I would like to introduce this blog to bring up the subject of job outsourcing. People think that if their jobs are not being outsourced, they will not be affected. People think that outsourcing is similar to the manufacturing jobs that we gave away decades ago. People think that life in the USA will always be great and we will always live in prosperity. They think that everything will work itself out.
Well, the people who think this way are all wrong. Even if your job is not outsourced, people in the USA losing high paying jobs will affect everyone in the long run. If you are a contractor, your job cannot be outsourced, but who will hire you in the U.S. if the people making money are in India. A good idea for a contractor may be to relocate to India or China. When the large banks and brokerage firms in America expect to make the same money from people in this country from interest on mortgages, credit card accounts, brokerage trading fees, etc., they will find that there is no money to be found. Why?, because they outsourced the people who used to generate their largest revenues. Then comes the Federal, State and City governments. These are all partners with the high cost U.S. worker. The government will not get the same revenue from taxes since the good paying jobs are located overseas. Perhaps the Federal government can go back to the government in India to collect their missing revenue so that they pay current social security recipients, fund the war in Iraq, bail out the very large corporations that are doing the outsourcing when they end up losing money from bad investments, etc., etc.
The comparison to the current outsourcing trend and the loss of manufacturing jobs is ridiculous. The loss of manufacturing jobs hurt the U.S. , but in the long run the people in the U.S. were able to re-train themselves into jobs that required more technical expertise and paid a lot more. These in turn contributed to one of the longest expansions of the U.S. economy in 1990's. With jobs ranging from technology to medical fields being outsourced, what are we supposed to re-train ourselves to do once these jobs are gone? People who worked and studied hard to build a career in information technology, accounting, architecture, newspaper reporting, medical and legal services, high-level engineering design, brokerage and radiology will one day find that they are out of jobs. What does the government want these people to do? What should they train themselves in ? Nobody seems to have the answer to these questions. When our manufacturing jobs left the country at least we could switch from a country that manufactures to a country that provides services.
Lastly, people think that life in the U.S. will continue as it is today. Well, I have news for these people. We are giving other countries everything we have. We are training them in our technologies. We showed them how our banking and brokerage systems work. What will stop other countries from not only taking our jobs, but setting up corporations of their own. In essence, the U.S. corporation may one day find that they are competing with the very countries that they outsourced to. Countries like India and China are becoming richer and more powerful. They are growing. They are competing with us for natural resources like oil and wheat. Prices of oil and wheat have skyrocketed in the U.S. This has affected the price of almost everything we buy. As a result, our standard of living has decreased. This downward spiral will only continue unless we stop outsourcing today.
In conclusion, when we outsource all our high paying jobs to other countries, we are not only losing jobs, we are losing a country. Students in colleges will have to make some tough decisions as to the course of study they want to undertake. Colleges will have to justify their high tuitions, if students cannot find jobs when they graduate. Ask yourself one question, how many college students are training in tech jobs ? The answer is not many and I think this is very sad.
5 comments:
Maybe the politicians should read this blog.
I think the politicians should read this blog.
Follow the money. ;-)
Large corporations give campaign contributions and in turn elected officials give powerful executives the ability to get MORE profits at the expense of everyone else.
We sold out our manufacturing industry on the lie that those jobs would be replaced with higher paying white color jobs.
Now that there are only 'thinker' jobs left we are selling those out next. Based on this for what reason would I encourage my children to spend over 20K to get an education?
So the folks in China that paid Clinton big bucks to get the NAFTA and free trade going to China are considering pulling out there T-Bill money.
So what does a Country do that is 80% consumer and CAN NOT producing anything locally and then runs out of money/credit?
Not sure but I think we are getting ready to find out very soon. ;-)
The problem lies in the citizenry's dependence and participation in large corporations. I myself trained an Indian engineer while part of a large corporation in order to "move on to more challenging projects." I would much rather have had a American junior engineer or intern pick up the same material (who might as well be ethnically Indian, but at least American!).
But it was either go along with this plan or be out of a job. Well...3 years after this incident, I am indeed out of a job becuase of "economic conditions." Although the layoff was attributed to the credit crunch, the economy is starting to crumble in many aspects after allowing corporate executives to do anything to get their stock options and bonuses. They sure made their mark in the form of outsourcing, predatory lending, collateralized debt, production of gas guzzlers etc. It's all one big consequence of spoiled individuals with fancy MBAs of little value and a sense of entitlement. Perhaps this crisis (or one worse than this) is the only way we open our eyes to what's going on.
Perhaps, it's time for the highly trained technologist in our country to speak up and be heard. I know the Indian outsourcig firms we out in full force at the very mention of the "buy American" clause. It's time we speak up for our rights.
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