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."
That's my point. To the super-wealthy man, if his wealth is reduced to a quarter of what it was, but everyone else is on the edge of destitution, then he's better off. Flunkies become much more eager to please if the alternative is starvation, and there are lots of pretty girls suddenly much more eager to share his dinner table (and bed). He can live out in the beautiful woods without uppity developers trying to build tasteless McMansions nearby for the upper middle class
Of course there is not a shortage of IT workers in the U.S. So why does Congressman Kirk say there is? I can't believe the guy is so clueless as to actually believe there's a shortage of IT workers in the U.S. What's in it for him?
Not as long as you think. That was a plant that may have been built here..that is happening all over the country.
LOL!
Incorrect.
In message #121 -- WELL before my message in #189 -- you identify yourself as self-employed and exude a sense of financial success. My point was that perhaps you became self-employed because you view working for somebody as 'kissing ass' and that you lack sufficient people-skills to get along with coworkers or bosses. This seems to be borne out by your behavior on this thread.
And -- trust this -- your financial success nonwithstanding, I am by NO wise "jealous" of you. I make enough to do very well, and I'm sure glad I don't have your people-skill set.
Check through the freedom of information act..want to bet who are some of his biggest supporters?
There are a lot of tech workers here on FR. What would happen if all of them and the men they know wrote to your congressman ?
Huh it seems that you are licking you chops at the prospect of a Dean or Gephardt presidency.
Either you are as Lenin put it a "useful idiot" or just a plain idiot working from the bowels of the DNC.
BTW, your alls mutual admiratition doom and gloom society for the last 50 replies or so, was amusing and yet kinda of sad, seeing that the world will always have chicken little glass half emptiers, such as yourself.
Thank God Ronald Reagan was a glass half fuller.
I've been approached recently by a few headhunters looking for C++ and Java people. I'm steering clear of Java in favor of C# and .NET technologies, and I cannot really say I'm a C++ guy. Besides, I'm okay where I'm at. You wanna relocate to Hotlanta? I'll give you contacts if you desire.
Oh that's right in your mind America is now 1789 France, filled with doom and gloom.
To put it in your mindset, "We bourgoise pigs had food that should have been destined for peasants".
Actually, I am #1 and am not #2. However, I am not so egocentric as to think that the well-being of my company does not depend upon the well-being of my client base - who are about 95% American residents. Therefore, even if I am doing just fine, I worry every day that there may be a bend in the road further along. As Andy Groves said, only the paranoid survive.
Kinda quick and awfully early to dine supper, but I'm glad you had a good time.
Oh that's right in your mind America is now 1789 France, filled with doom and gloom. To put it in your mindset, "We bourgoise pigs had food that should have been destined for peasants".
You know, you don't have to be a pr**k every time you post. I know you may want to, but you don't have to. All I did was ask about your dinner.
I have admired a number of Southack's cogent analyses, and I supect that his personal and business success is foreign to the "beggar-thy-neighbor" politics-of-resentment hair-shirt you prefer to wear.
Shed the sack-cloth and the woe-is-me and the perverted desire you harbor, which hopes to make yourself look good or feel better at someone else's expense, or failure -- Career mistake #4 --. Career success for you stands a long way off with an attitude like that.
If you are looking for my failure, you'll have a long wait. Why don't you crawl out from behind that rock of fear from which you spitball success (your own included), and finally after 17 years in your career you can get to work on earning some successes you can truly call your own.
Just following your lead.
That's why it pays to diversify, not just your stock, but your skills-set too.
Nonsense. I bear no resentment for success, as I have repeatedly mentioned. I only dislike people who exhibit personal character flaws that you have demonstrated on this thread.
Shed the sack-cloth and the woe-is-me and the perverted desire you harbor, which hopes to make yourself look good or feel better at someone else's expense, or failure -- Career mistake #4 --. Career success for you stands a long way off with an attitude like that.
You also seem to imagine things outright. In which post did I say 'woe is me' or don a sack-cloth? I am actually doing quite well financially right now. My concern is for my fellow Americans. That would be a foreign concept to you.... (exaggerated pause) .... a foreign concept.
If you are looking for my failure, you'll have a long wait. Why don't you crawl out from behind that rock of fear from which you spitball success (your own included), and finally after 17 years in your career you can get to work on earning some successes you can truly call your own.
I call all of my present successes my own.
You really need to work on your skills relating to people. Have you considered therapy?
LOL! Literally laughing out loud.
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