11 Articles Worth Reading
11 Articles Worth Reading
Date: Tuesday, February 15, 2005 11:35 AM
JOB DESTRUCTION NEWSLETTER
by Rob Sanchez
February 15, 2005 No. 1196
Article 1:
http://www.inthesetimes.com/site/main/article/1880/
High-Tech Hijack
Stephen Gentry had worked as a programmer for Boeing for 15 years
before he was laid off in July 2003. His last project was training his
replacements, software engineers from India. They were working in
Seattle on temporary visas before returning home to do Gentrys job
at Infosys, one of Indias leading subcontractors of information
technology (IT) services. Eighteen months later, Gentry, 52, who earned
a computer sciences degree while working as a construction worker,
still hasnt found a job.
Article 2:
http://www.motherjones.com/news/qa/2005/02/lou_dobbs.html
Exporting America: An Interview With Lou Dobbs
The CNN anchor is mad as hell about offshore outsourcing and
faith-based economics.
Article 3:
http://drudgereport.com/flashss.htm
BUSH: HOLDING THREE JOBS 'UNIQUELY AMERICAN'
Last Friday when promoting social security reform with 'regular'
citizens in Omaha, Nebraska, President Bush walked into an awkward
unscripted moment in which he stated that carrying three jobs at a time
is 'uniquely American.'
Article 4:
http://www.wqad.com/Global/story.asp?S=2907818
Where Did the Jobs Go? Part 1: The move to Reynosa
"[Closing the Galesburg plant] was a very difficult decision," said
Steve Ingham, Maytag senior vice president of manufacturing. "But it
was a decision that needed to be made in order for us to be competitive
in the marketplace."
When the 1,600 Galesburg jobs vanished, most of them reappeared south
of the border in Reynosa, Mexico.
Article 5:
http://www.nationalreview.com/nrof_comment/anderson200502110828.asp
Outsourcing Attacks Not Over In fact, they seem to be increasing.
Many companies assumed that the assault in state legislatures on
international trade and offshore "outsourcing" would end with the
November 2004 election. However, the first weeks of 2005 have showed
that assumption to be mistaken.
Article 6:
http://www.reuters.com/newsArticle.jhtml?storyID=7457658&type=businessNews
U.S. bosses want foreign workers, but jobless object
The flow of skilled migrants to the United States in the last century
may have stoked the nation's economic success, but the modern influx of
foreign workers alarms America's high-tech unemployed. But Theresa
Brown, immigration policy director at the U.S. Chamber of Commerce,
said employers do not go out of their way to hire foreigners, and she
dismisses the suggestion that unemployed American high-tech workers
should be considered before a foreign worker is hired. "(Not all of
the) unemployed are capable of doing the jobs for which H-1Bs are being
hired. Workers are not fungible that way," Brown said. "Sometimes the
best person for the job just happens to be born elsewhere."
Article 7:
http://www.workpermit.com/news/2005_01_20/us/fed_governor_favours_open_us_immigration.htm
Fed governor favours open US immigration
Answering questions at the Council on Foreign Relations, Ben Bernanke,
a member of the Board of Governors of the US Federal Reserve, said
relatively open immigration had been good for the US economy. "I think
a very important part of the productivity gains in the past decade were
associated with our open immigration policy,"
Article 8:
http://www.cfr.org/pub7618/john_h_makin_ben_bernanke/c_peter_mccolough_series_on_international_economics_productivity_growth_and_monetary_policy
.php
C. Peter McColough Series on International Economics: Productivity
Growth and Monetary Policy
Council on Foreign Relations, New York, N.Y., January 19, 2005
It was said that Silicon Valley was the place where Indian engineers
use Japanese money to produce for the European market. [Laughter] So if
we don't allow-if we don't make provisions for bright people, whether
they be graduate students, undergraduates, or professionals to come,
that's a big loss.
Article 9:
http://vdare.com/roberts/050214_jobs.htm
The Great American Job Sellout
Americans are being sold out on the jobs front. Americans employment
opportunities are declining as a result of corporate outsourcing of US
jobs, H-1B visas that import foreigners to displace Americans in their
own country, and federal guest worker programs.
Article 10:
http://inhome.rediff.com/money/2005/feb/11bpo.htm
BoA to set up 2nd BPO unit in Mumbai
Encouraged by the quality of work and savings at its initial
outsourcing operations in India, Bank of America Corp has announced the
opening of its second unit in India in Mumbai which will work largely
for the global corporate and investment banking unit. At 1,500,
Continuum would represent less than 1 per cent of the bank's global
work force of 175,000. However, the expansion in India comes as workers
worry about continuing job cuts from last year's FleetBoston Financial
Corp acquisition.
Article 11:
http://www.todaysengineer.org/2005/Feb/training_funds.asp
Embattled H-1B training funds likely to disappear
Since it was first authorized by Congress in 1998, the H-1B Technical
Skills Training Grant Program has earned mixed reviews.
1. +++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
http://www.inthesetimes.com/site/main/article/1880/
High-Tech Hijack
Corporations ramp up offshoring of IT service jobs
By David Moberg January 27, 2005
Stephen Gentry had worked as a programmer for Boeing for 15 years
before he was laid off in July 2003. His last project was training his
replacements, software engineers from India. They were working in
Seattle on temporary visas before returning home to do Gentrys job
at Infosys, one of Indias leading subcontractors of information
technology (IT) services.
Eighteen months later, Gentry, 52, who earned a computer sciences
degree while working as a construction worker, still hasnt found a
job. "American corporations," he says, "are so greedy and
cutthroat-oriented they dont care about me, you or anybody else
except their bottom line."
Gentry is not alone. The offshoring of work once done by Americans is
growing rapidly. Over the past few years, corporations have shifted
roughly a half million business service and IT jobs, many highly
skilled, to developing countries. This has kept high-tech unemployment
up, driven down wages, sparked widespread job anxieties, depressed
support for free trade and generated a political backlash.
Elite apologists for globalization had long assured workers that they
had a secure future with a college degree and a service job, especially
anything computer-related. Now fewer Americans share the blind faith
that the market will supply new and better jobs, as corporations cut
costs by sending work--ranging from customer services to reading
X-rays--to countries like India, where wages are often one-tenth the
level in the United States.
Nobody knows precisely how many high-tech service jobs have been moved
offshore. The number is still much less than the number of
manufacturing jobs moved overseas, but future prospects are grim.
