash labor costs, "over the long term, productivity lifts Americans' wages."

Miller, of the tech trade group, said that last year several states considered legislation to block the movement of government jobs overseas. Although none of the bills passed, the 2004 legislative season might bring more such attempts at both the state and federal levels.

Government and industry leaders argue that such laws would be bad for taxpayers and businesses alike.

"It plays into the hands of other governments around the world that do not want to open their government IT business to allow an EDS or an IBM or an Accenture to come in and compete." Miller said.

People everywhere worry about local jobs going to foreigners, said William Sweeney, vice president for global government affairs for Plano-based Electronic Data Systems Corp., the nation's second-largest computer services and consulting firm.

But increasingly, high-tech companies must use the "global teaming" of workers to get jobs done at the lowest cost and highest quality, he said.

Miller compared the trend in computer services to what already has happened with computer hardware. For example, a customer may purchase a computer made by Round Rock-based Dell, but the product contains components from many countries.

"It's like the United Nations in there," he said.

Bruce Mehlman, assistant secretary for technology policy at the Commerce Department, and Drew Ladner, chief information officer at the Treasury Department, said at the briefing they did not know how many federal government jobs ultimately might go offshore. But they said decisions about outsourcing to foreign workers would take security concerns into account.

mgeewax@coxnews.com

[Mark Felton]

I want my tax dollars back.

[MarkL]

While I do support the concept of "privatization," does anyone else get the feeling that there's something really wrong when the government contracts it's jobs out to foreign workers?

Mark

[Jack Wilson]

Maybe we could get cheaper legislators overseas.

[CSM]

Sure could, we already have judges decisions being outsourced to foriegn lands!

[Mark Felton]

I wonder why this got bumped off the Breaking News.

This is news to me, and it is a huge issue.

[SolutionsOnly]

It's happened before. remember whne the Japanese were running all the concession operations in out National Parks? The Reagan Administration put an end to that.

[azhenfud]

Outsourcing our Federal Government? Might as well. Couldn't speak their language anyway.

[lilylangtree]

Hold it! The push to move these jobs out of the country into countries that refuse to hire Americans ticks me off. This is an outrage.

[TopDog2]

Bump

[SamiGirl]

Say it ain't so, Uncle Sam! I lost my IT job because of outsourcing to India.

At the rate at which jobs are flying out of the US, pretty soon the only thing for us to do will be flipping burgers and selling insurance to each other.

So much for national security. Disgusting.

[oceanview]

when is Rove going to realize this is the #1 area of concern for a large number of republican voters? after Dean is sworn in I guess...

[Mark Felton]

This is an outrage.

YES it is! This ought be Breaking News! This is orders of magnitude more important to Americans than Arafat being expelled by Israel.

This is a very serious conservative political issue.

[TopDog2]

If you look at the postings for government jobs, the first thing you will notice is that the ones that require a college education aren't, for a large part, open to the public at large, but only to those already in government employ, and now they are going to give those jobs to foreigners? Something is very wrong here.

[TopDog2]

If you look at the postings for government jobs, the first thing you will notice is that the ones that require a college education aren't, for a large part, open to the public at large, but only to those already in government employ, and now they are going to give those jobs to foreigners? Something is very wrong here.

[TopDog2]

If you look at the postings for government jobs, the first thing you will notice is that the ones that require a college education aren't, for a large part, open to the public at large, but only to those already in government employ, and now they are going to give those jobs to foreigners? Something is very wrong here.

[At _War_With_Liberals]

It didn't happen yet.

Maybe it won't.

[Political Junkie Too]

...does anyone else get the feeling that there's something really wrong when the government contracts it's jobs out to foreign workers?

Is it really that, or is the government contracting the work to private American companies that then choose to subcontract the work to foreign workers? If it is the former, then it is a shame. If it is the latter, then cracking down on L-1 and H1-B visas would be in order.

-PJ

[OPS4]

Yes, We are being sold out!
We must voice our opinions on this
to the Government through our
congress.
Ops4 God Bless America!

[comebacknewt]

It's certainly one way to diminish the power of federal sector labor unions.

My guess is that is what is driving the administration this issue.

[Mark Felton]

It didn't happen yet. Maybe it won't.

It may not happen if conservative activists raise h3ll with the administration and with their congressmen.

I do not want my tax dollars funding foreign workers.