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."
Shouldn't everyone? I'm self-employed. My job security is as good as knowing I'll be called back because my skills-set is still in demand. And if not in demand by one business, I'm quite sure it will be for another firm.
I'm sorry for programmers that rode the white-collar wave hoping for the new version of the fiction touted as "job security" that rolled under their unionized blue collar progenitors of 20-30 years ago.
Like the automobile rivetter making $20/hr was able to be relaced by a foreign national for $2/hr if not an automated machine, the $60K programmer loses out to the $6K programmer, because that's what the job is worth.
Most programmers went to college and have educations. With a little bit of enterprising and initiative I'm sure the best of them will figure a way to make a profitable life out of what they were trained to do. They may be surprised by what they ultimately do, even as I was, but if they work from themselves one thing is for certain: unless they are schizo, they won't have to worry about the boss walking up to them someday and firing them.
And to decline and fall like the Roman Empire.
I've always given corporate executives the benefit of the doubt, but my confidence is definately wavering
Waiting for what? It seems to be your job as a stockholder to call the CEO's office to show the savings.
BTW, if the savings and productivity are shown, are you going to sell the stock "as a matter of principle"?
---------------
Bingo!
We do not use them if there is a human option.
We are trying to do our little part to preserve the middle class.
I do not fault the President for never being poor or middle class. I do, however, blame him for using my tax dollars to pander to the elderly, Hispanics and blacks while cheerleading the offshoring of the American middle class. He must be oblivious to the fact that the minority votes he got in 2000 are in the process of being put out of work.
President Bush is either completely oblivious or he is getting some really bad advice. He was elected by an engergized conservative based. Well guess what, his base is now lukewarm and cooling.
JMO, but it sounds like you and Laz are playing your fiddle while your isolationist/quasi socilaistic economic theories are burning.
What a crock.
I'd really be interested in hearing this nimrod expand on that comment some more. Right before I stick up his @$$. Then he'll see how much it hurts.
I have a friend who is a security manager with a 2 billion dollar company located on a major campus setting. Each building had a security guard/receptionist 12 hours a day. The security manager purchased high-tech automated doors, coupled with card access, and eliminated the security guards in three of the four buildings. My point is, it's not just white collar workers who can be replaced. In this case it was workers considered to be at the low end of the wage stream. But the company found a way to eliminate them through automation. In any business, if an expense can be eliminated, it will be. It is sad for those who lose their jobs, but it's always been done.
Huh?
When it was the blue collar worker it was just fine, that was just capitalism at work. Now when the commodity of the techies is being shipped to the 3rd world it becomes immoral...
I do not like this any more than I liked moving the industry jobs to slave labor.I just think it is revealing to see how people react when it is them and not their neighbor
I do not fault the President for never being poor or middle class. I do, however, blame him for using my tax dollars to pander to the elderly, Hispanics and blacks while cheerleading the offshoring of the American middle class. He must be oblivious to the fact that the minority votes he got in 2000 are in the process of being put out of work
Whew Buchanan/Perot populism at its finest.
BTW, Buchanan did not grow up in poverty and Perot's EDS is also outsourcing to foreign countries.
--------------------
A cute turn of phrase which relate to nothing that was said here. Did you doting mommy teach you to think like this?
If you are a free market capitalist you can refuse to train them too. Let your boss do it. If he can't he can hire you as a consultant at a pretty penny to do it. THEN you can call the shots of your own success -- and others as well if you're as good as you think you are.
Are you greedy because you shop for a good deal? Neither are these companies who found a more competitive wage to get their job done.
You can't come to grips with the fact that these programmers' jobs aren't worth what they used to be. Buggy whip manufacturers faced the same thing when cars were invented or earlier when steam engines were invented.
We called them Luddites back then. Today we call them envionmentalists.
The key question you ask is why American workers are entitled to pay well above market rates. It depends on just where that market is... The article mentions American programmers who earn $60,000 a year, vs Indian programmers who earn $6,000 a year. When you out-source, off shore, the market hasn't changed for the employer. What's changed is simply the need to pay employees what you would have to pay them if they lived in the US. So that pay has nothing at all to do with what the job value is in the market. Sort of like how a company like Nike makes shoes that they sell in the US for $175 a pair, but only costs $12 to make, including labor (which isn't the greatest cost of the the shoe). Interesting how those savings aren't put into making their products and services more affordable, and therefor, more competative, insn't it?
What it boils down to is simply trying to increase profits at all costs. Never mind how destructive those costs happen to be. I've seen some "free marketers" go on about how when people find themselves without a job, they just need to move on, move to a new place to get a new job, and all will be well. They just have to get off of their "lazy butts." That's all well and good, if it's possible for them to move. But what about the people who have lived in a town all their lives, where a factory is the primary employer. These people have been paying a 30 year mortgage for the last 20 years while "living the American dream." Now, the factory is closed. People have lost their jobs. This family who still has another 10 years of payments to make on their home, their #1 investment, have just been wiped out, since the value of their home is now gone: Since the factory closed, nobody can buy a house... So, how do they move to a new city to find new work? I suppose that they could just abandon the house, maybe declare bankruptcy, and just move on. Yup, nothing to look at here, just move along.
Mark
In recent weeks, I've been getting the feeling that GWB really doesn't understand the issue....almost as if he's never heard of it before. Odd.
The flies are in the vasoline. The cops are in the cupboard. The crumbs are off the muffin.
Really? You were the guys you brought up the analogy of Rome burning.
And you get all upset that someone mentions the fact that the city that is burning is ones city where they believe that the world is not getting smaller every day and that a wall around a city will cure all the problems.
That has been tried once, remember the Berlin Wall.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.