Multinational companies are speeding up plans either to outsource more
jobs to overseas contractors--including both U.S. multinationals and
fast-growing foreign firms like Infosys--or to set up their own
offshore service operations. IDC, a private IT research firm, predicts
that IT offshoring will increase by more than 500 percent by 2007, and,
according to the companys senior vice president for research, Frank
Gens, China--now moving into services--"represents a wild card that
could well accelerate the U.S. offshoring trend." Forrester Research
predicts 3.3 million service jobs--a third of them in the
highest-paying fifth of the job market--will go overseas by 2015. And a
University of California Berkeley study estimates that that 14 million
service jobs are vulnerable.
"If you work behind a computer screen, your job is up for grabs," says
Sanjay Kumar, former CEO of Computer Associates, a leading management
software company.
End of the line
Offshoring service work is the latest chapter in the history of
capitalist reorganization of work. Early capitalists subdivided and
routinized tasks so they could be performed by less-skilled--and
lower-paid--workers. With digitization of information and
standardization of software, the strategies behind dividing the
manufacture of widgets can be applied to bytes of information relating
to insurance claims, financial accounting, tax preparation, and
hundreds of other tasks.
This new division of work meshes with two other growing trends: first,
outsourcing, or subcontracting, of tasks to other companies, including
even core tasks like manufacturing and design of products and, second,
the shift of production overseas. Manufacturing was the first to go
global, but with the expansion of high-speed Internet links and
plummeting international telecommunication costs, the stage was set for
offshoring services.
Multinational service corporations had long expected to globalize,
mainly by setting up foreign branches to provide services. A few, like
General Electric and American Express, began using technical and
service workers in low-wage countries to cut costs for their own global
operations or, later, to provide services for other companies. Now a
wide range of multinationals can digitally fragment their work,
outsourcing to many different worldwide suppliers in a search for the
lowest cost. Consultants--many with a financial stake in outsourcing
services--promoted offshoring as the wave of the future.
Over the past decade, companies in developing countries have become
major offshoring players as well. Indian software companies in
particular expanded by taking advantage of tens of thousands of
English-speaking Indian engineers, who had worked in the United States
on temporary visas, to develop a skilled workforce and knowledge of
American business. Their reputation for good, cheap work was boosted by
the surge of contracts to fix Y2K software problems. Meanwhile, Indian
universities have been churning out thousands of graduates, and the
government relaxed controls on foreign businesses and service
exporters.
Winners and losers
Offshoring services hasnt always been as smooth or as cheap as
promised, but companies have prospered. An Institute for Policy
Studies/United for a Fair Economy study found that executive pay for
the 50 largest outsourcers of service jobs increased dramatically in
2003 to 28 percent above the average for large-company CEOs.
But will offshoring be good for everyone else? Heres the
pro-offshoring argument: Businesses that offshore jobs will save money,
cut prices, expand sales, make more profit and then reinvest in new,
high value-added, high-skilled jobs--if only redundant workers will
just retrain themselves. But that scenario has its skeptics. Marcus
Courtney, president of WashTech, an IT local of the Communications
Workers, asks, "Everybody assumes theyll reinvest here, but why
wouldnt they reinvest where its cheaper?" Indeed, Philip Mattera
of the Corporate Research Project reports that venture capitalists now
ask IT start-up companies to present their offshoring strategy.
High-level American IT jobs are still growing. However, overall IT
employment declined in recent years even after corporate IT spending
rebounded. The threat of offshoring has also depressed IT wages, and
college IT enrollment is dropping. Meanwhile, offshore firms are moving
higher up the services skill ladder.
Silicon ceiling
Most new U.S. jobs, according to the Economic Policy Institute (EPI),
are not steps up: They pay 21 percent less on average than job-losing
industries. Six of the 10 occupations that the Bureau of Labor
Statistics forecasts will provide the largest number of new jobs
through 2012 require no college education and typically pay low wages.
Foreign investment--contrary to hype about "insourcing" of jobs to the
United States--is no solution. Foreign investors have mainly acquired
existing U.S. companies, according to EPI, resulting in a net loss of
jobs and a rising trade deficit, while generating a measly 25,000 jobs
a year from new enterprises. And stirring up a hornets nest among
economists, Nobel Prize winner Paul Samuelson last summer pointed out
that the U.S. economy could end up losing, not winning, from expanded
free trade if low-wage foreign competitors drive down the price of
products where the United States theoretically has a comparative
advantage. That seems increasingly possible.
Whats the solution?
In the short run, legislation has been introduced at the state and
federal level to restrict outsourcing of public jobs, tighten tech visa
controls, increase disclosure of offshoring, ensure privacy of
information and otherwise regulate offshoring of services. But such
legislation, while useful, would have limited effect. Meanwhile, two
Indian union leaders recently toured the United States, advocating
transnational labor action to raise labor standards in India--call
centers can be oppressive operations--and slow offshoring. But tech and
business service workers are largely unorganized in both countries.
The U.S. government could spur new job creation by increasing
scientific research funding (which Bush is cutting) and linking
corporate use of federal research to investment in the United States.
It could also expand trade adjustment to cover now-excluded service
workers and provide all displaced workers more comprehensive education
(which Bush opposes).
In the long run, however, workers and communities must win a greater
voice in corporate strategic decisions through federal reform of
corporate governance, shifting of more of the financial burden from
displaced workers and their communities to corporations, collective
bargaining and putting pressure on pension funds. Pension funds and
corporate reformers should also try to reduce Wall Streets focus on
short-run profits. And any national economic benefits from
globalization must be shared with everyone--such as through universal
health care, improved pensions and higher service sector wages--not
hoarded by a tiny elite.
The crisis looming from the massive offshoring of the service industry
may make these currently utopian notions politically feasible--and a
matter of practical national survival.
David Moberg, a senior editor of In These Times, has been on the staff
of the magazine since it began publishing. Before joining In These
Times, he completed his work for a Ph.D. in anthropology at the
University of Chicago and worked for Newsweek. Recently he has received
fellowships from the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation and
the Nation Institute for research on the new global economy.
2. +++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
http://www.motherjones.com/news/qa/2005/02/lou_dobbs.html
Exporting America: An Interview With Lou Dobbs
The CNN anchor is mad as hell about offshore outsourcing and
faith-based economics.
Jeff Fleischer
February 07 , 2005
When American manufacturing jobs headed overseas in the 1990s,
supporters of tariff-free trade argued that newly unemployed workers
could simply find jobs in the growing high-tech sector. Yet
multinational corporations soon outsourced white-collar and
service-industry jobs as well, with overseas labor fielding support
questions from computer users, programming software, and even examining
X-rays and MRI scans for American consumers.
