What a load of crap... Folks WERE 'retooling' themselves a few years ago for the IT boom that has now busted.
Explain to me the 'sense of fairness' in employing 5k per year engineers in India that were schooled in US universities on freebee foreign student programs? We've been sold out by greedy multi-corps who use the US military for protection and then screws the US citizens.
I would ask: Do you shop at the most expensive grocery store in your neighborhood, or buy the most expensive item (when you have several alternatives)? I would think not, unless you have unlimited finances.
Our unemployed IT workers are the buggy whip makers, or transistor manufacturer employees, or steelworkers of earlier generations. People must re-tool, relocate or resign themselves to obsolescence. This is fact. The government is not going to step in and forbid companies from sending jobs overseas.
We are sold out by the govt. that allows this change to occur. It is easier to promote "freetrade" and "international cooperation" and "most favored nation status" than to stem the torrent of job and manufacturing losses we are seeing.
Realize that the american worker - both white and blue collar and small business owners are supporting the global economy with the sacrifices they are making.
My loss of business ( as a woman owned - small business manufacturer) to China, Singapore or Mexico is a "sacrifice" being made for me by the feds. The Congress is buying the silence and and global peace by paying off cooperating countries by allowing cheap imports to poach on the american economy.
We are all supporting "global peace" by allowing the chinese to produce, without EPA OSHA IRS or FDA oversight, products to sell in the US for cheap. Without govt. interference the US would be as competitive as the foreign pirates and wage-slave employers.
I guess we can call ourselves heroes for being the sacrificial lambs of the new world order.
Today that same tekkie works for me as an employee for far less money, but still significantly more than some of the offshore programmers I use - and yet I'm looking for the first opportunity to give him a raise because, due to cultural factors, he's extremely productive compared to his foreigh counterparts.
There are two sides to this coin, and if there's anything at all to be miffed about it's that technology was touted by the government as being the mecca for employment for the fifteen years learing up to the bust.
I somehow doubt that fairness enters into any businessman's decision making.
Perhaps workers of the world should unite?
It's a tough situation, but it is a corporation's JOB to make money. It's what the shareholders expect and demand. Unions in this country have created a workforce that works too little, whines too much, and demands too much pay. The companies have responded in the only way possible. Unfortunately, lots of good, hard-working people do get caught up in the falling tide, from where it's very difficult to see the big picture and what's really behind the problems.
As someone else has already said, when we find our ships sinking, we must re-evaluate and re-tool, whether we're 23 or 43 or 53. Fair? This world isn't fair. This country is less fair by the day. We must adjust. Or sink.
MM