Posted on 08/03/2003 7:42:08 AM PDT by RockyMtnMan
Michael Emmons thought he knew how to keep a job as a software programmer.
"You have to continue to keep yourself up to speed," he said. "If you don't, you'll get washed out."
Up to speed or not, Emmons wound up being "washed out" anyway. Last summer, he moved his family from California to Florida for the Siemens Co., makers of electronics and equipment for industries. Not long after, Emmons and 19 other programmers were replaced by cheaper foreign workers.
Adding insult to injury, Emmons and the others had to train their replacements.
"It was the most demoralizing thing I've ever been through," he told ABCNEWS. "After spending all this time in this industry and working to keep my skills up-to-date, I had to now teach foreign workers how to do my job so they could lay me off."
Just as millions of American manufacturing jobs were lost in the 1980s and 1990s, today white-collar American jobs are disappearing. Foreign nationals on special work visas are filling some positions but most jobs are simply contracted out overseas.
"The train has left the station, the cows have left the barn, the toothpaste is out of the tube," said John McCarthy, director of research at Forrester Research, who has studied the exodus of white-collar jobs overseas. "However you want to talk about it, you're not going to turn the tide on this in the same way we couldn't turn the tide on the manufacturing shift."
India Calling
Almost 500,000 white-collar American jobs have already found their way offshore, to the Philippines, Malaysia and China. Russia and Eastern Europe are expected to be next. But no country has captured more American jobs than India.
In Bangalore, India, reservation agents are booking flights for Delta; Indian accountants are preparing tax returns for Ernst & Young; and Indian software engineers are developing new products for Oracle.
They are all working at a fraction of the cost these companies would pay American workers.
For example, American computer programmers earn about $60,000, while their Indian counterparts only make $6,000.
"It's about cost savings," said Atul Vashistha, CEO of NeoIT, a California-based consulting company that advises American firms interested in "offshoring" jobs previously held by Americans. "They need to significantly reduce their cost of doing business and that's why they're coming to us right now."
Vivek Pal, an Indian contractor for technology consulting group Wipro, whose clients include Microsoft, GE, JP Morgan Chase, and Best Buy, is hiring 2,000 Indian workers quarterly to keep up with demand. Pal knows American workers resent the "offshoring" trend but says all Americans will benefit in the long run.
"Globalization — whether it's for products or services — may feel like it hurts, but at the end of the day, it creates economic value all around," said Pal.
At the end of the day, Emmons has a different view: "If you sit at a desk, beware," he said. "Your job is going overseas."
Wow changing your tune now. Must have hit a nerve. You aren't calling me a juvenile anymore.
Like I really cared for your ad hominems.
Sorry Laz reply #187 is not for you, but for the readers of this thread, and they will make the decison and not you.
I know that will make you miffed, but what the hey, the world doesn't revolve around you, Laz.
Oh BTW, I know that there will be subsequent replies saying that reply #187 is "incoherant", since those replies will probably be directed by Freepmail, by the person/persons behind the "outrage over outsourcing" curtain on FR, you(Laz), Rocktmtnman, RLK, and harpseal.
Oh, no, you're still juvenile. Must I mention it every response, or can we assume that it's a given by now?
Sorry Laz reply #187 is not for you, but for the readers of this thread, and they will make the decison and not you.
Oh, so you're the sort of person who likes to have a dialogue in which only one side participates. Well, I guess that would make a 'win' a little easier, wouldn't it, bubie?
Oh BTW, I know that there will be subsequent replies saying that reply #187 is "incoherant", since those replies will probably be directed by Freepmail, by the person/persons behind the "outrage over outsourcing" curtain on FR, you(Laz), Rocktmtnman, RLK, and harpseal.
You are paranoid to the point of insanity. I've never ONCE 'directed' anybody by freepmail.
No, the assessment of your mental and conversational skills have been completely spontaneous across the board. I have an old saying: "If one person calls you a duck, it's an insult. If two people call you a duck, it's a fluke. If three people call you a duck, it's time to start quacking and flying south for the winter."
No problem. It's a waste of my time anyway.
LOL! That was creative.
Not only are your lips brown, but your second career mistake is that the only way you think you'll make it is if someone else fails.
Now that sounds like more of Gephart's "winning life's lottery" Democrat clap trap. And here I tought you were just another poor misguided Libertarian. There's enough beggar-thy-neighbor" Democrat seething under your skin to make you an ideal primary contender for their party. Why don't you just head over there and see if you can find loser who cares to hear that message. You'll be in good company.
At attitude like that will insure that you are an economic and career bottom feeder for some time -- pun intended.
Let them eat cake, eh?
I started my career scrubbing toilets at 4:30 AM and washing dishes in an industrial sized university kitchen as a teenager. Where did you begin your career?
Paranoid???
Huh? I am just using common sense, IMO. Is it wrong to hypothesize that you and those in the above ping line Freepmail each other about lines of attack to keep this "issue" alive.
You know the "doom and gloom economic(according to you and your clique)" issue.
I just made an observation. Tar and feather me or even hang me for thinking such heresy.
It will be 2004. Bush did not win by the landslide, even against Gore! He got some votes of Buchanan supporters who saw him as a smaller evil while Naderites were to stubborn to vote for a Democrat.
This time Buchanites will stay home or write someone in while part of Naderites will come back to the fold.
Hypothesizing without a shred of evidence is commonly called "fantasizing".
You know the "doom and gloom economic(according to you and your clique)" issue.
Heh. It's funny to me that you would lump me in with the doom and gloomers, when I have made so much fun of them that one of them won't even post to me any more.
I guess that just demonstrates how outta touch you are. I'm a doom and gloomer, now, simply because I ask the very sensible question: If the majority of jobs in America are being exported, what exactly will we do for a living? Or is it because I now embrace the concept of tariffs?
I'd be agreeable to that.
Unless the rich will advance the class warfare to the formal or informal coup establishing Latin American style oligarchy, the regular people will vote for some Socialist redistribution and get the goodies without bying them.
Normal people prefer to live in socialist Sweden than in San Salvador.
Washing dishes at Howard Johnson and detailing cars at the Car Wash.
Oooh, the Marie Antoinette line, used as a last line of self defense.
Doesn't matter that Marie and her King husband controlled France with an iron hand and protected the privilaged class(in Marie's case the Nobles and in your cause to protect IT workers).
JMO, but it seems that you are the one who wants to eat his cake while denying the cake to others.
Gotta go for the time being since I am preparing a nice Sunday dinner for my parents, which is what I usually do on Sundays. Porterhouse steaks, shrimp ring, sauteed mushrooms and onions, baked potoatoes, asparagus, corn on the cob, and for dessert Lemon Meringue Pie.
Total cost, $35, for a dinner for four.
Oh that's right I am eating pie and not cake. Must be such a disappointment to you in your world of doom and gloom America.
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