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.
If large numbers of people followed your lead, it would result in the loss of perhaps tens of thousands of high-paying American jobs. IBM is a major component of the Dow Jones Industrial average. If a major boycott took hold, the impact would likely be felt in a sinking DJIA. So, it would appear that your goal is to hurt the American economy and job outlook. Why would you want to do such a thing?
That's a counterproductive strategy. It would have the effect of damaging the American economy and destroying tens of thousands of high-paying American jobs. It would have the effect of boosting the fortunes of foreign competitors such as Fujitsu and Siemens. Rather than "forcing companies to behave", you have issued a prescription for killing the goose that lays the golden eggs. That is the usual Democrat strategy - it's surprising to see it wholeheartedly embraced by some factions within FR.
IBM isn't the Dow and the Dow isn't the economy.
I didn't give any one a pass .. I simply said they keep threatening to nuke each other .. I never gave a reason why this is happening
But hey ... Nice try in accusing me of something I didn't say ...
You may want to take a look at where Carly has moved HP manufacturing and support since she took over. They are no better than IBM.
One can easily turn that question around.
Would you like to pay more for something because those who produce it receive high salaries? Or would you be happy to buy the same product at a lower price when produced by lower paid workers?
Most everyone around here loves to trumpet the values of undiluted capitalism and the virtues of the market, severed from any social or human principles.
Well this is it. Somebody in another country can do your job for less financial reward.
Enjoy.
You make my point for me. Rather than devising a strategy that could lead to more high-paying jobs in the US, you have endorsed a Democrat-inspired slash-and-burn strategy which would do the opposite.
Imagine, for a moment, that you were interested in adding high-paying American jobs rather than in destroying them. You might then be inclined to apply your energies towards productive measures such as:
- helping to make American business more competitive by reducing government burdens such as over-taxation and over-regulation
- working towards tort reform to reduce the "lawyer tax" disincentive, etc.
Instead, we see other posters who are, for example, engaging in misguided efforts such as steering their purchases to HP, which is embarked on a headlong rush to overseas outsourcing and to misusing the H1B program in order to keep American tech worker salaries low.
Which will benefit those of us who buy PC's.
I'm not for keeping a few quaint jobs here in the U.S. at the expense of overall economic development. The money that is ultimately saved by consumers--especially business consumers--through this outsourcing will be invested in new companies and new technologies and will thus create more jobs and real economic growth. To protect jobs that are better sent elsewhere does not help economic growth and is counterproductive.
Besides, IBM offers a great severance package. Some of these programmers--the more talented ones--may go on to start their own businesses with the money, and then employ still others.
Your scenario makes no sense whatsoever. Why would any company want to add high-paying jobs of any kind here if they can get the work done by low-paid people overseas? Cut taxes, cut regulations, cut what you want. All that would be is additonal profits on top of the cheaper foreign labor.
Go back and follow the chain of posts, and you will see that I was responding to a post that advocated selecting a few companies and boycotting them in order to destroy 10% to 25% of their business. Are you claiming that that would not have any effect on the Dow, and/or that would not have any effect on the economy? Boycotting our way to economic growth is a bit like taxing ourselves to economic growth - both are Democrat tactics that are sure to produce the opposite.
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