New wave of outsourcing is hitting highly skilled US workers

Even Corporate Finance jobs Are being outsourced!

http://money.cnn.com/magazines/fortune/fortune_archive/2006/03/20/8371806/index.htm

~snip~ College graduates, by contrast, look more outsourceable by the day. New studies from the Kauffman Foundation and Duke University show companies massively shifting high-skilled work--research, development, engineering, even corporate finance--from the U.S. to low-cost countries like India and China. That trend sits like an anvil on the pay of many U.S. college grads.

We need more evidence before concluding that we're at a major turning point in the value of education to American workers. But it certainly feels like one, based on what we can observe. Higher education still confers an enormous economic advantage. Just not as enormous as it used to be.

As for income inequality, pretty much everyone has always hated it, and its growth was a certain cue for handwringing and brow furrowing. Well, it's not growing anymore. Because our best-educated workers are earning less, and the incentives for higher education may thus be declining, the result could be a more uniform--and lower--standard of living. Be careful what you wish for. ~snip~

creting the conditions for a PERFECT STORM?

I was raised in (shall we say) a "Progressive" household -- Dad was a union lawyer, and maternal grand dad was a part time rabbi and full time union organizer (rabble rouser??).

From that background, if you read Marx's Communist Manifesto for the sociology and political science (but most definitely NOT for the fatally flawed economics) you come away with one observation ---

When a stable "mom and pop business" - "skilled worker" class loses it stability and status the society will explode - as happened in Russia, as happened in post WW I Germany, and as may be happening here with the crushing of the middle class.

because they're all flunkies trying to drive the price of their corporation's stock up any way they can. Offshoring engineering jobs is a great idea because it cuts labor costs drastically and thus "improves productivity"--code for doing more while paying labor less--and that drives the stock price as paper profit increases. That paper profit is scraped off the top by upper management, but it exists just long enough to fulfill its purpose in the stock market.

They don't think beyond this function. They can't afford to think beyond their corporation to their country. If they do, they'll get fired and some young turk who isn't afraid "to make the hard decisions" will be brought in and he will outsource the engineering jobs.

The only way this stuff can be stopped is at the Federal level, something that libertarians will shriek about for many years to come. However, it's becoming a matter of national security that should be obvious to anyone who is not blinded by ideology or greed. We already don't have enough basic industry left to support a large war. If we discourage the education of the very people who will recreate it should a need arise, that will seal our doom.

Multinational corporations are destroying our country while we watch. Neither party has had the will to rein them in, and so the process will continue.

Under the suface, there are problems. That's why 61% disapprove of the health of the economy.

current policies prove it

coupled with sociopathic "government," it is a recipe for global catastrophe.

(as it is for governments).

At least that's the case made by "The Corporation"
(not so much about governments as about corporations)
www.thecorporation.com

he makes a great case for corporations behaving like human psychopaths.

i mixed things up.

of tomorrow.

Learning how to pick vegetables or wash dishes should be taught in the schools.

IMO, there are just too many people on the planet - human labor is "worth" less and less. When someone in another country will do a job for a dollar or twenty a day, why should corporations pay more?

Goodbye U.S. middle class, welcome the nation of the haves and the have mores.

Hell, ya gotta shit, ya need the lights, and ya gotta drive to go look for a job.
Everything else is being sold down the river.

flooding across the borders right now. Do you really think there are no Mexicans who can do those jobs? Here in NYC, a hotbed of unionism (shout out to my peeps in Local 3!) I can find you a dozen non-union electricians within a mile of where I am typing (is it called typing? how about "keying"?) who will do an adequate job for less than a quarter of what I got paid when I was working. And their bosses don't have to worry about pensions and stuff, like my old bosses did (hey, guys! Thanks for the checks each month ;^0 ). Same with plumbers and so on. And how many car mechanics do you need when its cheaper to junk the car than fix it? (okay, its not there yet but wait until China starts flooding the US market with their autos)

The Great Collapse is nearing, and I am coming to wish I had listened to my survivalist friends when they told me, thirty years ago, to concentrate on gold and guns, and maybe a secure bunker in Penny.

We live in interesting times, and they are soon to become simply marvelous.

was a "Perpetual pre-med student" - who never got into med school. Along the way he picked up an Advanced Life Support paramedic degree and license, and a "Licensed Vocational Nurse" license.

After several years of "detailing" pharmaceuticals to doctors and volunteering on a community ambulance squad, he took the Fire Fighter Civil Service Exam. The guy is now a Fire Department Rescue Medic - making good money. (Plus - he says the fire helmet and turn out coat are real "chick bait" - which always gets a response from his wife).

There will always be a need for ancillary medical professionals and allied health professionals -- we are an aging society,

and the aged. It is rough work, though, and doesn't pay what it should, IMO. It takes a special person with a giving and gentle personality to do that kind of labor. Or at least, to do it right.

and he took the four month X full time EMT course. Loved it, found a job, and is now doing the Advanced Life Support Paramedic Thing.

