Posted on 08/07/2003 5:25:07 AM PDT by Non-Sequitur
Hundreds of Sprint Corp. employees may lose their jobs as the Overland Park-based telecommunications giant moves forward with a plan to send certain technology jobs overseas.
Sprint chairman and chief executive Gary Forsee on Wednesday said competitive pressures had forced the company toward "offshoring" -- the growing trend of U.S. companies relying on lower-paid computer programmers as far away as India and China.
Sprint put out a request for proposals from outsourcing companies earlier this year and has since narrowed the list to two offshore vendors. Forsee said Sprint is conducting site surveys and is in "serious discussions" with the two companies.
"At the end of the day, it's several hundred jobs that could be impacted," Forsee said. "But we don't know what the ultimate result is."
A final decision on how to handle sending the jobs overseas is likely within 60 days.
Layoffs would not be immediate, Forsee said, because moving work to the outsourcing companies could take six to 12 months.
Forsee also said the company hopes to ease the impact of sending jobs overseas by moving some displaced workers to other information technology projects within Sprint and replacing existing contractors with Sprint employees.
Sprint already was considering moving jobs overseas when Forsee replaced William T. Esrey as the company's top executive earlier this year. But Forsee said he made the final decision to go ahead with the request for proposals.
Sprint already uses an offshore company for some customer service jobs. The company has outsourced information technology jobs to U.S. firms for years. But it has resisted sending information technology jobs overseas.
That has changed as Sprint, like other telecommunications companies, struggles with weak sales in what continues to be a difficult economy.
For almost two years, Sprint has been on a campaign to lower costs to compensate for soft sales. Since October 2001, more than 18,000 jobs have been eliminated. Hundreds of contractors also have lost work at Sprint.
Computer programmers and other skilled technology workers have been among the hardest hit, and there remains a severe shortage of available technology jobs in Kansas City and elsewhere.
Sprint's move toward sending jobs overseas will make a bad situation worse, said Rick Kumar, a former Sprint contractor who last year founded a support group for laid off information technology workers.
"The market is where it was a year and a half ago," Kumar said.
Many people still are out of work or have abandoned their information technology careers for other work, Kumar said. But unlike many of his information technology colleagues, Kumar said he does not blame Sprint and the many other companies that have turned to cheaper labor overseas.
"They have to follow the model or go out of business," Kumar said.
That is precisely how Sprint explains its move toward an offshore vendor. When competitors began cutting information technology costs by turning to offshore programmers, company officials said, Sprint was forced to look at following suit.
"We've got to stay on top of our competitive position," Forsee said. Offshoring "has become a significant trend that we hadn't participated in, so we looked at that as a strategy that was important...because of the competitive aspects."
IBM, Microsoft and HP are among the U.S. companies that are sending information technology jobs overseas or reportedly plan to start. Sprint must lower its cost to keep pace, Forsee said. But he knows careers are at stake.
"When you take actions like that, you're doing that hoping to keep the company as a whole strong," realizing that there are "people and careers and jobs at stake," Forsee said. "We try to do that part very carefully. It's not without significant consideration."
Shares of FON closed Wednesday at $14.05, up 1 cent. PCS closed at $5.41, down 36 cents.
You be thinkin' like an engineer. Sadly it's the management that be makin' these decisions...
Wrong answer as there is no right to move one's property into a state.
In all three cases the state commits an act that if performed by an individual would be considered a crime of theft.
Wrong again an individual has a right to limit access to teh land he/she owns and to state what may be allowed on thst land Tariffs conform to the fact taht a state is sovereign over territory. Now if a person presupposes taht the state has no right to tax anything and the state has no right to exist then what you state follows logically. Such anarchy has never delivered on the promises becuase anarchy allows only for the rule of the strong. Personally I prefer rule of law under the US Constitution. I would suggest that anyone who has rejected the US Constitution and who because of theat rehjection tries to impose an anti constitrutional system on the USA is making war on the USA. Or in the case of those who reject the idea of tariffs on Chinese imports for example are engaging in active aid and comfort to a nation engaged in asymetrical warfare against the USA. when open hostilities develop then those persons who reside in teh USA who are American nationals would be subject to trial for treason. Those persons who reside in the USA from neutral nations or those who are enemy nationals would be subject to different laws.
