Posted on 04/17/2007 5:48:48 PM PDT by A. Pole
The master plan, it seems, is to move perhaps 40 million high-skill American jobs to other countries. U.S. workers have not been consulted.
Princeton economist Alan Blinder predicts that these choice jobs could be lost in a mere decade or two. We speak of computer programming, bookkeeping, graphic design and other careers once thought firmly planted in American soil. For perspective, 40 million is more than twice the total number of people now employed in manufacturing.
Blinder was taken aback when, sitting in at the business summit in Davos, Switzerland, he heard U.S. executives talk enthusiastically about all the professional jobs they could outsource to lower-wage countries. And he's a free trader.
[...]
Ron Hira has studied the dark side of the H-1B program. A professor of public policy at the Rochester Institute of Technology, he notes that the top applicants for visas are outsourcing companies, such as Wipro Technologies of India and Bermuda-based Accenture.
The companies bring recruits in from, say, India to learn about American business. After three years here, the workers go home better able to interact with their U.S. customers.
In other cases, companies ask their U.S. employees to train H-1B workers who then replace them at lower pay. "This is euphemistically called, 'knowledge transfer,' " Hira says. "I call it, 'knowledge extraction.' "
[...]
The companies fret that not enough young Americans are studying science and technology. Well, cutting the pay in those fields isn't much of an incentive, is it?
[...]
This vision for a competitive America seems to be a few rich U.S. executives commandeering armies of foreign workers. They don't have to train their domestic workforce. They don't have to raise pay to American standards.
[...]
(Excerpt) Read more at seattletimes.nwsource.com ...
My experience has been that the 'bargain' usually ends up consuming more resources on this side of the world (US) than what would have been used if there was no 'bargain' (usually, one or two on the US side to actually do the work, and another 2 or more to fix the screwups).
One thing I can say: there is one culture over there that should focus on graduating salesmen and marketers,i.e., very little scruples about misleading prospects.
Unscrupulous sales and marketing seems to be a universal constant. You can find them everywhere. It's the honest ones that are scarce.
If the citizens of Lubbock want some lame franchise pizza badly enough then they'll pay more.
Did I also mention our cost of living here is like 20% less then the national average
If no one is showing up to fill the position, what does that tell you?
Well our unemployment rate is like 3.5% so I am guessing because there is no one to fill it. As it is, about 1/3 of our jobs are filled from out of town college students. I would probably say taking out college kids who are looking for part time work, our real unemployment rate is probably about 2-3%. I don’t think we could get any closer to full employment then we are now.
And if they don’t take the price hike, then sales will fall and that position will be scrapped so problem solved! /s
it will be the civil workers keeping the economy going, and paying most of the taxes as well, at least one can hope....( I say this because I find federal/state/school/etc pensions and medical benefits to be outrageous seeing as most people nowadays will have neither)
Posts like yours being relegated to chat are the reason I don’t come around here much anymore.
I’ve seen no real shortage of jobs in my field(Computer Science) for when I graduate in late ‘08, in fact I already know of a couple companies that are completely unable to find competent programmers. I get emails pretty often from professors on campus forwarding career opportunites to CS students.
According to my professors that’ve been around for a while, ever since the .com bust at the turn of the century, all the people searching for cash stopped going for the computer science and related degrees, and so now there’s hardly anybody left to be hired. I believe my school has something like less than 40% of the number of CS majors that they had in 1999, while the school itself has nearly doubled in size.
Do you think that they have right to steady supply of cheap labor subsidized by the rest of society if their business model does not work?
Speaking of which I noticed that the pound is now selling for over 2 US dollars, think the falling dollar has anything to do with cheap labor and cheap inports? beef chuck now selling at almost 5 bucks a pound, used to be 1.49/lb. Everything is wonderful, ecomony booming, inflation non-existent, yea right.
I have “some college”, no degree. Hard to fill positions include JAVA average wage, low expectations of one who claims to program in JAVA ; COBOL high wage; DBA very high wage; Business Analyst wage varies from average to very high depending on experience.
I’ve mentored young conservatives (some at other web sites) who have some college, no degree, no experience and they obtained entry level IT positions in the $50,000 to $70,000 range.
It would be nice, but not possible, to have an “unfilled” rate. 60% of jobs are filled by word of mouth, friend to friend, email friend to email friend, etc.
In the past, most jobs were not in the Classifieds, nor in the unemployment office. Now, most jobs are not listed at DICE, MONSTER, CAREERBUILDER, HOTJOBS, and other dot coms.
How many conservatives even bother to send their resume and check CONSERVATIVEJOBS.COM ?
Hiring foreign politicians? That’s like Hilary in New York? Or like Ahnold in Californika.
Although what you say may be true anecdotally sometimes. It is also not true many times.
- Conservatives I met doing COBOL-DB2 took a couple classes in C++, Java, Oracle and other cheaper paying specialties. Those people refuse six figure legacy positions (which has always been where the money is because we are judged more productive). These people inexperienced in new technology turn up their nose at jobs that need them and are seeking high salaries in new careers that just aren’t there at that salary rate.
- This snobbery is prevalent on many levels. As I implied earlier in this thread, I’ve had well qualified people turn up their nose and working “in the middle of the corn fields”. No pay level will change that.
An big office complex wanted to re-carpet everything ... a 2 year project. I suggested to an unemployed, near illiterate public school product, friend (who owed my money) that he take the job. He was young, healthy, fully qualified for a job that only required that and no education. His answer was that “He did not do SPIC work”.
After a hail storm insurance companies paid claims for thousands of new roofs and siding in my suburb (I live in 3 places at the same time). The contractors put ads in the MSM, Black and Spanish newspapers; and in the Unemployment office bulletin boards of employers seeking employees, and in the web site of the unemployment office. The only requirement was people willing and able to go on suburban roofs and work hard and get dirty ... and not have a hangover or be under the influence in a way that would make them incapable of doing the job.
Among a dozen contractors, not a single Black, white or Asian citizens even applied for any of the jobs, not even for the “estimator” jobs that required some education and communication/sales ability. The only people who applied were a small number of Eastern European illegal immigrants and Hispanics (both citizen, legal and mostly illegal). Many from the same family were hired by word of mouth without ever seeing the many help wanted ads. The first guy got a finder’s fee for bringing in his brother-in-law and cousin to work with him. The contractors were desperate. The homeowners were desperate to get the roofs fixed before there was further water damage below the roof.
In those entry level construction positions they rapidly moved up from $15/hr to $25/hr if they showed up on time and actually worked. That was August 2004. Some of those guys now have 3 years construction experience; own their own companies and are contractors themselves now. They’ve been buying those same suburban houses in my area that they previously roofed. And they are mostly buying on conventional mortgages with no subsidy, no FHA, just a friendly bank (my bank) that loans to illegals.
You get it. Immigration is the enemy of Offshoring.
Offshoring is the enemy of immigration.
Being a “good corporate citizen” is one of the things that made them less competitive.
It is possible for the size of the pie to grow; for productivity to grow; and for all of us (who try) to grow economically.
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