U.S. To Train 3,000 Offshore IT Workers

[Dhalgren]

Federally-backed program aims to help outsourcers in South Asia become more fluent in areas like Java programming—and the English language.

By Paul McDougall
InformationWeek
August 3, 2010 01:59 PM

Despite President Obama's pledge to retain more hi-tech jobs in the U.S., a federal agency run by a hand-picked Obama appointee has launched a $36 million program to train workers, including 3,000 specialists in IT and related functions, in South Asia.

Following their training, the tech workers will be placed with outsourcing vendors in the region that provide offshore IT and business services to American companies looking to take advantage of the Asian subcontinent's low labor costs.


Under director Rajiv Shah, the United States Agency for International Development will partner with private outsourcers in Sri Lanka to teach workers there advanced IT skills like Enterprise Java (Java EE) programming, as well as skills in business process outsourcing and call center support. USAID will also help the trainees brush up on their English language proficiency.

USAID is contributing about $10 million to the effort, while its private partners are investing roughly $26 million.


"To help fill workforce gaps in BPO and IT, USAID is teaming up with leading BPO and IT/English language training companies to establish professional IT and English skills development training centers," the U.S. Embassy in Colombo, Sri Lanka, said in a statement posted Friday on its Web site.

<snip>...

But it's the outsourcing program that's sure to draw the most fire from critics. While Obama acknowledged that occupations such as garment making don't add much value to the U.S. economy, he argued relentlessly during his presidential run that lawmakers needed to do more to keep hi-tech jobs in IT, biological sciences, and green energy in the country.

He also accused the Bush administration of creating tax loopholes that made it easier for U.S. companies to place work offshore in low-cost countries.

As recently as Monday, Obama, speaking at a Democratic fundraiser in Atlanta, boasted about his efforts to reduce offshoring. The President said he's implemented "a plan that’s focused on making our middle class more secure and our country more competitive in the long run -- so that the jobs and industries of the future aren’t all going to China and India, but are being created right here in the United States of America."


http://www.informationweek.com/news/software/integration/showArticle.jhtml?articleID=226500202


Much more at the site.

So no jobs program in this country, but plenty of training to help corporations out-source? Well, how does this square with support for jobs at home? It looks like cheap labor in Asia was a promise somewhere...to someone...not to us...

[qb]

1. This is just sick. New infrastructure for Iraq, now a jobs program for SE Asia.

What about US workers?

[HipChick]

9. Latest RW talking point...USAID that is what they do..build economy /donate money in other countries

Aided and abetted by Bill Gates foundation..

[Dhalgren]

10. USAID is not "aide" in the sense of help to countries in distress.

USAID stands for United States Agency for International Development. That is pro-corporate development and you should know that. This isn't a food program - that's what the right-wing doesn't like; the right-wing likes this kind of "aide" just fine...

[MajorChode]

80. Hogwash

USAID is heavily involved in all sorts of places where people are destitute. Reciprocal organizations exist in all wealthy nations, and while they may not be a "food program" they sure as hell do provide that service among many others.

http://www.usaid.gov/our_work/humanitarian_assistance/ffp/

[ProSense]

2. So?

This has nothing to do with outsourcing. This is aid to train workers in countries to help build up these countries. How is training a worker in a country and employing them in that country outsourcing American jobs? If the U.S. trains a teacher or a technician in Afghanistan that is not outsourcing.

Ending outsourcing is done from within this country by eliminating loopholes and tax breaks for companies that take their operations overseas, and rewarding those that create jobs here.

Here's the State Department's press release:

These four alliances are all with Sri Lankan private companies. USAID's investment of about Rs.1.1 billion is generating an additional Rs.2.9 billion investment from the private sector for a total investment of approximately Rs.4 billion in the construction, business process outsourcing, and apparel manufacturing sectors.

Go the site USAID and read about the initiatives. Programs like these are exactly the purpose of this agency. It wasn't too long ago that the administration was being criticized for being extremely slow in appointing a director. The fact is that aid to underdeveloped countries is an important part of American foreign policy.

It was created specifically for this purpose.

It's tough to balance foreign policy with domestic needs, but an explanation might go a long way.

"So no jobs program in this country" What?