Your quoting Batiat merely shows you for what you are the follower of anarchist prphet who was wrong on several occaisions.
Your stement equating protectionist tarioffs is contradicted by the historical record and by common sense. Try living in the real world or at least get a recognizable name for your religion.
The only difference between the three is the extent of the mugging.
And, of course, clobber all but the most urgently business-related uses of the Internet...because only cheap telecom makes the Internet possible.
Buh-bye Free Republic...
Most people I have met who travel to China for business get really caught up in the "look at me, I am so worldly, so global" act and they get all giddy at the pace of change in Shangai or excitedly talk of some peasant who created his fortune schlepping umbrellas that they seem to think they relate more to that peasant in rural China than a fellow American.
Personally I prefer rule of law under the US Constitution.
LOL. Tell me when you find that. There are so many laws it is impossible to know them let alone comply with them. When a person can never be sure if his actions are legal or illegal this the very opposite of the rule of law.
I would suggest that anyone who has rejected the US Constitution and who because of theat rehjection tries to impose an anti constitrutional system on the USA is making war on the USA.
Many of the revolutionaries, such as Patrick Henry, denounced the Constitution. They knew it would lead to an unlimited, intrusive government. Has this very thing not come to pass? And here's the real kicker: Unlimited, unaccountable, centralized government was the very intent of the Founding Lawyers who bitterly opposed the Bill of Rights and then when forced by the States to accept them, deliberately sabotaged the language.
Why did we never lose jobs to Soviet Slave labor?
Our telecom networks are sufficiently sophisticated to apply differential charges to links that connect outside the U.S. (voice and data). It is not necessary to apply the increased costs to domestic communications. That is a red herring.
If businesess require the use of US$20 ISPs in order to conduct business (as opposed to spending a few hundred bucks/mo. for private frame relay or better), then they're cheap chumps who don't deserve to be factored in here.
Their customers pay ISPs $ in order to get to them.
If the satellite links were killed today, the country would come to a standstill with our current level of outsourcing. It will get more serious in the future as we contiue to transfer vital economic and business funcitons to the control of sources outside our borders. This makes sabotage of the international links a viable military strategy to use against US by anyone smart enough to coordinate some serious hacking and sabotage. Let's keep this idea secret between ourselves though, we wouldn't want to give any of our Islamic friends any ideas. Or our Chinese friends either, for that matter.
As Tom Hanks in Castaway showed us, logistics in and out of there were.... challenging?
Plus that Cold war thing.
Maybe because we never gave the Soviet Union "most favored nation" trade status and then made that status permanent by calling it "normal trade relations". Meaning free trade (which isn't free trade. "Free trade" means we pay tarrifs and face other trade barriers there and they pay none and face none here.)
Soldiers defending their homes and families, you betcha. I doubt if a militia would go out and defend the House of Saud or blow up a Sudanese medical factory to divert attention from impeachment.
And you wouldn't get an argument from me there. Though there is this simplistic dream-world that you are describing here. Fine for children's fairy books and intellectual rants by Libertarians, but "free-trade" is never free, it involves treaties and compromises. To get Saudi oil, we need to suck up to the House of Saud. Because we keep voting in pseudo-compassionate politicians we keep exposing our military to harm's way for no apparent reason than we want to be loved by other nations.
Let's say that the US was global free-market in business and isolationist in military. This is the stupidest thing that the US or any other nation could do. Countries are often run by madmen and will quickly overrun their neighbors if no resistance is offered. We only have the entirety of uninterrupted human history as empirical evidence. Unfortunately Libertarian ideology completely and totally ignores history and the world around them. Other countries feel no obligation whatsoever to lock the US out of their markets. What does the Libertarian do then, cry and scream "It's not fair!"? Hang out at the UN and you will see every nation on the planet making demands that the US give them this, or provide for them that. Getting rid of the UN won't change their demands, it just means that it won't be happening in New York City alone.
