White-collar jobs may not be back soon

Dallas Morning News via Boston Globe ^ | August 3, 2003 | Angela Shah

[sarcasm]

But those very same forces are now serving to prolong workers' misery. More college-educated executives and managers have been cut from payrolls this last recession, compared with previous ones. And it's taking them longer to find new work.

More worrisome to them, however, is that the jobs may never come back.

[Bluntpoint]

These are dynamic times.

All the bitching and moaning will not change that fact.

I predict, when we eventually find life on other planets, the Indians will be bitching about outsourcing to Pluto.

[LS]

Race, you can't be serious. Please read SOMETHING before you post. Try reading Michael Porter's "The Competitive Advantage of Nations," which is a MASSIVE study of 10 countries (U.S., Br., France, It., Japan, Switz, Germany, Sweden, and a couple of others) and their competitive advantage.

The U.S. holds the lead in an overwhelming number of categories, especially when you consider that there are "clusters" of industrialization which involve not just one job that can be "farmed out," but networks that require people to be in the same vicinity, talk on a personal basis, and interact regularly. This simply doesn't come from India or China. The U.S. lead is in virtually EVERY major high-tech area, glass, fiber, telecom, computers, hardware, software, engineering, on and on. Sweden has a slight lead in mining and ship manufacturing. Italy has the world's market in tiles.

No one needs "seek" an American solution because it is the ONLY solution. We account for 80% of the world's Nobel Prizes in the hard sciences (including many foreign-born immigrants who now live here); we dominate, utterly dominate, the world soft-drive and hard-drive industries. We so control CONTENT on computers that it's not funny. This is the future---CONTENT and speed, and we own this.

[LS]

Sam, you are so right, and if you look at Nucor Steel, which is the most profitable/lowest cost per ton-steel in the WORLD, you will find that they have a manager-to-plant ration of UNDER one!!!

Managers are a DRAG on productivity, and you'll notice that the only sectors where managers are still growing as a % of total workforce are in academics and the GOVERNMENT!! Surprise, that both of those are unproductive.

[FITZ]

hiring lower cost DOMESTIC workers (i.e., "nurse practitioners" and "lab techs") to do in-house work in doctors' offices instead of adding expensive doctors.

When did they ever add expensive doctors to do lab work?

[LS]

But you cannot simply "reward" companies for keeping jobs that don't add value. That is how France got into the position it is in. Ditto Japan---the Japanese insisted that their corporations hold onto workers well past their ability to add value, and their industries collapsed.

[LS]

No job can be "offshored" if you are creating solutions that no one else thinks of. It all gets back to value. If you can increase productivity, you are in no danger. If you can't, sayonara.

[LS]

Actually, you can buy stocks directly from a company. SAIC has long had a policy where employees get stock. Carnegie for years purchased the stock directly of people who left his corporation.

The reason MOST people WANT to go through the NYSE is that overall it has a pretty good reputation for weeding out crooks and fly-by-night companies. For every Enron, you have 1,000 other companies that it has kept straight.

[LS]

Um, tariffs are marxist. They deny that individuals can creat their own value.

[LS]

Walmart has driven most of the "Mom and Pop" nuclear submarime manufacturers out of business.

Simply false. There are more new small businesses starting up every year that compete with Wal Mart than you could imagine. Admittedly, some are more "niche" than others, but that has always been the key to success. Apple didn't try to build a supercomputer---it went for the part of the computer market IBM didn't address.

Wal Mart cannot be competitive in everything. It's book/magazine section, for example, while huge nationally, is pathetically small in choices, and will never compete with traditional book stores or chains. The paranoia about Wal Mart is really sad.

[SSN558]

I am starting school AGAIN, this time to add an AS in EE to my resume instead of anothe CAD software that is only going to be useless in this economy!...(sigh)

The skill set in EE changes faster than CAD software, unless you are in power engineering which is pretty stable from year to year. Beware of specializing in control systems, you could spend months learning a new system and it will be obsolete by years end. When I do a control system, I always figure it is the first and last time that particuliar technology will be employed.

I branched out into structural engineering about a year ago, talk about an unchanging science. My references include Theory of Elastisity, Timoshenko (1959). Some of these old methods produce results identical to an FEA model with 500,000 nodes.

[DeFault User]

[LS]

Again, so right. If you listed the jobs lost between 1970 and 1990, you would see steel, autos, some textile, and so on. If you listed the jobs added (which were 20 million MORE than were lost) you would see computers, electrical engineering, biotech, and so on. Many of the jobs added did not EXIST in 1970! The products didn't exist, or were too new, to employ anyone.

This is why I think we haven't begun to see the real IT/tech boom yet!

[LibertyAndJusticeForAll]

Thanks from all our wacky Induhviduals... ping!

[Bluntpoint]

Of those people that I know, not one of them, in the past year, purchased their nuclear submarine from the neighborhood shoppe.

While they agree they might get more personal service from the local retailer, Walmart is still cheaper and has a better return policy on leaking nuclear reactors.

[LS]

"Hardly anyone in his forties who has been unemployed for over six months will ever get a real job again."