[Dhalgren]

7. The article plainly states that US corporations are

taking advantage of this training to employ workers in these countries - and it is not just Sri Lanka...

Name the jobs programs that have been initiated by the present administration. TIA

[Webster Green]

8. What about this part?

Following their training, the tech workers will be placed with outsourcing vendors in the region that provide offshore IT and business services to American companies looking to take advantage of the Asian subcontinent's low labor costs.

http://www.informationweek.com/news/software/integration/showArticle.jhtml?articleID=226500202

[Dhalgren]

11. Dead-on!

Folks seem to read what they want to read and ignore the rest.

[ProSense]

13. What about this part

He also accused the Bush administration of creating tax loopholes that made it easier for U.S. companies to place work offshore in low-cost countries.

Your part isn't in the release, and this RW crap has been picked by every RW blog, and anyone on the left searching for a reason to demonize the President.

[Dhalgren]

19. Yes it was. He quoted from the article.

You are attacking without bothering to read. Why is that?

[Greyhound]

60. SOP. This one also posts links she hopes won't be read as they usually

don't support her talking point and are frequently contradictory to it.

Whom else do we know that exists because most people don't check what they say?

[w4rma]

22. BS. Why do you hate the American worker, ProSense? (nt)

No :sarcasm:.

[Hannah Bell]

70. bs

[DJ13]

3. BOHICA

Its becoming quite clear that the corporations own both the WH and Congress regardless of party.

[ProSense]

4. No, what's become clear

is the number of people who are determined to spin anything against the President.

USAID? When did it become progressive to slam USAID?

[Dhalgren]

5. Did you read the article?

They were not "slamming" USAID. They were pointing out that the present Admin was following in the footsteps of the previous one, campaign promises notwithstanding...

[DJ13]

6. Why should our country pay to train workers in another country?

You're being too much the blind partisan, this is NOT in the interests of our people.

[ProSense]

12. This agency was established by JFK

lauded by progressives for years, now all of a sudden it's a pro-corporate RW tool.

Preposterous.

[Dhalgren]

16. JFK was no enemy of the corporations - no President has been

and none could be. USAID has always been used for less than laudable purposes, just as the School of the Americas - who established that edifice to justice, equality and the American Way? OH yeah...

[ProSense]

18. From the OP: "So no jobs program in this country"

It's a damn good thing there are Democrats still focused on the facts.


And feel free to click on the image below for additional facts.

[Dhalgren]

20. OK, so you do not know what a "jobs program" is, fine.

The link you sent me to is not about a "jobs program" at all. It is a statement made by Congressman Dingle. A "jobs program" would be something on a par with the jobs programs FDR created or even some of the stimulation LBJ created in the economy. Not someone hawking the "achievement" of creating "thousands" of jobs. Thousands? I mean that's better than nothing, I suppose, but, you know, other less equipped Presidents have done that much...

[ProSense]

26. I believe the instructions were

And feel free to click on the image below for additional facts.

[Dhalgren]

28. Why should I care how Republicans vote? I know what they

stand for and I am becoming more and more aware that many Democrats stand for the same thing. It is very funny how when the Republicans are in power they do whatever the hell they want, but when Democrats are in power they can only do what the Republicans LET them do. That is pretty pathetic...

[ProSense]

30. What's pathetic

is that you obviously can't see that the bills passed and are jobs bills.

[Dhalgren]

33. And and the jobs "created" don't keep up with the loss.

Those are the kinds of "job programs" the Bush admin put forward - they are insulting. We have the highest unemployment since the Great Depression and these paltry sops are the best they can do? Well, yeeehaaaaw!

[ProSense]

35. "So no jobs program in this country"

Wrong.

[ProSense]

27. Here:

A jobs program that has been extremely successful.

[Dhalgren]

31. That is a pretty pathetic jobs program. Better than nothing, but

not by much. If that is all you got to show, you should probably not show it...

[ProSense]

34. "So no jobs program in this country"

Wrong.

[Dhalgren]

40. Go with whatever helps you sleep, bud. There hasn't been

one half of one tenth of the jobs created that need to be in this country. You can puff up and spout the party line about all the great jobs created, but we both know that is not true. So you can cheer lead to your heats content, but it won't make the stuff you say true. Ciao...

[ProSense]

42. Here

the article is nonsense given the facts.