Outsourcing has found a fierce opponent in journalist Lou Dobbs. Since
2003, his CNN news show Lou Dobbs Tonight has featured a recurring
segment in which Dobbs and his team report on corporations sending jobs
overseas. He has compiled an online list of outsourcers, and recently
wrote a book on the practice entitled Exporting America. Dobbs recently
spoke with MotherJones.com about outsourcing and its effects, current
and potential, on the American economy.
MotherJones.com: When did the current outsourcing trend really begin in
earnest?
Lou Dobbs: It began really with the collapse of the telecom and
communications bubble in 2000. The corporations took advantage of a
digital universe to start moving jobs overseas to cheaper labor
markets, and then expanded from there -- to whats now an estimated
400,000-500,000 jobs a year being exported to cheap overseas labor
markets.
Moving from the manufacturing offshoring to outsourcing was really a
creation of the Internet; the bandwith made it all possible. And while
the web-based companies and technology companies and telecommunications
companies were obviously first with outsourcing, its now expanded to
nearly every industry in the country and the world.
MJ.com: In your book, you also describe how state and local governments
are now outsourcing. How did that start?
LD: Its come about because state governments are being approached by
the outsourcing facilitators, consultants and outsourcing companies
themselves. We've reported extensively on a number of state governments
whose outsourcing contracts are based in their unemployment divisions
and departments of labor -- where, for example, people in Indiana at
one point could call up their state unemployment office and be talking
to someone in India about unemployment benefits -- denying citizens of
Indiana a job to help citizens of Indiana. It becomes increasingly
mind-boggling whats going on.
MJ.com: Obviously, the most immediate cost of this outsourcing is the
loss of peoples jobs and livelihoods. What are some of the other
long-term consequences?
LD: Among the many consequences is the pain that is being felt by
working men and women in this country, particularly our middle class.
But the other impact is the transfer of technology and our knowledge
base. Were exporting our privacy as well, because medical and
financial records are being exported so that cheap overseas labor can
work with those documents and records.
Each time we transfer knowledge bases overseas, whether it be
manufacturing or technology or research, that is a service that will
obviously be performed by a competing economy -- whether emerging or
not, a competing economy. And it is work that will not be done by the
U.S. economy and our workers. The result is -- and this is at the
margins at this point, but could grow to an increasingly larger share
of the trade-deficit problem -- the result is further pressure on the
U.S. economy.
And a further impact in terms of labor is not just the loss of jobs.
Study after study, survey after survey, shows that every job that
replaces one that is outsourced pays approximately 20 percent less than
the job that was exported overseas. So we have a continuing downward
pressure on wages in this country. That has an impact on education
because obviously that moneys not available to the tax base that
pays for education. It diminishes, in point of fact, the income-tax
base for the federal government and state governments. So the impact is
broad and it is deep.
MJ.com: When asked about outsourcing during the presidential debates,
George Bush talked about workers needing more education and more
skills. But where will the jobs come from for them to use those skills?
LD: Thats a question Ive been asking for two years. This
faith-based economics that seems to be the hallmark of this
administration is leading us into a no mans land of inexplicable
possibilities. This administration -- and frankly, its both parties,
Democrats and Republicans as well as the administration -- seems
indifferent to the impact of a trade deficit that now amounts to $4
trillion in external debt. We have to borrow nearly $3 billion a day to
support it. The dollar has plummeted. And yet everyone keeps saying,
"Free trade is good for you." I cannot find anyone for whom free trade
is good.
As we go deeper in debt, we continue to lose jobs and diminish our
manufacturing base. Many people want to talk about our dependency on
foreign oil, and its a legitimate and real concern. But so is our
dependency on the rest of the world for our clothing, our food, our
computers and our consumer electronics. Our dependency isnt just on
foreign oil; we cant even clothe ourselves. Free-trade economists
will tell you were a technology economy, but we dont even produce
the technological components that are the foundation of a technology
economy.
MJ.com: What steps have overseas markets such as India and the
Philippines taken to attract these jobs?
LD: Its just a straightforward sales proposition: "Give us your
business, whether it is Wall Street research, call centers or
radiology, and we will provide the same service for one-tenth of what
youre paying." Its impossible for an American worker to compete
with that. Its not because the American worker is any less educated,
because he or she is not. Its not because our workers are any less
productive, because theyre more productive. Its simply the
labor-cost issues. In all the talk from the U.S multinationals, and the
orthodoxy of business, government, academia and media, theyre all
using code words like "competitiveness," "productivity" and
"efficiency." Those are simply code for "the cheapest possible labor."
MJ.com: It seems there isnt as much debate about the merits of
outsourcing as one might expect in politics and in the media. Why do
you think that is?
LD: Over the course of the past 20 years, there has been an absolute
move to market-based economics. And theres a libertarian impulse to
American politics right now, whether Democrat or Republican. That
outlook, of course, means as little government as possible. What Id
like to see is a government that would actually be responsible for its
citizens, who are workers as well as taxpayers, but that runs
absolutely counter to the prevailing political notion, which is
basically libertarian in foundation.
MJ.com: How do you respond to the free-traders argument that
outsourcing is a short-term problem required for long-term economic
growth?
LD: Well, theres nothing short-term about 28 consecutive years of
trade deficits. Theres nothing short-term about a mounting external
debt as a result of our reliance on imports -- an external debt that
has reached $4 trillion. I see no basis whatsoever for the sophistry
thats coming from some of the conservative think tanks and much of
academia that says this is a short-term issue. This is real and present
pain for literally millions of Americans, and a clear and present
danger to an economy that has generated most of the wealth of the
entire world over the past 50 years. We could be near the end of that
role.
MJ.com: Proponents of outsourcing also point to what they call
"insourcing," with overseas companies opening factories here. Does that
provide any hope?
LD: Its an interesting semantic game that has been played in the
free-trade debate. The Bush administration has created this expression
of "insourcing" to counter arguments and concerns about outsourcing of
American jobs to cheaper labor markets. When they talk about
insourcing, theyre really referring to foreign direct investment in
this country. We cant even keep up with the Chinese government on
foreign direct investment in this country; China has for the first time
surpassed the United States in that regard.
The Japanese car plants are here because Ronald Reagan -- who many of
the so-called free traders hold up as a paragon of free trade --
demanded that those plants be created here if they were going to
participate in our economy and enjoy the benefits of the worlds
largest consumer economy. That wasnt free trade; it was rational,
balanced, reciprocal trade -- which is the course we should be pursuing
right now, and which all of our trade partners are pursuing. Were
the only nation in the world that just mindlessly opens our markets
irrespective of the constraints on our own goods and services.
