Your job is gone and it won't be back but free traders and globalization pushers
may, just may, be starting to wake up to the problems.
Now that it's probably
too
late. Here's
today's report from that bastion of business, The Wall Street Journal:
Migration of Skilled Jobs Abroad Unsettles Global-Economy Fans
DAVOS, Switzerland — Many of the business,
government and academic leaders who came here for the annual meeting of
the World Economic Forum, traditionally
a gathering of advocates of globalization, have voiced doubts over ...
whether the increasingly global economy will produce as many high-wage jobs
in rich
countries as once was expected.
... the rising number of skilled, white-collar jobs migrating from rich
nations to developing countries is raising fears that, in fact, well-paid
workers
in developed countries will have trouble finding equally well-paid computer,
design and medical jobs at home. Many of the true believers in globalization
at the Davos forum, which ended Sunday, worry that outsourcing also
could erode political support for free trade internationally.
Zhu Min, general
manager of the state-owned Bank of China, suggested that the U.S. does
need "to
reposition itself. Manufacturing is gone; services are going. Research
and development is still there. [The U.S.]" [THE
WALL STREET JOURNAL 01/26/2004 subscription]
Sorry, Zhu, R & D may be here, but not for long - India is getting those jobs,
too:
- India is a major base for developing new [software] applications for finance, digital
appliances and industrial plants.- Intel, T.I. and many U.S. startups use
India as a research hub.Continued on the next page Page 1 — Page 2
Article comments
1 - mike
Overseas outsourcing of skilled jobs is not a significant cause of unemployment or wage suppression, nor is it likely to be.
The problem in this country is the huge number of low paying service jobs that can't be outsourced overseas (security guards, supermarket clerks, etc.) Raising these wages through labor reform and universal health insurance are the best ways to deliver gains to the lower middle class and poor populations of the U.S., which are approaching shocking proportions.
Plus the anti-outsourcing mood has ugly racial overtones.
2 - Mark Saleski
Overseas outsourcing of skilled jobs is not a significant cause of unemployment or wage suppression, nor is it likely to be.
you got any facts to back that up.
tell that to all of the h.p. developers who are actively training their replacements.
3 - Casper
Speaking as an IT worker who has had my job outsourced not once but three times over the last few years (and one of those times was overseas), I have no problems with globalization. Sure, I lost my job, but I'm good at what I do and I was able to get another job within a fairly short period of time (the longest being about four weeks). Since I put away money in savings for just those kind of emergencies, I was able to get through things without too much hardship. Furthermore, I have entered into business arrangements with one of the companies that laid me off because they are able to provide the level of service I need at a lower price. So, my current employer saves money which can be spent in other places.
4 - mike
You can verify these facts by viewing official economic statistics.
As a percentage of the population, software developers and such are an extremely small fraction. If every single one of them were outsourced overseas, that would have hardly any effect on the unemployment rate.
Manufacturing jobs that could be outsourced overseas have long since been sent packing. The majority of middle class and lower class workers these days toil in jobs that cannot be outsourced, like store managers, teachers, and janitors.
Using social policy to raise the wages of these people is the best way to protect the standard of living in the U.S. The overseas outsourcing thing is a red herring.
5 - Hal Pawluk
Mike: "Overseas outsourcing of skilled jobs is not a significant cause of unemployment or wage suppression, nor is it likely to be."
That's simply not true.
There are more IT engineers in Bangalore than in Silicon Valley, and the unemployment rate for U. S. software engineers has more than doubled in the last three years, with even higher rates for electrical engineers, and higher still for network adminstrators. Kearney predicts an additional 500,000 financial services jobs will move offshore by 2008 and McKinsey forcasts that IT services and back-office work in India will increase by a factor of five, employing 4,000,000 people by 2008.
Facts are more useful than faith in this instance. You really should check the background links I provided, including the Wall Street Journal and Business Week, and we might be able to have a productive discussion here.
Mike: "Plus the anti-outsourcing mood has ugly racial overtones."
Only if you insist on it; otherwise, that's bullshit, too.
6 - Mark Saleski
As a percentage of the population, software developers and such are an extremely small fraction. If every single one of them were outsourced overseas, that would have hardly any effect on the unemployment rate.
i think the combined wages of IT workers as a percentage of the gdp would be a more valid number to be used for comparison perposes.
7 - mike
There are tens of millions of jobs in the U.S., so, again, these numbers are not significant.
As for the number of IT people, etc., in India, they are servicing far more countries than the U.S., so again your numbers are not telling the whole story.
I'm anti-NAFTA and such, but open capital and labor borders are important. MOST OF THE JOBS THAT ARE HERE ARE NOT GOING ANYWHERE, unless you can figure out how to get someone in India to sweep the floors in an office building in Pittsburgh.
Stong unions, single payer health insurance, and resistance to the privatization of Social Security are the keys to maintaining and enhancing the American standard of living.
I for one think it's great that people in India, one of the poorest countries in the world, have an opportunity to get jobs like this. Good for them.