[Hannah Bell]

71. bs

[JoseGaspar]

14. It became progressive to slam USAID...

...during the Vietnam War ...and with very good reason.

[Dhalgren]

17. Thank you! And you are right.

Why can't folks read the articles and discuss what they say? Why drop immediately into attack mode?

[MajorChode]

63. Hogwash

USAID =/ US Aid in the form of military aid.

[Dhalgren]

65. I think that I don't understand your responce.

Would you elaborate? You seem to be saying basically what the poster in #14 was saying. So...

[MajorChode]

72. I'm saying some of the posters here don't have a clue what USAID is

USAID is non-military aid. Always has been since its inception.

[fasttense]

15. USAID is a federal agency supported through the Secretary of State, Hillary Clinton's, office.

"USAID is an independent federal government agency that receives overall foreign policy guidance from the Secretary of State."

http://www.usaid.gov/about_usaid/

So it is our tax dollars going to outsource our jobs. How convenient for likes of Bill Gates. Not so convenient for the unemployed.

[Dhalgren]

21. That is about the size of it...

Someone once said something about holding feet to the fire. I wonder whatever happened to that sentiment...

[maryf]

48. they got afraid their fingers might get burnt! nt

[Matariki]

23. Because IT workers in the US can actually make a middle class wage

something companies are loathe to pay...

[HipChick]

24. US IT workers priced themselves out of the market

As an IT contractor, I see contracts all the time, where US IT worker are called back in to fix problems that their cheaper outsourced solution messed up...in a backwards way, its creating more jobs ...eventually

[Ignis]

39. Wait just a fucking second here...

"US IT workers priced themselves out of the market," OR
"US IT consulting companies priced themselves out of the market, hurting both themselves and the US It workers they employ?"

Did you miss the Dot-Crash or something? :shrug:

Most IT workers haven't been able to name their own price for services for more than a decade. But that hasn't stopped IT consulting companies from simply shifting their rates from 2x consultant pay to 3x or 4x consultant pay, as those workers are paid less.

[Matariki]

45. Bullshit.

people charge more to mow lawns in my neighborhood than web developers make. Electricians and plumbers make more.

[Raineyb]

74. Oh bullshit. Workers are not obligated to work for wages incapable with being able to

pay their expenses because corporations want to squeeze out some more profit. Those workers invested in their educations to be able to perform those jobs and the companies want to what hire someone for a couple of pennies over minimum wage? That's the reason why we used to have tariffs to prevent this kind of fuckery in the first place.

[Name removed]

25. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[DevonRex]

29. It's USAID. Where the fuck do you THINK they help people?

[ProSense]

36. It's progressive jingoism. n/t

[Dhalgren]

37. "Help people"? Right...

:rofl:

[MajorChode]

62. Not too many people here give a shit, apparently

Nor do they actually care about doing the slightest bit of research on USAID. From the Wiki article:

USAID's origins date back to the Marshall Plan reconstruction of Europe after World War II and the Foreign Assistance Act. In 1961, an executive order established USAID by consolidating U.S. non-military foreign aid programs into a single agency. To address rising deficits, aid was tied to the purchase of U.S. goods and services, effectively subsidizing the U.S. balance of payments; for example, aid-financed commodities were required to be shipped in U.S. flagships.

So any money invested in places like Sri Lanka is tied to agreements which require the receiving country to reciprocate by buying US goods and services. Furthermore, if anyone had bothered to read the article, they would see the US gov part of the investment was only $10 million with private industry contributing the other part. So for $10 million (a drop in the bucket as far as the US budget goes) we get several times that amount in actual investment which will eventually find it's way back to the US and create jobs here as well. Meanwhile the money goes to help transform places like Sri Lanka from a despotic shithole to a thriving democracy. Considering the strategic importance of such a place, that's a damn good investment.

But apparently all you have to do is put "Offshore IT Workers" in the title of your article and people immediately turn off the cognitive part of their brain and go into full blown reactionary mode.

[Dhalgren]

66. And evidently offshoring of workers jobs means nothing to you.

So we understand each other well, I guess...

ETA: Oh, and thanks for the 'kick'!

[MajorChode]

68. And evidently war, mayhem, regional instability, and starvation means nothing to you

Wow! Slinging false dichotomy bullshit sure it fun! I can see why you like it so well.