Baloney. America's most successful and famous entrepreneurs almost ALL started after they were middle-aged failuers: Ray Kroc didn't come across McDonald's until he was in his late 40s selling Dixie Cups; C. W. Post was a failure at everything and in a health asylum, broke, when he invented Postum and Grape Nuts; Mary Kay Ash had two kids and no husband when she started her own cosmetics company at age 50; P. T. Barnum didn't create his famous circus until age 70!!!; the guys who invented Home Depot were both in middle age and not particularly successful as I recall.

This is an EXCUSE! But age never stopped any strong-willed entrepreneur from getting a job or starting a business.

[LibertyAndJusticeForAll]

Um...
Our nation used protective tariffs for the first 200 years. You know, the first 200 most productive, most amazing, most spectacular years. When we built a middle-class the envy of the entire world. When we built a nation more prosperous and strong than any in history.
And, until recently, the Republican Party adhered to protectionist trade policies. Here are some excerpts, the links follow:

1892 Republican Party Platform excerpt:
We reaffirm the American doctrine of protection. We call attention to its growth abroad. We maintain that the prosperous condition of our country is largely due to the wise revenue legislation of the Republican congress.

We believe that all articles which cannot be produced in the United States, except luxuries, should be admitted free of duty, and that on all imports coming into competition with the products of American labor, there should be levied duties equal to the difference between wages abroad and at home. We assert that the prices of manufactured articles of general consumption have been reduced under the operations of the tariff act of 1890.

We denounce the efforts of the Democratic majority of the House of Representatives to destroy our tariff laws by piecemeal, as manifested by their attacks upon wool, lead and lead ores, the chief products of a number of States, and we ask the people for their judgment thereon.

We point to the success of the Republican policy of reciprocity, under which our export trade has vastly increased and new and enlarged markets have been opened for the products of our farms and workshops. We remind the people of the bitter opposition of the Democratic party to this practical business measure, and claim that, executed by a Republican administration, our present laws will eventually give us control of the trade of the world.


1904 Republican Party Platform excerpt:
Protection, which guards and develops our industries, is a cardinal policy of the Republican party. The measure of protection should always at least equal the difference in the cost of production at home and abroad. We insist upon the maintenance of the principle of protection, and therefore rates of duty should be readjusted only when conditions have so changed that the public interest demands their alteration, but this work cannot safely be committed to any other hands than those of the Republican party. To intrust it to the Democratic party is to invite disaster. Whether, as in 1892, the Democratic party declares the protective tariff unconstitutional, or whether it demands tariff reform or tariff revision, its real object is always the destruction of the protective system. However specious the name, the purpose is ever the same. A Democratic tariff has always been followed by business adversity: a Republican tariff by business prosperity. To a Republican Congress and a Republican President this great question can be safely intrusted. When the only free trade country among the great nations agitates a return to protection, the chief protective country should not falter in maintaining it.


1964 Republican Party Platform excerpt:
4. We hold that trade with Communist countries should not be directed toward the enhancement of their power and influence but could only be justified if it would serve to diminish their power.
5. We are opposed to the recognition of Red China. We oppose its admission into the United Nations. We steadfastly support free China.


1968 Republican Party Platform excerpt:
maintain a favorable balance of trade and balance of payments
...
It remains the policy of the Republican Party to work toward freer trade among all nations of the free world. But artificial obstacles to such trade are a serious concern. We promise hard-headed bargaining to lower the non-tariff barriers against American exports and to develop a code of fair competition, including international fair labor standards, between the United States and comparable principal trading partners.

A sudden influx of imports can endanger many industries. These problems, differing in each industry, must be considered case by case. Our guideline will be fairness for both producers and workers, without foreclosing imports.

Thousands of jobs have been lost to foreign producers because of discriminatory and unfair trade practices.

The State Department must give closest attention to the development of agreements with exporting nations to bring about fair competition. Imports should not be permitted to capture excessive portions of the American market but should, through international agreements, be able to participate in the growth of consumption.

Should such efforts fail, specific countermeasures will have to be applied until fair competition is re-established. Tax reforms will also be required to preserve the competitiveness of American goods.

The basis for determining the value of imports and exports must be modified to reflect true dollar value.


http://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/site/docs/doc_platforms.php?platindex=R1892
http://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/site/docs/doc_platforms.php?platindex=R1904
http://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/site/docs/doc_platforms.php?platindex=R1964
http://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/site/docs/doc_platforms.php?platindex=R1968

[Lessismore]

How would you feel having your X ray read by some indian or russian,deciding if you have cancer or heart blockage?

The last doctor I saw at the clinic here is Indian.

[searchandrecovery]

Um, tariffs are marxist. They deny that individuals can creat their own value.

Um, Free Trade is Marxist. This denies that governments can create a level playing field against the third-world.

[Lessismore]

Also, American companies are in a business cycle where they must upgrade their I/T to survive. They held back too long due the to terrorist threat and their aging equipment is degrading. Look for renewed spending as the cash flows in.

In the hardware area, the passage of time and the effect of Moore's law means that you can now get a lot more for a lot less. I don't think hardware spending will rise a lot.

In the licensed software area, overall revenues may also fall due to the availability of open source software for many fundamental functions, and due to the fact that many of the basic platforms that are common across firms have already been deployed.

The area that is growing is professional services, consulting and firm-specific development projects. But this is also the area targeted by the off-shore consultancies.