Introduction
Now when the term India is used, it doesn’t mean just India.
India is a term in the off-shoring world that means any third world
country. India in this context can refer to the Philippines, Indonesia,
Russia, South Africa, Guam, China, etc. This is due to wage difference
between the US and other countries. For example in China, a yearly
salary of $40,000 is spectacular. In the US, especially in California
this may get you a small home that would have to be heavily financed
to carry that dept burdon.
It is rather frightening what is happening in the off-shoring
realm. Remember what happened to manufacturing? Well now pretty
much every job in the US that can be done with a computer is being
off-shored. This includes but is not limited to medical transcription,
computer programming, graphics design, CAD design, linguistics,
call center support, networking, product design, accounting, engineering,
paralegals, data-entry keepers, researchers, architects, etc. These
services are also known as BPs (business processes). Approximately
60,000 technical writing jobs are being done by American workers
today. It is estimated that 90% of these technical writing jobs
will be lost over the next 3-5 years due to off-shoring.
What is more frightening is the US tax system. There are
multi-billion dollar corporations that simply off-shore to avoid
paying taxes. This is an open business policy that is backed by
our US government. In total, this not only contributes to the unemployment
situation for highly skilled white-color workers but also throws
our economy into a total spin. This strongly implies that at
some point down the road, maybe even in as little as 10 years, there
will only be two social classes: the wealthy and the poor.
The word on the profound impact that off-shoring is having and
will have on America, is finally coming out. Over this past week,
Time, Newsweek,
and the Economist
all featured articles on the impact of off-shoring on America. It
is THE STORY.
We at the NWU (National
Writers Union) and NWU
Biz Tech Off-Shoring Campaign have been working on this issue
for almost a year now. Read more at our Off-Shoring
website. It is very difficult, as we've come to realize that
we cannot re-train several thousand people individually on how to
find jobs, contracts and survive with this current state of the
economy. Rather the issues have to be greatly broken down and dealt
with one by one. The resources needed to do the proper investigations
and lobby Washington are massive.
It seems almost inevitable. Ironically, off-shoring has been around
for 10+ years but it wasn't until 2001 that the major corporations
began making claims that the pool of American workers are unskilled,
there's a shortage of highly skilled US workers, and that they needed
to survive the economy, thus off-shoring 80% of American business
process (BC) jobs is the right thing to do. Many corporate training
programs have stopped training American workers and are now setting
up offices in various countries to train those citizens and give
them our jobs.
Now many large corporations such as Oracle, MicroSoft, HP, Intuit,
IBM, Chase Manhatten, General Electric, Texas Instruments, etc.
are off-shoring or are starting the proces of off-shoring 90% of
their operational, technical support/implementation, and office
work. (More on this in the San
Jose Mercury News Perspectives Section. See Globalization 2004
header near the bottom.)
According to Forrester Research, a Boston-based consulting company
that tracks business trends, between 2000 and 2015 the United States
could lose as many as 3.3 million jobs overseas, a good number of
them high-paying and white-collar. And that's a low-end estimate.
Others see losses double that amount. (Source: In
These Times: White-Collar Blues: Professional Jobs Shifting Overseas)
This is close to $136 billion in wages that will be shifted
overseas.
Basically,if you are building a company now and don't have
off-shoring as a part of your major development strategy and way
to cut overall operational costs you are pretty much out of the
loop. This is how the VC (venture-capital) funding structure has
been setup and revised now.
As if that isn't enough, President Bush is now classifying jobs
at McDonalds as manufacturing industry jobs. Basically flipping
hamburgers is the same as assembling jet engines.
To date, 2.4 million jobs have been lost during the 3 years of
the Bush administration.
To those of us who are paying attention to this matter, it seems
that we are in grave trouble already.
Some Encouraging News
Washington state may be the first state to ban off-shoring.
In a recent article by TechsUnite.org
two proposals which would ban all state business from being off-shored
are being considered before the Labor Committee and Washington state
House Committee.
"The controversial measures face an uphill battle against
legislative opponenets in both the House and Senate and powerful
pro-business interests in the state. But they also have a powerful
ally: Committee Chair Steve Conway".
"I'm going to continue to repeat this because I know if
I repeat it enough, people start thinking. The offshoring of American
work, to my mind, is an ecomonic virus impacting our country."
- Steve Conway, House Democrat from Tecoma
Rep. Zach Hudgins, D-Tukwilla, one of two prime ministers of the
bills, said his intent in proposing the measures is to ensure that
state work remains available to qualified workers within the United
States, if not Washington state.
"I don't think we should use our tax dollars to create jobs
in other places", said Hudgins. "Skilled domestic workers
can perform the work. Tax dollars should be used to create jobs
locally, where wages paid are allowed to circulate throughout the
economy."
See TechsUnite.org
for complete article.
Various Perspectives & Insights
Page last updated February 29, 2004.
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