Cheers!

[Dhalgren]

76. It's always easier when you sling it for the bosses.

Good work! :eyes:

[MajorChode]

78. Thanks for the tip

I'm just learning from the master.

Cheers!

[jeanpalmer]

73. There's nothing in the original article

about Sri Lanka having to buy anything from the US. You're mixing up a Wiki article with the original article. Training Sri Lankans to take over jobs held by Americans is not an investment, unless your investment objective is to go broke. If jobs continue to be shipped overseas, you may transform Sri Lanka into something but you're also going to transform the US into a politically unstable economic basket case. No country can survive sending its jobs overseas, as we are witnessing. And forcing American workers, many of who have to take out loans to pay for re-training, to pay for the training is unconscionable.

[MajorChode]

75. So if it's not in the original article, it doesn't happen?

The fact that balance wasn't in the original argument was exactly my point. Do you actually think the US gives assistance to anyone without the expectation of increased trade going BOTH directions?

If you think that "No country can survive sending its jobs overseas", why do you think that every wealthy country on this planet is helping to develop despotic shitholes like Sri Lanka? The successes and failures of such policies speak for themselves. The US abandoned Somalia and civil rights abuses and instability soared. Now it's a breading ground for terrorism, and they are disrupting international trade which costs us many times more than what a relatively small investment at the right time could have prevented. Helping to develop Taiwan has paid us back many times over in the American jobs it's created and the strategic benefits are incalculable. The list goes on and on. Furthermore, no country can survive protectionism policies either. We can either take advantage of developing trade, or we can die a withering death of protectionism.

[Dhalgren]

77. Man! You are up to your neck, eh? Watch out! There's a workers

neck you haven't stepped on! No doubt you will get around to it...

[MajorChode]

79. Do you actually have anything of substance to offer?

Or are you simply an appeal to emotion one trick pony?

Just curious.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Appeal_to_emotion

Cheers!

[Starry Messenger]

32. I know IT guys who have been out of work for months.

$36 million dollars would go a long way to helping them keep their skills updated and also to creating jobs for them here at home. Not surprised to see Bill Gates cold fingers in this too. He seems determined to just reduce the standard of living all across this country.

[Dhalgren]

38. It would appear that the lowering of wages in the US for all

working class folks is the aim. Too bad there isn't a political party that will fight for workers rights...oh well, I guess as long as the corporate bosses pay so well all the political parties will stay at heel.

[maryf]

50. Gates has destroyed a lot of pies...

with those fingers, wants to make sure to keep his "privacy"... I want to see him with another pie in his face...

[Starry Messenger]

52. +1

[JoseGaspar]

41. Part of a larger "initiative"... sound familiar?

The Shah Appointment at USAID
Talkin' Bout a (Second Genetically-Engineered Privatized) Green Revolution

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/mira-kamdar/the-shah-appointment-at-u_b_356184.html

USAID was created during the first year of the Kennedy administration in 1961. Then, communist armed insurgencies spreading among the developing world's poor masses threatened the American way of life. Now, terrorist armed insurgencies spreading among the developing world's poor masses threaten the American way of life. Then, USAID was created because smart Americans in the Kennedy administration thought that allowing developing countries' economies to collapse "would be disastrous to our national security, harmful to our comparative prosperity, and offensive to our conscience." Now, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton plans to re-empower USAID and intensify its focus on agriculture because "food security is not just about food. But it is about all security - economic security, environmental security, even national security."


(snip)

Fast forward to 2009. Shah, a 36-year-old medical doctor freshly plucked from the Gates Foundation via the Department of Agriculture, is being hailed as just the medicine for the now ailing USAID. What Shah is being brought in to do is basically what he did with the Gates Foundation, where he oversaw the emergence of agriculture as one of the primary, long-term focuses of the Foundation's work, or what he did as undersecretary for research, education and economics at the USDA. In both cases, Shah distinguished himself not only for his brilliance and his acumen at managing a large spectrum of projects, large amounts of money and large numbers of people, but by his messianic belief in the ability of technology-based, market-driven solutions.

