IBM Outsourcing More Jobs

I recently read an article on CNN about IBM's plans to cut jobs in the United States and create jobs in India. At the same time, IBM is lobbying the U.S. governement for a share of the stimulus money. They want to be involved in the projects that are designed to stimulate the U.S. economy. At the end of the article, it quoted Hira (author of the book "Outsourcing America") that America needs to fight back against these companies.

My question is why don't Americans care. Why doesn't anyone talk about companies that accepted TARP funds, but continue to outsource jobs. Why doesn't anyone care that IBM's workforce went up from 386,558 at the end of 2007 to 398,000 at the end of 2008. Meanwhile, the U.S. employment fell from 121,000 to 115,000 during the same time. These are American jobs leaving the country each day. Today IBM is outsourcing another 5000 jobs to India. IBM wants the right to do business in the U.S. and to get help from the U.S. government, but it does not want to help the U.S. worker.

I think that in many instances, outsourcing does not work. It may sound good on paper, but when you incorporate the multiplier affect of lost jobs to our economy, I think the American people are losing big time. As you see, many college students today are steering away from a carreer in technology because of all the negative press about it. In years to come, we may have to outsource most technology jobs overseas because there truely will not be any workers in this country to do technology work.

Americans are truely missing the fact that the jobs leaving the country are not the low skilled, low wage jobs that President Obama seems to think are leaving the country. These jobs are the high skilled jobs that grow an economy and that promote innovation. With Americans leaving these posts each day, it will be sad to see what America becomes if this trend continues.

Read more about IBM and their outsourcing plans on CNN: http://www.cnn.com/2009/US/03/26/ibm.outsourcing/index.html?iref=mpstoryview