President Blames Unemployment On Lack Of Tech Skills

IEEE ^

[Florida_Irish]

During a Wednesday morning (July 30th) press conference, President Bush was asked a question about jobs going overseas as a result of technological innovation. His response was:

"I fully understand what you're saying. In other words, as technology races through the economy, a lot of times worker skills don't keep up with technological change."

Many people have taken his response to mean that unemployment in the high-tech sector is the result of American workers who allowed their skills to become obsolete. This is an unacceptable explanation.

[dirtboy]

Knowing GMAC, if you lost your home, they'd tack on a mortgage payment for living in your car.

Thanks for the humor break. Now, see if you have an extra keyboard to replace the one I just ruined.

[dirtboy]

Provided that we can still send the scans over to be read in India that is.

Nah, we just crank the machines to full power and all the invader's guns and tanks will be stuck to them.

[woofie]

Many people have taken his response to mean that unemployment in the high-tech sector is the result of American workers who allowed their skills to become obsolete. This is an unacceptable explanation.

Many people also believe that the tooth fairy lives in a cave in Kentucky....So?

[Dane]

Sigh, this is a populist board not a conservative board

It's kinda of like the Twilight Zone, like a mind meld of Buchcanism and Libertarian leaning IT workers on FR.

Both of those groups together make up a whopping 1% of the electorate.

[luckydevi]

Isn't it great to spend other people's money?

[clamper1797]

Are you working now my friend ???? I was out almost ten months last year ... I have literally dozens of friends and aquaintences who are either out of work or, in the case of some of my self-employed friends, are suffering very very bad economic times.

[TheSpottedOwl]

If being "conservative" means watching all the manufacturing and white collar jobs leave the country as you have some blind faith then I'm not a conservative. What does being conservative mean to you?

Luckydevi is being smug because his/her relatives in India are raking in the dough. I can't hardly wait and hear him/her scream when we cut off those offshore jobs :)

[Mr. Bird]

This is a gut-wrenching change - but the government should be working to staunch it, instead of increasing the bleeding with policies such as H1-B

Everything the government touches, with respect to jobs, goes sour. H1-B's could be one example. But the migration of jobs overseas is not the result of merely "Corporate Bigwigs" deciding to move. The same government you are asking for assistance is the government that saddles American business with costly rules and regulations, taxes, and out of control tort laws. How can a government that has screwed it up so badly already suddenly get it right?

No one here is regularly bleating for bigger government in other walks of life. Why do we think they can do a good job here?

[edsheppa]

You do not have a right to a job because you were born in America.

It's like the "pro-life" people who support human fetal research or therapeutic cloning because it might lead to a cure for themselves or someone close.

[dirtboy]

Are you working now my friend ???? I was out almost ten months last year ... I have literally dozens of friends and aquaintences who are either out of work or, in the case of some of my self-employed friends, are suffering very very bad economic times.

Yes, I am, and thank you very much for asking. I was lucky enough to find a place that's trying to insource instead of outsource - they see it as a competitive advantage in the long-haul to have better control over their operations. And, in the end, is the solution - let American workers kick global fanny. But the government shouldn't be making it easier for the competition in the short term.

[luckydevi]

The answer is not more regulation it is less regulation.

[widowithfoursons]

Wesdale. We have given away our manufacturing base, and now we are giving away our tech base. It has nothing to do with our rights as Americans. (Unless you subscribe to the outdated belief of "Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness"). We are selling our birthright, and we deserve to reap the whirlwind. Just too bad that it will be our kids and grandkids who will be paying.

[Mr. Bird]

They are not unskilled, yet they can not find employment. If people that already have the skills can't find a job, what hope does an unskilled worker have?

The short answer is that there is no difference between a worker with a skill that's not in demand and a worker with no skill at all. We got lots of good steelworkers in this country, but most of 'em aren't in the steel biz anymore.

[Dane]

Just make sure she doesn't mix some of your Ritalin in with them by mistake

Oh well I guess lame attempts at humor is what one should expect when one points out to a person who totally believes the total misconstruation of Bush's quote.

Rant on, if it feels good.(a paraphrase of a famous 60's phrase)

[LibertyAndJusticeForAll]

Well, I sent off an e-mail while I was still seething with anger. I politely explained how BofA and Siemens threatened American engineers with loss of their severance pay if they did not train their Indian replacements.
I told him that 9 million unemployed Americans have plenty of time to read about the trade deficit, outsourcing, visa workers and illegals all taking jobs once held by Americans.

[N3WBI3]

Gee thats kida funny now that you mention it. oh btw what % of the electorate did W win by last time?

[dirtboy]

No one here is regularly bleating for bigger government in other walks of life. Why do we think they can do a good job here?

It's not even that, although I do agree with the points you raised. The H1-B visa program was vastly expanded in the mid to late 1990s because we supposedly had a shortage of tech workers. Whether or not that was true at the time, it is clear we no longer have a shortage and instead have millions of American IT workers out of work. The program should be ended, and existing H1-B holders sunseted over the course of two or three years. But Bush has said nothing that I'm aware of that this program should be curtailed, and instead implies that the unemployed need more training when highly-trained and experienced tech workers can't even find jobs. THAT is the problem here - Bush doesn't even understand what the underlying problem is nowadays, and it makes him seem very out of touch to people who are trying to contend with these changes.

[luckydevi]

I wonder if they know Reagan was a fan of free trade

[RogueIsland]

If your employer can find someone to do your job for less, you need to make yourself more valuable. Life is not fair. The tech industry is growing fast and a valuable skill today does not make your job secure for very long. Learn new skills. Stay ahead of the competition. It always bothers me when people complain about jobs going overseas

You obviously have absolutely NO clue how the IT industry works right now. There plenty of very, very highly qualified people out of work right now precisely because they are, in the eyes of employers, TOO qualified. The employer would rather pay low wages to some marginally qualified scrub overseas than a highly qualified American whose expertise they are afraid they might actually have to pay for. They are simply too shortsighted to understand how much a highly skilled IT professional brings to the job beyond the basic job requirements. You can't fix it by "learning new skills" when clueless IT managers don't ahve the first effing clue what skills they actually need in a given position.