This is a vision Shah shares with Secretary Clinton. It is a vision that could forever change not only the essential workings of our government in its relationship with private corporations but also the genetic content of most of the plants we eat along with the market mechanisms that get those plants into the ground, out of the ground and onto our plates. In this vision, what the world needs to survive and what the United States needs to preserve its dominance (its security) is a deeply integrated effort between the United States government and agribusiness to advance a "second Green Revolution," a phrase actually coined by the Bush administration, which had already focused USAID on supporting the expansion of genetically engineered crops in the developing world. But, for the sake of the Obama administration, let's just skip that inconvenient truth. In the 1960s Green Revolution, the Democratic one, the U.S. government worked with the Ford and the Rockefeller Foundations to boost grain yields in the developing world with new hybrid seeds, a new infrastructure of big irrigation schemes, and a dramatic expansion in the use of chemical fertilizers and pesticides.



(snip)

In his article last year "A Green Revolution for Africa?", which featured a photograph of Rajiv Shah at work in Africa, David Rieff ably dissected the ambitions of the Gates Foundation in market-based, technology-derived solutions, particularly biotechnology and genetic engineering, to alleviate hunger. The Gates Foundation partners with governments as well as with the Rockefeller Foundation, heavily involved in the original Green Revolution. It has also hired a former vice-president from Monsanto, and collaborated with Monsanto and Syngenta, the world's biggest players in the genetic engineering of food plants, on the creation of a vault to preserve the world's plant diversity . When Rajiv Shah moved from the Gates Foundation to the Department of Agriculture, he took the lessons he learned there in "creative capitalism" with him. On the creation of the National Institute of Food and Agriculture (NIFA) last year, a move many scientists hope will boost primary research at America's leading research and agricultural universities that is not funded by private agribusiness, Shah demurred that this was not really the goal. He even went so far as to call for even deeper integration between public university research and private enterprise, something hard to imagine in U.S. agriculture. According to an article by Bob Grant in The Scientist, Shah said: "The USDA hadn't been using these tools of deep collaboration," between the private and the public sectors. He continued: "We're going to do all these things very differently. We are going to engage the private sector much more than we have in the past."

[Starry Messenger]

43. "Creative capitalism"

Fuck. I hate it when it gets "creative" :scared: Sounds like something out of a movie about the mob. "How shall we do 'im, boss?" "Use your imaginations, boys. Get creative."

[Webster Green]

53. Very interesting.

Thanks for posting the link! :thumbsup:

[maryf]

55. the link to the Rieff article for you...

and others here who read thoroughly.

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/10/12/magazine/12wwln-shah-t.html

and the picture:

[maryf]

56. self delete...duplicate

[blueworld]

44. Well, I'm too old to see this as anything other than more spy crap

Sri Lanka has been used by the OSS & later CIA for 70 years. It's beautifully located in Asia, doncha think? With their current internal troubles, I wonder if USAID is buying themselves some neatly placed hackers trained by elegant spy types? $36 million ain't a lot.

I agree with everyone who's disgusted with outsourcing etc., but ever since the glorious '60's whenever I see shite like this I think espionage.

[TBF]

46. K&R nt

[maryf]

47. Huge K&R nt

[ProSense]

49. This is

USAID.

[OnionPatch]

51. My tax money is going to help support outsourcing?

This is just getting more and more outrageous all the time. Why don't they just come right out and say "Fuck You!" to American workers?

[maryf]

54. Basically that's what they've said...

we must respond in kind,,,

[OhioChick]

57. Hope, Change, FAIL n/t

[SammyWinstonJack]

69. Big FAIL!

[ChromeFoundry]

58. Fuckin' brilliant...

:puke:

[inna]

59. That's nothing compared to the REALLY bad news:

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=389&topic_id=8888070&mesg_id=8890021

If that is not going to finish off the middle class, I don't know what will.

The very last thing we need right now is NAFTA on steroids - but of course the corporations absolutely, positively love the idea, and we all know who calls the shots.

[maryf]

64. and again please make this an OP?

pretty please? :)

[blindpig]

61. Capital has the whip hand.

Can there be any doubt? Be it the Gulf, finance, education, the Middle East, health care and now this. It is the common thread.

Kill Capitalism

[maryf]

67. yep, the people can't take much more...

I thought slavery was illegal...time to emancipate ourselves from the owners...