Posted on 12/15/2003 9:41:06 AM PST by neverdem
Mon Dec 15,12:14 AM ET
In one of the largest moves to "offshore" highly paid U.S. software jobs, International Business Machines Corp. (NYSE:IBM - News) has told its managers to plan on moving the work of as many as 4,730 programmers to India, China and elsewhere, Monday's Wall Street Journal reported.
delayed 20 mins - disclaimer Quote Data provided by Reuters
The unannounced plan, outlined in company documents viewed by The Wall Street Journal, would replace thousands of workers at IBM facilities in Southbury, Conn., Poughkeepsie, N.Y., Raleigh, N.C., Dallas, Boulder, Colo., and elsewhere in the U.S.Already, the managers have been told, IBM has hired 500 engineers in India to take on some of the work that will be moved.
IBM calls its plan, first presented internally to some midlevel managers in October, "Global Sourcing." It involves people in its Application Management Services group, a part of IBM's giant global-services operations, which comprise more than half IBM's 315,000 employees.
IBM's plan, still under development, will take place over a number of months in stages. About 947 people are scheduled to be notified during the first half of the coming year that their work will be handled overseas in the future. It isn't yet clear how many of the other 3,700 jobs identified as "potential to move offshore" in the IBM documents will move next year or some time later.
However, the fate of some of the targeted jobs isn't certain: IBM managers still haven't figured out whether all of the work the jobs represent can be performed just as well abroad. The jobs involve updating and improving software for IBM's own business operations.
Some workers are scheduled to be informed of the plan for their jobs by the end of January. After that they will be expected to train an overseas replacement worker in the U.S. for several weeks. The IBM workers marked for replacement have 60 days to find another job inside the company, likely to be a difficult task at a time when IBM is holding down hiring.
IBM declined to comment on what it called "internal presentations."
Wall Street Journal Staff Reporters William M. Bulkeley and Peter Fritsch contributed to this article.
Um, whether or not you spice up your statements with "Period.", your line of argument is unconvincing. It is one and the same as the "do something, anything" approach that got Clinton elected. I understand the sentiment, I just can not find any rational basis to support unthinking mob behavior that generates counterproductive results. If your goal is preserving American jobs, then taking actions that are guaranteed to hurt American jobs is simply the wrong approach. It may make you feel good as you buy your HP server or laptop out of righteous indignation, but it is a wrongheaded, knee jerk reaction that will work against your professed goal. But, this is probably a dead horse already, so I guess that I should be merciful and just let it be...
As I've stated before when the subject of job loss and outsourcing comes up, I advise all people entering college not to consider a scientific or engineering career (and that includes medicine). The only profession that has a long-term future is (tort) law - especially when it involves international trade. As we decimate the professional middle class, only the preditors and vultures will prosper. Seems like our young people don't need much prompting by the way - the engineering classes in major universities are all filled with foreign students and the law schools are overflowing with Americans. They got the message.
LOL! My business, which utilizes decidedly non-IBM solutions, is up 20% 4Q with no slack in contracts for 1Q and 2Q '04.
I guess that I should be merciful and just let it be...
Yes, TE, you should quit while you're a behind.
Also, companies like IBM make themselves more viable in the long run by cutting costs, so that the rest of the jobs continue to exist.
I think that should read "Also, companies like IBM make their executives fatter bonuses and bigger golden parachutes by offshoring, so that the rest of the American jobs can be traitorously exported to third world labor pest holes at a later date."
This is the wrong question. We don't keep jobs in this country by preventing them from going elsewhere. That's like trying to make the economy stand still. We keep them here by creating them here.
This is how it has always happened in the past. Otherwise, we would have at least 30% unemployment today, when you consider how many jobs have been lost in the American manufacturing, mining and agricultural economy in the last 50 years. Yet we're not even close to that. We enjoy unprecedented convenience, comfort and health. The same will come in the future as long as Americans continue to produce ideas or supply the means and know-how to put other people's ideas into action.
We have a head start on this because we are so advanced as to have the leisure to keep our eyes open for the next big thing. It's true, there are no guarantees. But it's pointless to try to stop the train by standing in front of it.
Why don't we have 30% unemployment today, considering all the mining, manufacturing, and agricultural jobs that have been lost to overseas in the last 50 years?
Actually, to the extent the resources are 'freed up for investment' there is no logical reason for the Resources EVER again to go individuals and businesses 'here at home' because the life-style cost of living of our people is 10,000 times higher than those of the Chinese slaves. The 'Resources' will have developed a taste and a habit of going to the cheapest labor which will always be China...until they defeat us in World War IV. Which may be a lot sooner than you realize.
In the interim, the logic of your position is that Americans should live in mud huts and boxes, and eat the rats in the streets. Then they would be 'competitive'. I'm sure that would make them feel ever so much better.
Good advice. We are near the end of the long Pax Americana.
Simple. First, when subemployment and non-counted unemployeds are added in, we probably do have about a 11-12% unemployment rate. So it is bad enough already.
Second, an historical fact that the Cato-ites ignore. Protectionist Quotas implemented by Ronald Reagan to protect Steel, Automobiles etc. kept those industries alive against a concerted foreign effort to eradicate them. Today, we still have a lot of foreign auto companies placing plants here...but for no other reason. But I predict when the WTO gets around to it, that will all end, and we will see 40% and higher unemployment here after the U.S. automobile industry is relocated to China. The WTO will prevent high-wage societies from doing anything to bolster their position against the race-to-bottom crowd. And enemies from within, such as Cato will actively act as accomplices with the foreign-funded and directed lobbying campaigns to prevent the U.S. from defending itself. Hence, this assault will have no happy ending for U.S. workers by and large. The rare individuals who start new enterprises and make them actually work so they don't get enslaved to the mom and pop shop are just that. The majority of the dislocateds prefer...and the majority likely need employment and stability.
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