MJ.com: You talk about the need for a balanced middle ground between
protectionism and wide-open trade. What would be an ideal balance?
LD: Overall, were going to have trade deficits with a given country
and a given economy. But we should not be borrowing money to support
our consumption habits over the course of 28 years. The argument has
been styled by the free-traders as opposition between economic
isolationists and free trade. The fact is free trade isnt working,
and nobodys talking about economic isolationism. Were talking
about mutuality and balance in which we eliminate deficits and maintain
vigorous, healthy trade with the world. But that requires that we have
a manufacturing base and reduce our dependency on foreign oil, clothing
and a host of other goods and services that we can no longer afford to
import.
MJ.com: Do you see a tipping point where the U.S. will have outsourced
so many jobs that the economy becomes unsustainable?
LD: The Federal Reserve did a study four years ago that demonstrated
that any time a trade deficit rose above 5 percent of a national
economys GDP, an inflection point had been created. We are now
approaching 6 percent of GDP. Obviously, I hope this does not result in
crisis. That is, a debt crisis because of the amount of money we have
to borrow from overseas to support our imports, nor a diminishment of
our tax base through outsourcing to the point that jobs become so
poor-paying that we cant maintain our tax base. But all of that is
entirely possible unless people awaken to the dangers that are being
posed. I know this is dull stuff for many people, to talk about
external debt and currency devaluations. But the fact is, theyre all
in prospect if we do not reverse these mindless policies.
MJ.com: What type of protections can the U.S. include in future trade
agreements to place the American worker at less of a disadvantage?
LD: To make the American worker more competitive, what we should really
be talking about is preserving the American way of life. Environmental
protection. Protection for our working men and women. That has built up
over 100 years in this country, and we are simply at risk of losing all
of those protections. As we should have with NAFTA, we should sign only
agreements with protections on the environment and on labor. Either we
have that with every trading partner, or we will be at a disadvantage.
The ultimate extension of the free-trade policies that are being
pursued is that not only will there be a race to the bottom for wages
for working men and women, but were also going to have to eradicate
the "inconvenient" and uncompetitive environmental protections that
allow us to drink clean water and breathe clean air. And, by the way,
those nasty child-labor laws could be an encumbrance to
competitiveness; maybe we should get rid of those as well. How far are
we going to roll back the progress of the past century?
MJ.com: If the federal government were suddenly to choose to fight
outsourcing, what should it do?
LD: The first issue is to stop the destruction of an American job. The
principal issue I have with outsourcing is that American companies --
based in the United States, providing goods and services to the U.S.
consumer economy -- are killing jobs in this country and sending them
overseas to provide the same goods and services back to the U.S.
economy. I have no problem if they want to invest and create a market
in India or the Philippines or wherever. Thats great, but dont
kill an American job and put it in the hands of someone making
one-tenth as much just to send that same good or service back to the
United States. Thats whats unique and different, and thats
what has to be stopped. As far as ways to do it, we could do it with
regulation. One would hope that before that, corporate America would
find a conscience. But failing that, regulation is entirely necessary,
Im all for it, and my apologies to the libertarians.
MJ.com: What about those jobs already shipped overseas? Could some of
those come back?
LD: Some of those jobs are already coming back, because companies are
finding that despite whatever huge labor savings [the gain], there are
also hidden costs, including the quality of the programming thats
being done. For example, the quality of the code work thats being
done by programmers in a number of the cheap labor markets, including
India. Indian workers are remarkable people, highly entrepreneurial and
well-educated, but they still cannot compete with American programmers
where its a matter of quality instead of cost. Theres also a bit
of a backlash now on the export of these jobs on the part of consumers.
And my guess is that backlash is going to rise, and there will be
economic costs as a result.
MJ.com: It seems like youve been more active about outsourcing than
probably any other issue during your years as a journalist. Why has
this issue gotten you so involved?
LD: Because at a time when this economy needed to be growing jobs, we
were exporting jobs. At a time of economic downturn, we were raising
the U.S. trade deficit even further. And the sophistry of the
free-trade orthodoxy -- talking about how uneducated Americans are, how
unproductive and incapable of competing -- just frankly rankles the
hell out of me. We were smart enough in the 90s to generate 22
million new jobs. Did we, in the course of four years, become so
stupid, so lazy and so unproductive, or did something else change? I
maintain something else changed, and that was policies that permitted
destructive business practices like outsourcing, and a continuation of
free-trade policies that are leading to greater trade deficits and
greater indebtedness on the part of the United States. We simply cannot
sustain the path were on.
Jeff Fleischer is an editorial fellow at MotherJones.com.
3. +++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
http://drudgereport.com/flashss.htm
BUSH: HOLDING THREE JOBS 'UNIQUELY AMERICAN'
Tues Feb 8 2005 9:27:01 ET
Last Friday when promoting social security reform with 'regular'
citizens in Omaha, Nebraska, President Bush walked into an awkward
unscripted moment in which he stated that carrying three jobs at a time
is 'uniquely American.'
While talking with audience participants, the president met Mary
Mornin, a woman in her late fifties who told the president she was a
divorced mother of three, including a 'mentally challenged' son.
The President comforted Mornin on the security of social security
stating that 'the promises made will be kept by the government.'
But without prompting Mornin began to elaborate on her life
circumstances.
Begin transcript:
MS. MORNIN: That's good, because I work three jobs and I feel like I
contribute.
THE PRESIDENT: You work three jobs?
MS. MORNIN: Three jobs, yes.
THE PRESIDENT: Uniquely American, isn't it? I mean, that is fantastic
that you're doing that. (Applause.) Get any sleep? (Laughter.)
4. +++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
http://www.wqad.com/Global/story.asp?S=2907818
Where Did the Jobs Go? Part 1: The move to Reynosa
"[Closing the Galesburg plant] was a very difficult decision," said
Steve Ingham, Maytag senior vice president of manufacturing. "But it
was a decision that needed to be made in order for us to be competitive
in the marketplace."
POSTED: 2/6/05
By John David
Snapshots capture the final moments of Maytag production in Galesburg.
They show the last side-by-side refrigerator as it comes off the line.
It's signed by workers who are losing their jobs.
"It's hard," said Dave Bevard, Local 2063 Machinists Union president.
"You work beside these people, and they're like your family."
"It was a very difficult decision," said Steve Ingham, Maytag senior
vice president of manufacturing. "But it was a decision that needed to
be made in order for us to be competitive in the marketplace."
