Outsourcing: Dont Think Youre Safe
No. No country in the world would show its own "patriotism" by shipping its own jobs to India; while American workers have to beg or seek social services because an Indian has his/her job.
Flag wavers! Wave the flag vigorously for this!
Actually, EVERYONE is replacable.
The outsourcing/offshoring of American jobs is transitioning one industry at a time. Those not affected tend to not believe it will happen to them.
The same thing goes with the jobs that remain. Those that remain then become targets for importing cheap foreign workers (H-1B, L-1, and other visas). We have seen this in IT and engineering, and now we are seeing the same thing happen in health care.
Ask yourself, why if there is a massive shortage of nurses and other health care workers doesn't the industry and government treat it as an emergency? Why aren't we seeing more and more seats opening up in nursing and other health care programs? Why are "emergency" student loans not available? Why don't hospitals and health care organizations pay better? Why don't they treat their employees better?
For the same reason corporations continue to complain there are not enough workers in IT and engineering while layoffs continue to happen and engineers and techs still have a harder time finding work than they did years prior.
Why? So they can bring in cheap foreign workers.
Already there is talk about bringing in foreigners as cheap non-complaining teachers.
And there are senators trying to circumvent H-1B caps by allowing an infinite number of H-1Bs in as long as they have any graduate degree.
And if you handed your taxes over to H&R Block or some other large accounting company it is most likely they were prepared in India. Got to love having your tax information, personal identification, etc. in the hands of Third Worlders, eh? But it doesn't stop there, a lot of large banks are doing same thing.
And the games go even further.
So until Americans wake up as to how their best paying jobs are getting offshored or handed to cheap foreigners this will continue. Remember how our leaders told us that this would mean even better jobs for Americans that pay even more? Well where are these better jobs? Where are these higher salaries? Recent job growth has been primarily in low paying service jobs.
We're also losing our jobs to illegal immigrants!
LMEM,
Good to read your posts, as usual.
Disparity in pay has already hit the big time in media and little has changed. Until we see how ridiculous some of these situations are and how badly they affect confidence in the business itself, the change won't happen.
There are execs who earn every penny and are worth the pay and then there are those who don't. Those who destroy companies and take the parachute out have really damaged a lot of people's faith in employers and that has had a disastrous effect upon the (misguided?) notion that we should earn what we are paid.
The average worker (most of us) earn less now in real dollars than ever before in our lifetimes and yet we are bombarded with images of the greedy fatcats, etc. In economic times like these, with many areas of the country in bad straits, this doesn't go unnoticed. There is fuel for the fire for some kind of equity and then there is the reality that we are competing with other nations for jobs we can no longer keep. Protectionism is a disastrous and yet we deserve some kind of level playing ground for our own products. We also have to realize that our future is not in manufacturing anymore. In that area, everyone else is cheaper and ready to undercut us. We are not ready to admit this and many people are suffering hardship as a result. This has been terrible for many working people. They don't have a chance without an economic miracle.
If we are to change this, we have to make education affordable for every citizen and every child. There is no other way that I can see for Americans to save themselves and their families. The time is past when an auto plant could allow a family to make ends meet. We have to make sure that every trainable person has access to that education. We have to eliminate the economic barriers to education if we intend to survive. Right now, it is very difficult for any one, middle class or not, to afford higher ed. We are killing ourselves and our future is we don't mandate education for everyone and allow them the opportunity to make a living here at home.