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."
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In the several years you hand I have been butting heads you have never been nice about anything. Everything you say has a subtle sadistic drstructive twist.
The Constitutional functions of the Federal government include laying of imposts and duties. Further individual states do not consduct foreign policy. The coining of money is another federal responsibility. These are all elgitimate functions of the Federal government and it is in no way contradictory for a conservative to want the Federal government to excise these functions correctly which is what you have argued for.
I don't think so, based on what I've heard from him on this subject so far. I don't know what it is with the Bushes, there seems to be something genetic in the family that makes them completely oblivious to people experiencing economic and social upheaval. It may just be a natural outgrowth of growing up in the priviliged country-club set.
I agree with you that regulation and the trial lawyers should be curtailed(especially the trial lawyers), but that still doesn't stop the fact that the world is getting smaller every day.
Look an owner of a company is going to look for the best way to put out the best product or service for the least possible price. The fact is that overseas outsourcing is a reality and it is very attractive to business owners.
Now we all know the reality. The ones who will prosper are the ones who take advantage of that reality, IMO.
I'd have to, especially in a competitive market based economy, like the US.
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Bush knows nothing about anything. He's never done anything. As someone else here pointed out, his idea of an entry level position is sitting on a board of directors at $300,000 salary. He has lived in a world where money and positions have fallen on his lap because of trading the the family name.
Don't get me wrong I know it's constitutioinal. In fact it's one of the few powers granted to the fed. Guess it's just another example of them not respecting it. Wouldn't want to break precedent.
Well at least RLK you have finally come out of the DNC closet on FR and used rhetoric that proves, IMO, that you work within the bowels of the DNC.
Absolutely. Business owners and corporate CEO's have to do what they feel is in the interests of posting profit. Going in front of your shareholders and telling them that they wont make any money for the next few years because your long term plan does not include BPO wont fly with them.
This is why I feel it is incumbent upon the Fed to work out a tariff system that will equally effect all companies doing business in the US. You cant let one do it and not let another.
Well said! A culture which sopports competition is also the edge that America has over all other countries in the world.
My point was that importing guest workers in any industry artificially manipulates that free market and the jobs of nurse and psysiotherapist are two current examples.
During the next 20 years as boomers hit the wall of aging, they will need to pay more for help in the areas of healthcare, thus creating career opportunities for Americans looking for a career.
This should be a major growth area given the demographics provided these boomers are able to pay for the care they need if the Federal government is going to be paying then we are talking about an ever increasing part of our econmy being run by the government. This is the alternative to having a booming economy and protective tariffs in place.
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Slave labor in other countries is becoming the dominent force in our economy.
I doubt it, I think that President Bush has a tin ear.
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