When the 1,600 Galesburg jobs vanished, most of them reappeared south
of the border in Reynosa, Mexico. Once the bread and butter of
Galesburg, Maytag makes side-by-side refrigerators here in what
Mexicans call a maquila or factory. Maytag also operates two
sub-assembly plants in Reynosa industrial parks.
While companies like Maytag reap the rewards from relocating to
Reynosa, many workers endure low wages and difficult learning
conditions.
"Diego" showed us the home that he build out of discarded materials. He
works on the line at Maytag in Reynosa. We're protecting his identity
because he could face firing or blacklisting in the factories for
speaking out.
Where Did the Jobs Go?
Part 2: Lifestyles differ in border towns
There are dirt streets and floors where many factory workers live in
Reynosa, Mexico. There's no indoor plumbing or running water. Homes are
made from palettes and scrap materials. The view from neighboring
McAllen, Texas, is far more eye-pleasing. Cozy, comfortable homes for
American executives from the Mexican factories and others in McAllen.
"I'm really disappointed in Maytag," he said. "I can see now that it's
not somewhere that I'm going to be able to work and earn enough money
to provide for my family the way I need to.""Diego" showed us his
paycheck. He typically works six days a week, but his take-home pay is
just $1 an hour. It's taking a physical and emotional toll.
"There are a lot of really negative consequences based in the very low
wage we're paid," he said. "It can result in alcoholism. It can result
in depression."
But at Maytag's corporate headquarters in Newton, Iowa, the company
says that it pays a fair wage for the Reynosa marketplace.
"We are very competitive in the community," Ingham said. "We are not
the highest, and we are not the lowest."
Maytag says that it abandoned Galesburg because of safety, quality,
delivery and cost issues. Now, the company has significantly improved
its competitive position by operating in Mexico.
"All those metrics are dramatically improved," Ingham said. "Our
ability to service our customers, likewise, has improved."
"We're not animals," Diego said. "We're human beings. We have the same
blood flowing through our veins."
The last refrigerator remains on display for now at the Galesburg Labor
Temple.
"The United States has the most competitive and productive workers in
the world," Bevard said. "That's what we are. And here they are. Here's
the names of all of them."
The names of Maytag workers now looking for new jobs.
5. +++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
http://www.nationalreview.com/nrof_comment/anderson200502110828.asp
February 11, 2005, 8:28 a.m.
Outsourcing Attacks Not Over
In fact, they seem to be increasing.
By Stuart Anderson
Many companies assumed that the assault in state legislatures on
international trade and offshore "outsourcing" would end with the
November 2004 election. However, the first weeks of 2005 have showed
that assumption to be mistaken.
The number of state bills to restrict outsourcing rose from just 4 in
2003, to more than 200 in 2004, an increase rarely seen on any issue.
Only 5 of these bills became law in 2004 and none were far-reaching.
Republican governors in California, Massachusetts, and Maryland also
vetoed anti-outsourcing bills, though outgoing New Jersey Gov. Jim
McGreevey issued a highly restrictive executive order to prevent state
work from being performed offshore.
So what has happened in 2005? If the assumption was true that this
issue had "no legs" and was merely a one-year blip caused by the
political season, then one would expect the number of bills on the
topic to gravitate back down to 5 or 6 for the entire course of 2005.
That has not been the case.
The data show that more anti-outsourcing bills -- and in more states
(23) -- have been introduced through February 1, 2005, then through
February 1, 2004. In other words, state lawmakers havent missed a
beat. Today, there are active bills to restrict outsourcing in Arizona,
Colorado, Connecticut, Florida, Georgia, Hawaii, Indiana, Maine,
Minnesota, Mississippi, Missouri, Nebraska, New Hampshire, New Jersey,
New Mexico, New York, Nebraska, North Dakota, Ohio, Pennsylvania,
Texas, Virginia, and Washington.
The reasons for the continued impulse to impose restrictions on
offshore outsourcing are understandable, though misguided. First,
legislators have received press attention, even national media
exposure, for proposing anti-outsourcing measures. Therefore, it is a
typical human reaction to continue in the face of positive attention,
even if prior legislative efforts failed. Second, the economic factors
that created anxiety about "jobs moving offshore" -- global
competition, increased productivity, and new job creation distributed
unevenly across sectors -- have not changed in the past six months.
Most state bills to restrict outsourcing fall into two categories:
restrictions on state contract work being done offshore and measures to
limit the use of offshore call centers. (Restrictions include requiring
operators to switch calls back to the U.S. by request.) Far from being
positive measures to create jobs, such proposed actions quite possibly
violate the U.S. Constitution, risk trade retaliation, and increase
budget costs.
On the most practical level, limiting competition for state contract
work increases procurement costs. This happened in New Jersey in 2003.
Criticism erupted when a subcontractor for a call center contract for
state unemployment services used workers in India. In response, the
state government re-worked the contract to place more individuals in
New Jersey. As a result, New Jersey taxpayers paid, on top of the
original contract costs, an additional $900,000 for 12 jobs. "Saving"
1,400 such jobs in the future would cost the state an extra $100
million.
Many of these bills would also likely be found unconstitutional. A
legal analysis for the National Foundation for American Policy
performed by Shannon Klinger and Lynn Sykes, attorneys with Alston &
Bird, concluded that such state contact bans "are legally suspect . . .
since courts would likely find that such measures improperly intrude on
the federal foreign affairs power and violate the U.S. Constitutions
Foreign Commerce Clause." Simply put, states are not allowed to make
their own trade or foreign policies, which is essentially what the
state of New Jersey did when Gov. McGreevey issued his executive order
in September 2004.
These constitutional concerns are of particular importance when state
actions not only violate Americas international trade obligations
but also make it more likely that foreign countries will retaliate. The
United States, along with more than 30 other nations, has signed the
Government Procurement Agreement, which prohibits state and federal
procurement policies from discriminating on the basis of where work
would be performed.
Concerns about outsourcing overseas as a source of job loss have been
overstated in the media. A recent government report from the Bureau of
Labor Statistics indicates that in only 2 percent of recent layoffs of
50 or more people was offshore outsourcing even a factor.
There is a right way and a wrong way to expand economic opportunity in
individual states around the country. The wrong approach is to
implement measures that would restrict trade, invite retaliation, or
violate the U.S. Constitution. The right way is for legislators to
adopt positive measures to create jobs, including lowering the tax,
regulatory, and litigation burden on employers.
