US companies moving more jobs to India but quietly

[joeunderdog]

US corporations are picking up the pace in shifting well-paid technology jobs to India, China and other low-cost centres, but they are keeping quiet for fear of a backlash, industry professionals said.

Morgan Stanley estimates the number of US jobs outsourced to India will double to about 150,000 in the next three years. Analysts predict as many as two million US white-collar jobs such as programmers, software engineers and applications designers will shift to low cost centers by 2014.

snip

Moreover, on the threshold of a US presidential election year, job losses are a hot button issue. A company that highlighted a major job transfer could wind up in the campaign debate.

snip

Offshoring companies "are paying Chinese wages and selling at US prices," said Alan Tonelson, of the US Business and Industrial Council, a trade group for small business. "They're not creating better living standards for America."

more
http://www.hindustantimes.com/news/181_506801,001300460000.htm

It was disclosed that AOL is sending more work to India this week. If this keeps up, Who will be left to buy the widgets?

[shivaji]

1. And Clark said "let the software jobs go to India, we will do

something else here". I have worked on all kinds of software development including some of the most sensitive software for the government. I can't even imagine the threat to our national security if that work was sub-contracted to a foreign country.

Such shoot from the hip statements show me how uninformed Clark is, and what a political novice he is. I bet Rove is preparing campaign commercials showing Clark speeched promoting Bush* and company. If that does not confuse our base and make them stay home on election day, I don't know what will.

[velocity]

3. That is why Clark is more Repug than Dem.

He thinks trading $50,000 computer jobs for McJobs is good for America. Sure it is but only the CEOs of America.

[BootinUp]

5. Clark has said that the government would

procure all software that had impact on security from American companies that work in the US. I bet you new that, I have posted it before. This is a non issue and you keep taking his words from one 30 second debate answer out of context.

[markus]

2. This just needs to be made illegal

If protecting rice farmers/food supply is legal for the Japanese under WTO, we just need to declare code architected/written/tested overseas to be pretty much illegal for most applications in the United States. Certainly for all the applications that the Bush* et al seem to feel require scrutiny under the Patriot Act (public safety, finance, etc.).

Having most of our micro-circuitry fabs overseas is also fairly scarcy, if you think about it.

War in east Asia folks, and our economy grinds to a halt with 30 days or less, even if we weren't involved.

[abelenkpe]

4. I agree

Let's face it, sending all our middle class jobs overseas isn't gonna be good for our economy either. Things are looking grim and news like this doesn't make it any better. I love how this news item pops up on Christmas eve. Coupled with the mad cow scare and the increased terror alert it's enough to rob any sane individual of any kind of sustained joy.

[Occulus]

13. What about open-source software?

While I do think actions like this (overseas outsourcing) are economically treasonous, there really are excellent programmers overseas. Take a good, close look at the credits the next time you see a movie with high-end effects, for example. Look at the video game industry. Look at Square Enix (Squaresoft).

So, the question becomes... how do we stem this tide from the tech sector overall? Our programmers can't compete with someone in India who's identically trained and willing to work for $20,000/year less than American workers.

[DBoon]

16. Rupee is undervalued

Else how would an Indian programmer enjoy the same amenities as an American programmer on one tenth the salary (I've heard the Indian programmers make $6,000 per year in dollars)?

The Indian programmers are not living in grass huts, believe me.

[truthseeker1]

6. Help, I need facts to back up my argument.

I just had an infuriating discussion with my husband about this. He tried to play devil's advocate (I guess that's what he was doing) and excuse the corporations sending programming jobs overseas by saying that they need employees who speak other languages to write the code(? or maybe just user manuals or whatever it is they need translators for) in other languages. I countered with - well, why are all the jobs being outsourced to India and China then? And not to Germany, France, Russia, and many other countries? Are the workers in India and China well versed in that many languages? (sarcasm)

Then, he came up with this argument in general for jobs going overseas. He figures there are taxes and other "things we don't know about" that compensate for the jobs going out of the country. My argument was that if these companies are going to send the jobs overseas to make the products/technology, then they need to be charged import taxes when they bring those products back into America. He said we don't know for sure that they aren't being taxed or penalized already.

So, I vowed to find out. Someone please confirm for me that they do NOT get charged import taxes or some other appropriate penalty for providing products and services to Americans that were produced overseas.

(I couldn't believe he wouldn't just agree with me that the massive move to send jobs overseas is BAD FOR AMERICA!!) I'm so MAD right now.

[Elwood P Dowd]

7. He just doesn't want to face facts.

Go to various sites, including Trade Alert, Trade Watch, Public Citizen, etc., for more information. Check out some of Bill Moyer's articles at http://www.pbs.org/now/

I have friends that are the same way. They just don't want to know the
truth. It ruins the little world they live in. Like Elwood in the movie, they don't enjoy facing reality.

As for extra taxes on imports, the WTO would not allow such a thing. Look what happened when Bush tried to protect the steel industry. We were ordered to remove the extra taxes on the imports, and Busch complied rather than facing billions of dollars in trade sanctions.

[kalian]

11. For the sake of your marriage....

Don't bother with these types of discussions. Seriously. What you
will both need to do is figure out how you'll manage when the US
becomes a third-world backwater country...

[truthseeker1]

15. We've already decided.

We're moving to Canada. He's from Montana anyway and wants to go back there eventually, so we figure we'll just go north of the border.

Although.....I hear there is a new prime minister in Canada who sounds an awful lot like Bush (or is headed in that direction anyway). Scary.

[mbperrin]

8. Look at that *Bush job machine

go!

Or should it be "Look at those Bush* machine jobs go away"??!!

[stickdog]

9. First, raise the corporate tax rate and eliminate loopholes.

Then give corporations a tax break based on the US income tax paid by their employees.

Then give government contract preferences depending on a corporation's percentage of US citizen labor.

[Occulus]

10. Economic treason.

We should start calling it what it is.

I lambasted a young kid in a chat room for this- his job was outsourcing. Our conversation was quite amicable until he told me that. I then asked him how it feels to be personally responsible for lost jobs here at home. He became properly chagrined and left immediately thereafter.

Anyone involved in outsourcing will never, ever be a friend of mine. It's an evil job that hurts our country in both the short and long term.

Outsourcing ought to be a federal crime punishable by revocation of the company's corporate charter.

[pfitz59]

17. I agree....

America's strength has always been its inventiveness and ingenuity. Exporting these out of country will inevitably be our downfall!

[are_we_united_yet]

12. With mad cow

we won't even be able to work at Mickey Dee's.

[RamboLiberal]

14. Heard an economics prof from North Carolina

last weekend on the radio say that half a million Wall Street jobs are heading overseas in the next couple of years. There's going to be only 2 classes left in the US - the have too much and the have-nots.