White-Collar Exodus

ABC News ^ | July 29, 2003 | Betsy Stark

[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."

[Agamemnon]

What you will hear from Bush is some meaningless evasive generalities.

It's not Bush's responsibility to make you get off your duff and become more enterprising. That's your job.

[Doohickey]

I agree completely.

[garbanzo]

It is akin to going on a trip with no idea as to the destination or even planning the mode of travel.

I've done that before - it's quite fun.

[Bloody Sam Roberts]

.....what will we be doing?

Painting houses and cleaning toilets.

Actually, plumbing and carpentry are looking mighty tempting these days.

[Lazamataz]

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.

The problem is that we were assured that the whitecollar jobs would pick up the laid-off bluecollar jobs. And for the most part, they did. Now they aren't even pretending that there is a net at the bottom of this fall. We'll just be S.O.J. (S**t Our of a Job).

[raybbr]

Now I used to bag groceries at a supermarket when I was a teenager and I remember working quickly and efficiently and I was always done at just the time the cashier was ringing up the purchase.

Sam, do you remember that the cashier had to hand ring up the price. Didn't have scanners back then so the baggers could keep up. Otherwise I agree with you about the rest.

[Lazamataz]

I've done that before - it's quite fun.

Maybe. But it's a hell of a poor career path.

[Bloody Sam Roberts]

he sides with labor then his campaign contribution pipeline will suffer. If he sides with business then he risks his voting base.

If he's smart, he'll side with labor and say "screw the campaign money".

In the end, it is We the People who will decide if he the same job next December...and he already has enough people ready to vote against him.

Campaign contributions don't mean squat if you lose the election.

[RLK]

It's not Bush's responsibility to make you get off your duff and become more enterprising. That's your job.

------------------------

I'm a retired senior citizen now. Were I back in engineering the cost of auto insurance and gasoline to get to a job would be more than the yearly salary of a Chinese engineer. Were I to enterptis as you say, the coircitry would be sent to China, where patents are not recognized, in six months. My work would be out the window.

[Willie Green]

and Perot's EDS is also outsourcing to foreign countries.

WTF are you babbling about?
Perot sold EDS to General Motors back in the mid-80s.

[RockyMtnMan]

My father-in-law ran a plumbing business for 20 years and retired recently. He worked his ass to the bone and his health was sacrificed in the process.

I'll admit he could have hired more employees and acted more as a supervisor but it's difficult to find the right help. You must have a license to practice plumbing so that reduces your potential work force.

[Petruchio]

You danced around my point without answering it.

There is no difference in price between the full service checkout and self service checkout. To use the gas stations as an example.
When self service was introduced, self serve gas was a nickel less per gal. You saved by doing it yourself. This is not the case with self serve checkout. It is a scam to increase profits.

[Doohickey]

I'm waiting for the positive economic benefits of shifting jobs offshore, whatever they may be.

BTW, if the savings and productivity are shown, are you going to sell the stock "as a matter of principle"?

No, at a high level I would leverage the influence of my holdings along with like-minded fellow shareholders and affect the needed change in the boardroom. Shareholders are, after all, the owners of a publicly traded company.

[DearAbby]

Perhaps you forget the retirees paid their dues in taxes and 401K. Rather than sit on their duffs or become couch potatoes, they are out after 30 or 40 years of contributions to the workforce.

It is not the retirees that are hurting the workforce. It is Industry wanting to make a HUGH profit; so they fire their best and send everything overseas.

To me, it is highway TREASON!! The Industry should be working for this country, not foreigners to make a hugh profit margin. The gov't should be stopping our industries from taking away from our own people, who without them, the industries would not function.

I'm sick of seeing hard working people, being loyal to a company, get shelved because companies want to stuff more money in their pockets and to HELL with loyal, hard working people.

[RLK]

Perot's in his 70s and effectively retired. He is also retired from politics.

[Agamemnon]

.....what will we be doing?

You ask this of a person you just demeaned as a "high-school chum"?

Problem with people like you is that you expect everyone to do your thinking for you. No wonder: you're not even in the driver's seat of your own life's success.

And you still feel the need to consult the advice from "high school chums." tisk tisk

You and whiners like you are your own worst enemies.

[Lazamataz]

Really? You were the guys you brought up the analogy of Rome burning.

You cannot even get a quote right, so incompetent are you. I, personally, only mentioned the decline and fall of rome, making an allusion to the book of the same name. I never once mentioned 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.

This is nearly incoherent. Back to school, boy!

That has been tried once, remember the Berlin Wall.

Au contraire: The concept of tariffs was dominant in the life of America until recently, and America grew into an innovative and thriving economy under this model. It is only recently -- now that we are abandoning tariffs -- that problems for the American middle class have arisen.

[raybbr]

Nice post. It will fall on deaf ears.

[Doohickey]

I meant prices remain relatively static. Sorry.

[RockyMtnMan]

Actually it is Bush's responsibility to ensure that American's can compete on the world stage based on his/her skill set. He was given "fast-track trade negotiating authority" by congress which gives him the ability to impose tariffs until congress aproves them.