-- Stuart Anderson is executive director of the National Foundation for
American Policy in Arlington, Va.
6. +++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
http://www.reuters.com/newsArticle.jhtml?storyID=7457658&type=businessNews
U.S. bosses want foreign workers, but jobless object
Thu Jan 27, 2005 03:54 PM ET
By Andrea Hopkins
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The flow of skilled migrants to the United
States in the last century may have stoked the nation's economic
success, but the modern influx of foreign workers alarms America's
high-tech unemployed.
"We have members that are selling cars, doing home repairs, working at
Home Depot, because they can't find high-tech jobs," said John Bauman,
who founded The Organization for the Rights of American Workers, or
TORAW, in 2002 after he lost his job in information technology.
TORAW and other groups like it have successfully lobbied Congress to
cap the number of non-immigrant visas issued to skilled professionals
in 2005 at 65,000 -- a third of the 195,000 work visas issued during
the high-tech boom years.
The entire quota of H-1B visas was snapped up the first day of the
fiscal year by U.S. employers anxious to recruit foreigners for jobs in
medicine, engineering, education, research and programming, among other
fields.
Corporate leaders say the visa supply is nowhere near enough to meet
demand. In December, Congress added another 20,000 visas to the cap --
but only for workers with graduate degrees from U.S. universities.
While unemployed and under-employed high-tech workers may seethe at the
prospect of bringing foreigners to America to fill jobs, economists
worry that the emotional argument against foreign workers may come at a
huge economic cost.
"I think a very important part of the productivity gains in the past
decade were associated with our open immigration policy," Federal
Reserve Governor Ben Bernanke said recently.
"If we don't make provision for bright people, whether they be graduate
students or professional people to come ... that's a loss to our
society and a loss to our potential productivity," said Bernanke, who
is being considered for the job of top White House economist.
LINK TO OUTSOURCING
At Ingersoll-Rand, immigration analyst Elisabeth Dickson often has to
be the bearer of bad news when managers want to hire a great foreign
candidate for a U.S. job at the diversified manufacturer.
She recently had to force a consultant at the company's Irish unit to
stay behind while the rest of his team came to the United States to
develop a complicated IT product -- because he needed an H-1B visa and
the 2005 quota was full.
Dickson said the lost opportunity of such workers is just part of the
problem. The bigger risk is that the best and the brightest will go
work for competitors in countries that are actively recruiting the very
people Washington is keeping out.
"(Other countries) are ... making it easier for people with very highly
specialized skills like IT professionals to get work permits. So what
we're going to end up doing is losing the talent for America," Dickson
said.
In the era of hand-wringing over offshore outsourcing, the related risk
is obvious: if an employer cannot bring a talented Indian engineer to
the United States, perhaps the product's entire development can be
shifted to India.
But TORAW's Bauman said the H-1B is used by some employers as the first
step to outsourcing by allowing them to bring a foreign worker to the
United States for training and then sending the worker back to set up a
cheaper workshop overseas.
"We have members who have had to train their own foreign replacement,"
said Bauman, who estimates there are 306,000 unemployed engineers and
hundreds of thousands of programmers who are looking for better work.
But Theresa Brown, immigration policy director at the U.S. Chamber of
Commerce, said employers do not go out of their way to hire foreigners,
and she dismisses the suggestion that unemployed American high-tech
workers should be considered before a foreign worker is hired.
"(Not all of the) unemployed are capable of doing the jobs for which
H-1Bs are being hired. Workers are not fungible that way," Brown said.
"Sometimes the best person for the job just happens to be born
elsewhere."
7. +++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
http://www.workpermit.com/news/2005_01_20/us/fed_governor_favours_open_us_immigration.htm
Fed governor favours open US immigration
20 January 2005
Amidst a growing debate about immigration in the US, one of the
country's top officials has said that tougher policies brought in since
September 11 2001 may put a brake on America's productivity growth,
Reuters reports.
Answering questions at the Council on Foreign Relations, Ben Bernanke,
a member of the Board of Governors of the US Federal Reserve, said
relatively open immigration had been good for the US economy.
"I think a very important part of the productivity gains in the past
decade were associated with our open immigration policy," he said. "If
we don't allow, if we don't make provision for bright people, whether
they be graduate students or professional people to come... that's a
loss to our society and a loss to our potential productivity."
These statements come amidst signs that immigration will be one of the
most controversial issues of George W. Bush's second term, which will
commence with the presidential inauguration today. According to the
Financial Times newspaper, President Bush has said he will seek changes
to US immigration laws by allowing some of the 8 million illegal
immigrants in America to stay for up to six years legally on work
permits, and by allowing employers to advertise for labour abroad if
they cannot find workers in the US at wages they consider acceptable.
However, he faces stiff political opposition from pro and anti
immigration groups. Immigrant rights groups say the proposals are only
temporary fixes. Meanwhile, powerful Republicans in Congress are
threatening to block the President's plans.
8. +++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
http://www.cfr.org/pub7618/john_h_makin_ben_bernanke/c_peter_mccolough_series_on_international_economics_productivity_growth_and_monetary_policy
.php
BERNANKE: You'd be right. First of all, on the security cost, there was
a lot of discussion around 9/11, as I recall, as to how firms and
government were going to have to invest a lot. Part of the Federal
Reserve's budget increases in the last-as you can imagine over the last
four years, have been going from a sort of night watchman type of
security detail to a full police force. If you've ever tried to visit
the Federal Reserve, you've seen the changes. And now we're doing-all
the banks have done major infrastructure things. So there is a lot of
money being put into that, both by private firms-of course, you know
the Federal Reserve has asked financial institutions to work on their
business continuity, having backup sites. There's a lot of money
involved in that. So that is a drag, but for what it's worth, it
doesn't seem, obviously, to have made that much difference. It may be
partly because of bad accounting reasons-some of this stuff gets
counted as output, which is, of course, a mistake.
The second part of your question is much more serious. I'm still on the
faculty at Princeton University. We have a top class economics graduate
program, we have of course, many good graduate programs, computer
science, and other fields. To an increasing degree, Americans are not
even the plurality. I mean, that is, there will be other national
groups that have more people in the graduate program than Americans.
Not just that Americans are the minority, they're not even a plurality.
It is an important issue in economics. The Federal Reserve has great
difficulty hiring people, hiring Americans to meet the security
concerns and so on. So I think a very important part of the
productivity gains in the last decade was associated with our open
immigration policy. It was said that Silicon Valley was the place where
Indian engineers use Japanese money to produce for the European market.
