Made in the U.S.A.
In the mid-1980�s auto manufacturing workers urged us all to, �Buy American.� They feared for their livelihoods as their corporate bosses began moving manufacturing plants to Mexico and other third-world countries where they could exploit cheap labor.
Those workers were told, �Relax. Your job could be done by a trained monkey. Go back to school and learn a skill. Go get a skilled technology job, improve your future and that of your families.�
Like most white-collar people, I believed that. But now that we are entering the �New Economy� and we are being fed that same line of bullshit for the jobs they told everyone to go get, it�s time we put our collective feet down.
In a recent episode of The West Wing, the Senate majority leader told a White House representative, �Let them have or tech jobs. We don�t make carts and buggies anymore either.� Although this was a fictitious conversation, it pointed out one of the many arguments economists and other so-called experts are making, but this argument is flawed.
Yes, we do not still make horse and buggies. Why? Because we make cars, trucks, motorcycles, and airplanes. We also do not still have ditch diggers; we have bull dozers and the people who manufacture them. We lost many assembly line jobs, we replaced them with machines and the people that make those machines. The big problem with this argument is that these jobs were lost by technological changes that allowed the job to be done more efficiently and cost effectively. This is not the case for the loss of IT jobs today.
According to a study by Gartner, 5% of US tech jobs have already been outsourced and by 2010 that deficit will increase to 25%. These jobs are not being replaced by machines or automation, they are being replaced by �Ackmahl Bejeezus� who barely speaks English and is willing to work for $10 a day.
The trend of offshoring doesn�t stop at those skilled tech jobs they told us all to get in the 80�s and 90�s, either. A study by consulting firm Cutting Edge Information stated that financial services firms in the US plan to transfer 500,000 jobs offshore over the next five years, which works out to 8% of those currently employed in the entire industry.
Current studies are also finding that Healthcare research and development jobs are also being moved offshore where there are fewer restrictions to stop things like human testing.
I am not a union guy, in fact I hate unions, but one can�t ignore the vital role they played in the growth of our country. Our companies were guilty of exploiting immigrants, women, and children for the sake of cheap labor until unions came along and brought these awful conditions to light. Thankfully now we only exploit illegal aliens, er I mean undocumented workers, no illegal aliens is right.
With offshoring, companies have found a great new way to exploit their workers. This time there is no US government to stand in their way. A UC-Berkeley economist presented findings from a widely quoted study saying that 14 million jobs in America were at risk of being sent overseas.
So now that all of our jobs are being done by slaves in India or $2 an hour Mexican whores, what are we supposed to do? Resulting to protectionist measures designed to keep jobs in our country "would make matters worse rather than better,� at least that�s what Alan Greenspan says. He also says the country needs to explore avenues to make sure that all Americans have the opportunity to get a good education and then be able to return to school to improve their job skills. Ah yes, that line again, �skilled jobs,� because we all know programmers, accountants, and medical researches require no more skill than an organ grinder. �Dance, little monkey, dance.�
Alan, you recognize, as do I, that in order for the U.S. to continue to be successful we need to focus on our children�s math, science, and technology education. But how do you explain what offshoring has done to our education system in just the last 12 months that offshoring has become an issue?
A new study, to be released in May, shows there was a dramatic drop-off of enrollment in those fields last year, over 19%. Undergraduates in U.S. universities are starting to abandon their studies in tech and engineering amid widespread worries about offshoring by employers.
At the same time, employers are saying that the desire for cheap labor is not the primary reason they are turning offshore, according to another report, this one by the American Electronics Association. Our school system is failing to provide strong science and math education to students and is largely to blame for lost jobs, according to the AeA's report.
So to fix the poor math and science skills we creators of the Internet, walkers of the moon, and inventors of the Flowbee have, they propose we encourage youngsters to enter the field by sending the jobs they would be working towards offshore. �Brilliant, Dr. Watson, absolutely brilliant!�
I leave you with my favorite study yet. This study not only talks about how good offshoring is for us all, but they demonstrate their amazing math skills to prove it.
An ITAA study predicts that the software and services sectors will create 516,000 jobs over the next five years in an environment with global sourcing (offshoring for us dumb Americans). Without global sourcing, it predicts only 490,000 new jobs in the sector. Of those 516,000 new jobs, 272,000 will go offshore with the rest remaining in the U.S., the study said. That works out to a net of about 244,000 new jobs in the U.S., according to the study's findings.
So incase your math skills are as poor as the researchers of this study, here is the formula they are using:
490,000 new U.S. jobs is less than 244,000 new U.S. jobs.
490,000 < 244,000
It would seem their math is as fuzzy as their logic.
Expert - �Go back to school and get a skilled job�
Me � �OK, what job?�
Expert � �A skilled job.�
Me � �Such as?�
Expert � �A job that requires a skill.�
Me- �Ah, you have no fucking clue. I get it now. Maybe I should just get a job as an �expert� and spread my worthless fucking opinions all over.�
It would seem I am already doing that, so where does that leave me?
Until next time kids,
j
P.S. If you�d like to learn more about the problem of offshoring, please visit the following links:
www.techsunite.org
Lou Dobbs
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