The L.A. Times has an article on the offshoring of jobs at all levels. They are, of course, just pushing it during the RNC to try to damage George Bush’s bounce, but the basic points hold true regardless IMHO: America’s job creation is going to lag for years as white-collar jobs are moved to India and other cheap-labor nations.
[color=red]Note: this may seem like a lot of quoting, but the original article is MUCH longer.[/color]
This has been happening in the UK for the last 2-3 years. Most of the finance companies have either already moved call centres to the sub-continent or are in the process of doing so. Also a lot of IT jobs have disappeared, mainly to India. Do a search on the BBC website, you should be able to find plenty of infromation.
The best thing I’ve ever done was moving my business from the U.S. to Asia. It was a real eye-opener as to how much easier it is to work and prosper here than it is in the U.S. where everyone has their hands out for the fruits of your labor.
As an employer here, I also learned what a myth it is that labor costs in the U.S. are the key reason why the U.S. isn’t competitive. The real reason is the overhead added by out-of-control legal and political systems there.
The fact is that the average U.S. worker is more capable and productive than the average worker in the same occupation here in Asia but that advantage is more than offset by the thirty to forty percent of built-in costs in the U.S. system that don’t exist here.
Add to that the ridiculous tariffs that India and China impose on products coming into their economies that the U.S. doesn’t have and it’s hopeless for a U.S. worker to compete.
Many costs are actually lower in the U.S. on average than they are here, which could be a big advantage if all other things were equal. Metals, plastics – industrial land and utilities – are in general lower cost and more readily available there then in Asia.
Add to that the time and cost of shipping goods from Asia to the U.S. and you have real built-in advantages for manufacturing in the U.S.
Another inherent advantage (which is fast disappearing) is that the U.S. is still the center of gravity for many advanced technologies.
If the thirty/forty percent of dead weight in the U.S. economy were lifted off its back, the U.S. economy, with all its inherent advantages, would roar back to dominance.
There are too many special interests sapping the U.S. economy for their own advantage though while furiously denying that any real problems exist.
In a word, I’d say give up on trying to save the U.S. though because those special interests are just too powerful and deeply entrenched and the country doesn’t have the will or the wisdom to shake them off and save itself.
Yes, just as the U.S. is a Spanish-speaking nation, France is an Arabic-speaking nation, or England is an Urdu-speaking nation.
And Detroit still hasn’t recovered.
Which companies? If you have read the article, you might have noticed the part where the reported discussed how it was difficult to get any figures on how many jobs had been outsourced, because none of the companies would allow themselves to be named (by the outsourcing agency) or interviewed.
So, you’re not going to buy or use products from GM, Microsoft, or Boeing?
I don’t know if you plan to go back to the U.S. at some point or not, but you may find it more difficult than you expected to get a job in your field if you do. I did, and that’s why I’m here.
[quote]SEATTLE - The U.S. information tech sector lost 403,300 jobs between March 2001 and this past April, and the market for tech workers remains bleak, according to a new report.
Perhaps more surprising, just over half of those jobs
Flicka [quote]This thing reminds me of the 70s and 80s, when everyone panicked because the Japanese were “stealing” “our” jobs.[/quote]
MoPoSquid
Please. Many Americans chose to buy Japanese cars because they were more fuel efficient and more reliable than most US made automobiles. Thus, the Japanese didn’t steal any jobs from Americans. They simply created a better product and the American consumer decided that they would rather spend their money on far more superior Japanese cars than the American car makers were offering.
Therefore, Detroit killed itself.
BANGALORE, India (Reuters) - Multinationals have trimmed the fat for years by shifting low-value work to India. Now, slim Silicon Valley start-ups are leading a new outsourcing wave, moving cutting-edge product development to Bangalore and beyond.
The start-ups have their top managers and sales teams in the United States, but design products in India, where high-tech engineers earn a third of their U.S. counterparts.
While the 1,800 firms in India’s technology capital have focused on lower-value services such as call centers and software coding, companies are now tapping low-cost expertise in a corporate global village where location is not important.
“Companies don’t have passports,” Indian venture capitalist Abhay Havaldar declares bluntly.
These companies are small, but do business wherever they want.
“We call them micro-multinationals,” said Ganapathy Subramanian, managing director at Jumpstartup Fund Advisors.
He warned that start-ups need to work out carefully the division of labor and nurture an international team spirit that will suffer if U.S.-based engineers fear for their jobs.