[Laughter] So if we don't allow-if we don't make provisions for bright
people, whether they be graduate students, undergraduates, or
professionals to come, that's a big loss. That's a loss to our society,
and it's a loss to our potential productivity. I certainly recognize,
now that I'm a government official, I certainly recognize the
importance of security issues. They're not to be taken lightly, but to
the extent that we can find ways to do the necessary due diligence and
bring good people in, I think we're missing a very important
opportunity.
9. +++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
http://vdare.com/roberts/050214_jobs.htm
February 14, 2005
The Great American Job Sellout
By Paul Craig Roberts
Americans are being sold out on the jobs front. Americans employment
opportunities are declining as a result of corporate outsourcing of US
jobs, H-1B visas that import foreigners to displace Americans in their
own country, and federal guest worker programs.
President Bush and his Republican majority intend to legalize the
aliens who hold down wages for construction companies and cleaning
services. In order to stretch budgets, state and local governments
bring in lower paid foreign nurses and school teachers. To reduce
costs, US corporations outsource jobs abroad and use work visa programs
to import foreign engineers and programmers. The American job giveaway
is explained by a "shortage" of Americans to take the jobs.
There are not too many Americans willing to accept the pay and working
conditions of migrant farm workers. However, the US is bursting at the
seams with unemployed computer engineers and well-educated
professionals who are displaced by outsourcing and H-1B visas. During
Bushs entire first term, there was a net loss of American private
sector jobs. Today there are 760,000 fewer private sector jobs in the
US economy than when Bush was first inaugurated in January 2001.
For years the hallmark of the European economy was its inability to
create any jobs other than government jobs. America has caught up with
Europe. During Bushs first term, state and local government created
879,000 new government jobs. Offsetting these government jobs against
the net loss in private sector jobs gives Bush a four-year jobs growth
of 119,000 government jobs. Comparing this pathetic result to normal
performance produces a shortage of 8 million US jobs. What happened to
these jobs?
Over these same four years the composition of US jobs has changed from
higher-paid manufacturing and information technology jobs to lower-paid
domestic services. Why?
During this extraordinary breakdown in the American employment machine,
politicians, government officials, corporate spokespersons, and "free
trade" economists gave assurances that America was benefitting greatly
from the work visa programs and outsourcing.
The mindless chatter continues. Just the other day Ambassador David
Gross, US Coordinator for International Communications and Information
Policy in the State Department, declared outsourcing to be an economic
efficiency that works to Americas benefit. There is no sign of this
alleged benefit in US jobs statistics or the US balance of trade.
Repeatedly and incorrectly, US corporations state that outsourcing
creates more US jobs. They even convinced a New York Times columnist
that this was the case.
The problem is, no one can identify where the US jobs are that
outsourcing allegedly creates. They are certainly not to be found in
the BLS jobs statistics. However, the Indian and Chinese jobs created
by US outsourcing are highly visible.
On February 13, the Dayton (Ohio) Daily News reported that jobs
outsourcing is transforming Indian "cities like Bangalore from sleepy
little backwaters into the New York Cities of Asia." In a very short
period outsourcing has helped to raise India from one of the worlds
poorest countries to its seventh largest economy.
Outsourcing proponents claim that US job loss is being exaggerated,
that outsourcing is really just a small thing involving a few call
centers. If that is the case, how is it transforming sleepy Indian
cities into "the New York Cities of Asia"? If outsourcing is no big
deal, why are Bangalore hotel rooms "packed with foreigners paying
rates higher than in Tokyo or London," as the Dayton Daily News
reports?
If outsourcing is of no real consequence, why are American lawyers or
their clients paying $2,900 in fees plus hotel and travel expenses and
two days billings to attend the Fourth National Conference on
Outsourcing in Financial Services in Washington DC (April 20-21)?
On the jobs front, as on the war front, the social security front and
every other front, Americans are not being given the truth.
Americans news comes from people allied with the Bush administration
or dependent on revenues from corporate advertisers. Displease the
government or advertisers and your media empire is in trouble. The news
most Americans get is filtered. It is the permitted news. Many "free
trade" advocates also are dependent on the corporate money that funds
their salaries, research and think tanks.
Another clear indication that outsourcing of US jobs is no small thing
comes from the reported earnings of the leading Indian corporations
that provide American firms with outsourced IT employees and engineers.
During the recent quarter, Infosys revenues increased by 53%, TCS
grew by 38%, and Wipro was up 34%.
On January 1, 2001, Cincinnati-based Convergys Corp had one Indian
employee. Today it has 10,000. Why? Because it can hire Indian
university graduates for $240 a month, a sum that is a small fraction
of the US poverty level income.
Many Americans think that an outsourced job is an existing job that is
moved offshore. But many outsourced jobs are created offshore in the
first place. On February 11, USA Today told the story of OfficeTiger,
"the sort of young technology company that once created thousands of
high-paying jobs in the USA, fueling sizzling economic growth." The
five-year old startup business employs 200 Americans and ten times that
number of Indians. The company has plans for hiring many more Indians
to perform "tech-heavy financial services."
Under pressure from venture capitalists who fund new companies,
American startup firms are starting up abroad. Thus, the new ventures,
which "free trade" economists assured us would create new jobs to take
the place of the ones moved offshore by mature firms, are in fact
creating jobs for foreigners.
As a consequence, tech jobs in the US are falling as a percentage of
the total. Clearly, tax breaks for venture capitalists are
self-defeating when the result is to create jobs for foreigners, not
for Americans. Why should the American taxpayer subsidize employment in
India and China?
These developments have obvious adverse implications for engineering
and professional education in America. The BLS jobs forecast for the
next ten years says the vast majority of US jobs will not require a
college education. University enrollments will decline and so will the
production of PhDs as fewer professors are needed.
As India and China rise to first world status, the US falls to third
world status where the only jobs are in domestic services.
This has enormous implications for the US balance of payments.
Americans consumption of manufactured goods is heavily dependent on
foreign manufacture, whether that of foreign firms or that of US
multinational firms that supply their American customers from offshore.
How does an economy in which employment growth is concentrated in
nontradable domestic services pay for its imports with exports?
Since 1990 the US has been paying for its imports by giving foreigners
ownership of its assets. In the last 15 years foreigners have
accumulated $3.6 trillion of Americas wealth.
America has been able to pay for its consumption by giving up its
wealth because the dollar is the worlds reserve currency. As
Americas high-tech and manufacturing capabilities decline and its
red ink rises, the dollars role as reserve currency must end.