He's in his early 60's - been doing it for about 5 years -- and found out that:

He is a confirmed adrenalin junkie

He gets a high from red and blue flashing lights and sirens

He really like trauma work.

You don't have to move to India...like you would if you were working at a call center, a medical transcription facility, or a loan processing institution...

don't want to do...
:sarcasm:

And it's a field I went into because it was supposed to be the "sure bet". All we heard about in the 90s was how there's a huge demand for IT workers. Well now the market is flooded because so many people went into it, and so many jobs left the country. Whenever someone still in school asks me for educational advice, the one thing I tell them is to only study things that can't be done abroad, because by the time they get out of school and start looking for a job, that'll be all that's left.

I have a job now but was unemployed for a while and got a taste of what it's like out there even in the supposedly "recession-proof" D.C. job market. My next job will probably be out of the IT field, and I'll have to go back to school. I'm 48 now, and not really thrilled about having to learn an entirely different field.

I think the best best is health care if you want a skilled job. The rich get sick and no one wants to leave the country just to get health care. Our country is becoming a microcosm of Florida.

He was once a well-paid consultant because he was talented and educated and worked hard on the job. He watched fees for his expertise plummet more than 50% in one year. Now in his mid-40's, he's in construction/home remodeling and it's taking a toll on his body.

For about ten to fifteen years, IT/MIS has been out-sourced and off-shored at rates increasing by leaps and bounds. The 'Y2K' fiasco masked a lot of it, as did the increase in (lower-paid) para-professionals (how I regard 'webbies'). As a trade/profession (akin to engineering), IT/MIS has been almost destroyed by commoditization and proprietarization.

at the local, county, state and federal level - retirements, healthcare and so on, and an upper class of business owners catering to the needs of the government and government workers.

The rest of the poor slobs are left working for the business owners, they have low wages, no retirement, and no health care.

It has been this way for a while, but with outsourcing it is getting even worse.

He tried to change the work structure of the Pentagon Civil Service workers, and got slapped back. But I'll bet he will try again.... http://federaltimes.com/index.php?S=1575047

Bush losing battle to reform civil service
Setbacks in courts, Congress derail grand plan
By AIMEE CURL
March 06, 2006
The early months of 2004 were heady days for Bush administration reformers seeking to revamp the civil service.
Brimming with optimism, they announced that within a half-year’s time — lightning-fast by government standards — they would rewrite civil service rules and apply them to 300,000 Defense Department employees and 8,000 Homeland Security Department employees. A few years after that, they predicted, more than a third of the government’s civilian work force — 100,000 at Homeland Security by 2006 and 650,000 at Defense by 2008 — would be paid, promoted and managed under new personnel and labor-management rules.
Today, two years later, the race to overhaul civil service rules is still in its first lap and gasping for air.

The only employees covered by new rules are about 7,000 senior executives. Buffeted by criticism, logistical challenges and negative court rulings, both Defense and Homeland Security have delayed and curtailed their rollout plans. Defense now plans to start applying its new personnel rules to 11,000 employees in April. Homeland Security recently began applying new performance rules to 2,400 nonunion employees — and plans to transition 20,000 by year’s end; but it won’t shift those employees to a new pay system until next year.
Federal judges have ruled illegal both departments’ new labor relations rules, saying they improperly usurp employees’ collective bargaining and appeals rights. The most recent blow was dealt Feb. 27 by Judge Emmet Sullivan of the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia who told the Defense Department that its new personnel plan “fails to provide employees with ‘fair treatment’ as required by Congress.” ....

Working at retail jobs does not provide enough income to rent an apartment, let alone pay back $40,000 in loans.

Self-fulfillment? Pursue a hobby? Bragging rights?

folks will work for a lot less.

which Bush wants to up the numbers of foreigners coming INTO America to do OUR JOBS, the middle class is getting further and further squeezed out. Crap!

Great - been outta work for over four years with no success finding a job and now THIS. Anyone else as damn DEPRESSED as I am over all this?

of Americans who have worked hard in this country.

God, nothing makes me as angry as this outright betrayal of the American worker!

I'm just relieved that my father isn't here to see this shameful crap!

He was a veteran of WWII and he gave his youth and his energy and his innocence for this country.

He went to work EVERY DAY of his life, and he always, always paid his taxes and supported his family and his community!

Well, this is a fine thank you!

I'm so angry... and I'm so sad for my children -- for all Americans! :cry:

but eventually the Baby Boomers will be retired and that will leave lots of job openings...

Learn hindi, urdu, spanish. Learn all about H1B visas. And if you're an unemployed IT worker, you'll even know the tech terminology. Hell, if you can't get hired to do your job, get hired to hire your replacement.