If we didn't deploy our military, then the Soviet Union would have overrun Europe, the Middle East and most of Africa. What kind of free market is that? Now the US is totally surrounded by Cuba-like marxists because of military isolationism. So we do these token runs into Somalia to show that we still care and are pretty much unpredictable in choosing which nation's politics we will interfere in. Hence we go into Liberia but look the other way in Zimbabwe.
Judges should be hired by the accused and the wronged.
Boy that sounds impartial. Go shopping for a sympathetic judge who is now on your payroll. Then when you win the verdict who is going to enforce it? So you won $100,000. Try to collect it. As I said before, Libertarianism is totally divorced from reality. Trips on LSD seem more lucid than Libertarian ideology.
Free healthcare, Government pensions, a stable currency ??
This shows me that you ran out of arguments for your position because now you deliberately mischaracterize what I wrote. But that is OK, I expect that, it fits the profile. I didn't say "free healthcare", I said a "health care system", as in if you get in a car wreck, you just won't bleed to death on the dirt path (since your world wouldn't have paved roads), instead there will be somebody to scrape you up, and keep you alive until you get to a hospital where they will treat you without first checking to see if you could pay for the health service. Perhaps you would rather die alone in a ditch. Also, our healthcare system fosters an incredible research program into curing common maladies. Have you ever wondered why people aren't dropping dead by the millions because of Malaria, but in other lands they do? Why does the world beat a path to our shores when they get sick or need specialized care? Because the US provides the best damned healthcare on the planet.
Stable currency? LOL What other currency can be traded freely around the world? Just about everyone, no matter where they are, no matter what land, will take our money. In fact, many countries would prefer our currency over that which is issued by their own government. I have travelled all over this hemisphere and had absolutely no troubles spending US federal reserve notes. Tell me, will the ruble or the rupee trade like that? Exactly where can you trade the Chinese yuan? (hint: their currency is not traded globally) Do you know how many countries peg their currency to the US dollar? Why do you suppose that is, because it may be the most stable currency on the planet?
Maintainence of rights? Liberty worldwide huh?
OK, you are one of those hate America types. I will give you the Ken Hamblin challenge: "Pick a Better Country". When you realize that you are living in the best, then maybe you may recognize that buying American is the smartest and best thing you can do.
The question is, if I surf the UK Ministry of Defense's website for information on the upcoming Astute-class submarine, does my ISP have to eat the cost (which means that they'll just jack up the rates for everyone's access), or does it come as a surcharge on my monthly bill? What about .com and .net domains registered outside the US? Will we suddenly have to do a whois search before we click on that hyperlink?
You'll still end up increasing the cost of Internet access, which means that fewer people will buy it. Of course, a smaller customer base means either a lower ROI on the infrastructure or further rate increases, and more customers gone, until we hit the equillibrium point.
I'm just pointing out that you're not getting something for nothing with your idea. The question is, are you willing to pay the price tag involved?
During the ColdWar, American businesses were not permitted, nor encouraged, nor subsidized by our Government to invest hundreds of billions of dollars into their infrastructure and industry. China, we educated, support and finance their country. All in the name of "expanding markets".
Now they are doing like any other country we are benevolant to, they bite us, try to harm our economy, and aim weapons at our cities.
OK. Everyone who engages in commerce of the Internet (Amazon, Ebay, et cetera) is just a cheap chump who should be put out of business, anyway.
I don't think he does, and neither most of us here. I'm encouraged by the f*ck France 'wave' the crowd performed vis a vis GWII. I want to know how quickly we (Americans) can give China and India the same 'wave'.
I know it can be done, if we shake up this off-shoring issue publicly, quickly, and the right-friendly press abets us.
They didn't have high speed networks, computers and U.S. companies anxious to throw work at them. It's happening now. We even have some FReepers that are making a good living acting as intermediaries between U.S. firms and Russian programmers.
The Soviets would have never allowed their slave labor to be employed the us anyway. It would have brought them prosperity than can not be tolerated in a communist, totalitarian form of government.
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