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["Alan MacHett" <machett AT ibiblio.org>]

In reference to Ian Meyer's message:
> for a look at the other face of outsourcing, check out this Wired
> Magazine cover article from a few months ago:
> http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/12.02/india.html
>
<excerpt page=4>
What makes this latest upheaval so disorienting for Americans is its
speed. Agriculture jobs provided decent livelihoods for at least 80 years
before the rules changed and working in the factory became the norm. Those
industrial jobs endured for some 40 years before the twin pressures of
cheap competition overseas and labor-saving automation at home rewrote the
rules again. IT jobs - the kind of high-skill knowledge work that was
supposed to be our future - are facing the same sort of realignment after
only 20 years or so. The upheaval is occurring not across generations, but
within individual careers.
</excerpt>

So if that trend continues, then the next wave of US job replacement will
occur in 10 years, then 5...  Twenty years from now, kids entering college
to earn whatever degree will graduate only to discover that said careers
no longer exist in the US.

The author does mention <Devil's Advocate> that this sort of thing has
happened before but that, obviously, we've weathered those storms
</Devil's Advocate>.  The paragraph quoted above, however, is correct in
assessing that the rate of job replacement has never been so rapid; US
employees don't have time to adjust now.  Also, for those that have been
able to adjust, either currently or historically, where are they working
now?  It was brought up in a recent conversation that people who've lost
their jobs to outsourcing or automation, on the whole, have not been
rehired into similar jobs or even different but similar-paying jobs.  So
even if the statistics that say there's no net loss of jobs in the US are
correct, there *is* a net loss of earning.  This wouldn't be a problem if
the cost of living were dropping as well, but that's not the case.

And I notice in the article that the author keeps mentioning what he
believes will be the next innovation or saving grace for US employees.  He
states that, although the creation of products will continue overseas, the
movement of the products will still have to occur here.  So, what?  We're
all supposed to become salesmen, marketers, and advertisers??  He also
predicts that the job losses will move to more creative areas -- product
design -- leaving the product creation to be done overseas.  The author
apparantly forsees some Utopian dream for future US employees; we'll all
get to sit around at home in our underwear dreaming up the things Indians
and Taiwanese will build for us.  Um, can you say "too many cooks"?  Basic
math escapes him.  It takes far, far fewer people to design a product than
are required to make the product.  Okay, so a few laid-offs get rehired as
concept people.  Well what the hell do the rest get to do?

I think I'll research some census information from the last century: the
percentages of employees in the different work sectors and the earning
capacity of each.  I wonder what it will show...?

- Alan

Continued from my previous:
> Only halfway through the 8-page article, but I have to get back to work.
> Here are my initial thoughts:
>
> Outsourcing is cheating, in my opinion.  The savings these companies
> acquire through outsourcing are *not* intended to lower costs for
> consumers, rather increase profits for the higher-ups.  Cheaper
> programmers != cheaper programs.
>
> Outsourcing isn't doing India any real good.  Yes, perhaps the middle
> class is expanding, but to whose benefit?  At what cost?  The projects
> these Indian programmers design are not intended for sale in India.  In a
> sense, India is being robbed of it's talent.  The intelligencia of India
> needs to focus on India, not find American jobs to support American
> lifestyles.
>
> And, again, where does it end?  When enough job markets have been
> transferred overseas, what are we supposed to do over here?  It's not a
> crisis now, I don't believe, but what about 10 years from now?  The only
> jobs that will be left will be those that require a person physically
> present in the US; everything else telecommutes from Mumbai...
>
> -Alan
>