8 - Craig Lyndall
Good point Mark. If you get laid off from your 250,000 job and take a bartending position at AppleBee's you don't count toward unemployment.
9 - mike
Yes, you do, pal. Get your facts straight.
Knee jerk protectionism is the liberalism of fools.
10 - Mark Saleski
fine, my numbers (so far, i really haven't stated any danged numbers) done match up.
ok...so how many tech jobs are there in this country?...and what is the combined salary?
then we can compare this to the 'totals', whatever they are.
11 - mike
The reason why outsourcing is an issue is because of INTERNAL outsourcing. Speak up as a janitor at work and watch your job get outsourced to a private contractor. THAT'S the problem. India has nothing to with it.
12 - Mark Saleski
ok, you don't want to discuss using facts...i guess the 'debate' is over.
13 - Hal Pawluk
Mike: "There are tens of millions of jobs in the U.S., so, again, these numbers are not significant."
Of course they're significant. They're significant enough that the Wall Street Journal today had a story on how high-level economists and politicians at the World Economic Forum are worried about them
I'll take their well-founded experience over your mystical faith in corporate propaganda any day. You really should dig into the facts, starting with the links I provided.
"Stong unions, single payer health insurance, and resistance to the privatization of Social Security are the keys to maintaining and enhancing the American standard of living."
No.
Certainly those are factors, but pale in comparison with what's really happening: a lowering of the American standard of living through the exportation and downgrading of available jobs.
High-paying skilled jobs are being sent offshore and are being replaced by lower-paying jobs in education and healthcare (day care and seniors' attendants), leisure and hospitality (hotel workers turning down beds), and retail trade (Oh, I love working at Wal-Mart). My post on "The Myth of Job Recovery" summarizes the situation and provides links to more data.
You remind of the story about the guy falling off the Empire State Building and, at every floor, cheerfully telling on-lookers: "Okay so far!" Optimism has its limits.
14 - mike
"I'll take their well-founded experience over your mystical faith in corporate propaganda any day. You really should dig into the facts, starting with the links I provided."
The same people who brought us neo-liberalism and who go on about how great NAFTA is? Sorry, I'll pass.
I'm a leftist, so I don't have any mystical faith in corporate propaganda. What I do have is a better grasp of empirical reality than you do.
High jobs are not being exported in exchange for low wage jobs. Getting back to the janitor at the Sav More, his job stinks whether or not the software job is downtown or in India.
Low wage service jobs are being created here irrelevant of overseas outsourcing. Unions, unions and more unions are the answer to that problem.
Your links don't prove your argument. You can't prove your argument because you don't have the facts on your side. I do.
15 - Mark Saleski
You can't prove your argument because you don't have the facts on your side. I do
ok, so where are your facts? other than the statements you like to make?
High jobs are not being exported in exchange for low wage jobs
you are oh, so correct. they are not being exported for low wage jobs...they're be exported for NO jobs.
16 - Hal Pawluk
Mike: "Low wage service jobs are being created here irrelevant of overseas outsourcing. Unions, unions and more unions are the answer to that problem."
Wow. Okay, I'm off to the real world: I've had enough religion for today.
17 - Dirtgrain
10 days, 4,600 jobs lost. Has outsourcing become a euphemism?
In a waiting room today, I overheard a news man saying that 96% of apparel in the US is made in another country. Is it really made in America? - Many `American' products made overseas seems to support this trend:
More than 80 percent of the toys, bikes and Christmas tree ornaments sold in the United States today come from China. About 90 percent of all sporting goods and 95 percent of shoes are foreign-made.
And so much for Walmart:Six years ago, Wal-Mart, the world's largest retailer, abandoned its buy-American ad campaign -- even though the autobiography of its late founder, Sam Walton, is titled ``Made In America.''
Today, Wal-Mart is the world's largest importer of products made in China.
Can't we afford to make our own products--at least some of them?If you didn't see it, check out my post, Education, Globalization and the Big Business Model, which is about outsourcing education. Even teachers aren't safe.
18 - Al Barger
Damn, they sent my job to Mexico. I was going to take it out and get it cleaned. I was thinking about setting my job up in the front yard and hanging Christmas lights off it.
19 - American Patriot
I love the people who think that oputsourcing and mass immigration is just great. What does this buy teh country except more cocaine-flooded toga parties for teh decadent and monied elite who will never have to suffer teh consequences of destroying this country, since they'll be in the Bahamas when America melts down.
This si being driven by animals like teh CATO instute who has openly called for the removeal of all borders between countries , the elimination of the minumum wage and teh legalization of rppostitution. These amoral, subhuman corporatist animals want the total destruction of evry ideal and in their stead they raise their drug-driven craving for corporate profit.
The filth of this nation must be driven down like the animals they are. he teh drug dealing, cocaine sniffing Libertarians are nothing more than slathering drooling animals who see material excess as teh be al end all of human existance. They need to be exposed and destroyed. Nothing less than teh continued existance of a middle class and American itself hangs in the balance.
20 - Eric Olsen
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