NEWS: Bush outsourcing our future
j-bradford-delong.net
Will America lose 3.3 million high-paid, value-added technology jobs in coming years? That's one estimate that John Chen, CEO of Sybase , has heard -- and it's not at all impossible, he told the Progress & Freedom Foundation's Aspen Summit this morning. This strikes me as one of the sleeper issues for the coming campaign, especially in places where technology has fueled the economy such as Silicon Valley. Companies are sending their work overseas at an accelerating rate.
The reason is simple: money. When they can hire qualified engineers at a third to a tenth of what it costs in California or Boston, for example, the urge is irresistable. But they should be honest about why they're moving jobs offshore. That's what was so offensive about a Hewlett-Packard executive's statements when the company recently announced it was setting up a networking R&D center in Singapore, according to the Straits Times (Google cache). The Times reported:
The technology information giant already has a facility to develop these products in Roseville, just outside of Sacramento in California. But last year HP found it difficult to find suitable manpower for the centre, said the company's vice-president and general manager for networking, Mr John McHugh.
No suitable people right next door in the San Francisco Bay Area, in Silicon Valley, where the unemployment rate -- especially engineers -- exceeds the national rate? Baloney. We need a national debate about the next wave of American job losses, the same kind of debate we've had over the manufacturing move overseas. It was painful but it left us stronger in the end.
Chen correctly calls for a deep study of this trend. We need facts and context, and so far we have mostly anecdotal evidence. But the United States seems woefully unprepared to deal with what's coming this time. We are systematically wrecking our schools (except our universities, which remain the world's best), destroying our government's fiscal base, encouraging inequality of opportunity and generally encouraging our international competitors to take advantage of our self-induced weakness. America's emerging plutocracy cares about profits, and doesn't care where they come from.
For the rest of America, it's not going to be so easy this time. |
