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."
If you knew anything about general contracting you wouldn't make such stupid insinuations.
Mmmm. So this is what good Christianity looks like.
Gotchya.
Oh, right, pardon me. What could I possibly know?
Do Christians have psychic abilities, too? Because it's clear you must have some, to be able to make such weighty pronouncements on how much I develop and diversify my talents. LOL!
It's truly amazing how much you think you know! You must be some big brain floating in a jar or something.
Just the unvarnished truth.
You have demonstrated to me absolutely every personality trait it is important for me to avoid to become a whole and good person.
Thank you.
Apparently you still choose to persist in remaining willfully ignorant about quite a bit. One may comfortably add "intellectually lazy" to "whiner" in your personal descriptor.
Oh, please, continue to add your descriptors, since I am greatly amused by how off-base you are.
Please, please, continue! What else am I? LOL!
Just another silly barb from an envious, purposefully malcontented, intellectully lazy whiner.
We've priced ourselves our of the labor market with excessive taxes and burdensome regulations.
You have shown me how hypocritical you are by claiming ANY affliation to ANY religion when you call people losers and whiners and seek thusly to lower and insult, all the while pridefully speaking on your own successes and denigrating everyone elses.
No, you are a wonderful teacher. I have learned a lot from you, all wonderful lessons by example! I thank you. Now, I will go have more profitable discussions, since I think you have taught me all I can draw from you today.
I see. So you think you've never met a winner who could say so. OK, so you have as much as said that you would never nor have you ever declared yourself to be a winner at anything.
For you to do so or have done so would have instantly identified you as a loser who only thought he was a winner, but must be just kidding himself.
Somehow that comes as no surprise.
No, not quite. I have never met someone who went around proclaiming themselves a winner who, in fact, was one. Not that I haven't heard someone say they won this or won that; that is a different thing entirely.
No, usually people who go around saying "I am such a winner!" are compensating for fairly substantial dearths in their own psyche or life.
OK, so you have as much as said that you would never nor have you ever declared yourself to be a winner at anything.
We have uncovered one lacking quality already: Your reading comprehension. Never once did I say I would not state that I won this or won that. But one thing I won't go around doing is crowing and strutting around that I am "such a winner". Even if my belief system ran that particular way -- and it doesn't, I try instead to be someone who improves the lots and lives of people around me -- that would be tacky, gauche, and would reveal a deep-seated insecurity on my part.
I have self confidence, but I don't feel the need to parade around with self-appointed tin badges pinned to my chest.
Have you never met yourself? Is knowing yourself that foreign a concept to you? It's little wonder that you don't have a clue what more you are capable of accomplishing in life.
You mistakenly think I can't read; however, I know for certain you can't write. That's why it is so easy for me to step back and watch you impale yourself and your arguments on your own words.
Some boss or other person tells you can can't be more than you are and you believe them, because you think they must know you better than you, and you don't know yourself in the first place. You'll let that view of yourself hold you back, and then you'll blame them for doing so. Then you'll resent it. Then you'll think everybody's in your sorry boat, and just as powerless to change their situation as you think you are. You'll imply that anyone like myself who escaped that treadmill must do it dishonestly.
But you never invested the time to know yourself or what you could do or be to improve your lot, and crawl out from under the opinions of people you resent for supposedly holding you down. In doing so, you have only held yourself down. It's just easier for you to go through life and blame other people for your perceived misfortune, and resent those of us who fired such "bosses" a long time ago and struck out successfully on our own. Blaming foreigners is the easiest. People like you used to blame enterprising immigrants for your inherent lazineness in generations past.
With every other silly statement you make, you are admitting to more ignorance not only about this topic: the "plight" of white collar America, but to a fundamental ignorance about yourself.
You are also, clearly, a person with a strong need for the last word. You may have it.
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