When the dollar loses its reserve currency role, America will not be
able to pay for the imports on which it has become dependent. Shopping
in Wal-Mart will be like shopping at Neiman Marcus.
Until recent years, US companies employed Americans to produce the
goods that Americans consumed. Employment supported sales, and sales
supported employment. No more. By their shortsighted policy of moving
US jobs abroad, our corporations are destroying their American markets.
Economists give assurances that the dollars decline and fall will
bring jobs and industry back to the US. Once Americans are as poor as
Indians and Chinese are today, the process will reverse. Multinational
corporations will locate in America to take advantage of cheap labor
and unserved markets. By becoming poor, the US can become rich again.
You might want to ask the economists and our "leaders" in Washington
why we should put ourselves and our descendants through such a
wrenching process.
10. +++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
http://inhome.rediff.com/money/2005/feb/11bpo.htm
BoA to set up 2nd BPO unit in Mumbai
PTI | February 11, 2005 | 13:52 IST
Encouraged by the quality of work and savings at its initial
outsourcing operations in India, Bank of America Corp has announced the
opening of its second unit in India in Mumbai which will work largely
for the global corporate and investment banking unit.
Describing the second unit, to be opened in summer in Mumbai, as 'the
next generation' of work and part of the bank's Continuum Solutions
subsidiary, the bank's top official said it will do market research and
prepare presentations for bank executives working with corporate
clients.
The bank's initial outsourcing operation in Hyderabad has 'exceeded
expectations,' Barbara Desoer, the bank's top technology executive,
said.
At Hyderabad, the bank was not only able to hire more highly skilled
workers than expected, but those workers had also learned their jobs
faster than anticipated.
"The Hyderabad early learnings have been very positive and have enabled
us to deliver more effectively to customers and shareholders than we
would have expected," Desoer said.
The Hyderabad operation, which started with handling of corporate
accounts has added working with consumer accounts, a sore point with
outsourcing critics.
In Hyderabad, workers mostly reconcile accounts, tracking down every
penny in the millions of transactions the third-largest American bank
handles around the world every day.
The combined Indian operations are expected to employ 1,500 people by
year's end. That's the maximum number the bank said last year that it
would have within three years in Hyderabad.
At 1,500, Continuum would represent less than 1 per cent of the bank's
global work force of 175,000. However, the expansion in India comes as
workers worry about continuing job cuts from last year's FleetBoston
Financial Corp acquisition.
The bank won't say how much it has saved in Hyderabad or expects to
save in Mumbai, but Desoer told the Charlotte Observer, a North
Carolina paper, that there have been pleasant surprises.
For example, one team identified a way to slash processing time on
about half of the transactions it handled, saving time and money. Those
improvements have been implemented at other bank locations.
Desoer credits Indian culture and schools that emphasize math, science
and engineering -- all requiring logical, process-oriented thinking.
"It is a focus on really understanding and challenging every step of
the process," she said. "They just thrive on the opportunity to look
for improvements."
11. +++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
http://www.todaysengineer.org/2005/Feb/training_funds.asp
February 2005
Embattled H-1B training funds likely to disappear
by Terry Costlow
Since it was first authorized by Congress in 1998, the H-1B Technical
Skills Training Grant Program (www.doleta.gov/h-1b) has earned mixed
reviews.
The program is administered by the U.S. Department of Labors
Employment and Training Administration and funded by fees -- originally
$500, raised to $1,000 in 2000 and increased to $1,500 late last year
-- paid by employers who intend to hire foreign professionals to work
temporarily in the United States. Its goal is to help employed and
unemployed workers develop technical skills deemed to be in short
supply in the United States and better enable U.S. employers to grow
and prosper in an increasingly competitive global economy. Grantees
include local or regional partnerships consisting of businesses or
business-related trade associations, public and private educational
institutions and training providers, community-based organizations and
labor unions. To date, the Department has awarded more than 100 grants,
totaling more than $243 million. Until the high-tech sector crashed in
2001, most of the training provided targeted engineering, information
technology and telecommunications occupations. Since then, the emphasis
has shifted to skills training for jobs in accounting, education and
health care fields.
Whether the program is meeting its primary objective -- to help reduce
the growing dependence of U.S. employers on foreign sources of supply
for skilled professionals, including engineers and scientists --
continues to be the subject of widespread debate inside and outside
government.
Some agency officials have been critical
The White House Office of Management and Budget, for example, has
characterized the H-1B skills training program as ineffective and
threatened to use H-1B fee revenues for other purposes. Labor Secretary
Elaine Chao, on the other hand, has praised H-1B jobs training
partnerships as "a long-term solution to domestic skills shortages in
high technology occupations."
"While the H-1B grants may have marginally increased the technical
skills of some American workers, they have not significantly reduced
U.S. employers' reliance on foreign workers to fill high-skill jobs.
Nor have they succeeded in building the institutional capacity needed
to train American workers in ways that will be required if our
businesses are to remain competitive," another Labor Department
spokesperson said.
The program is working well for other stakeholders
Though the H-1B Technical Skills Training program has been roundly
criticized by some observers, grantee organizations contend that the
money is being well spent.
"Its important to keep American workers at a high skill level," said
Edward Lewis, a program manager at Lockheed Martins Maritime Systems
and Sensors group in Manassas, Va. Last year, Lockheed was awarded a $3
million grant that it matched with company funds and training as well
as teaching materials developed by Cyber-Learning of Alexandria, Va.
Cyber-Learning and Lockheed have already developed three new courses
for the project, which runs through early 2007. In ten short months,
Lockheed has trained 500 people, including systems architects and
engineers and software designers.
Lewis said Lockheed is compiling statistics to measure the projects
success, but noted that "a high percentage of our graduates" have
received raises and "a substantial number" have earned promotions. "So
far, weve been extremely pleased with the program," he said.
H-1B training benefits manufacturers as well as service industries
"As more and more American companies adopt lean manufacturing methods,
theyre going to need more and more people who have the knowledge and
skills needed to make them work," said Mary Chalkiopoulos, program
director at the Oregon Manufacturing Extension Partnership (OMEP) in
Beaverton. OMEP is using an H-1B grant to offer lean manufacturing
skills training courses that typically run from one day to one week.
Chalkiopoulos reports that one OMEP trainee has already taken a new
job, five have earned promotions and six others have received wage
increases. "Thats a pretty good return for trainees who spend just a
few days in class," she said.
IEEE-USAs perspectives
In testimony presented to the U.S. Senate Judiciary Committee, 2004
IEEE-USA President John Steadman cited recent reports from the
Government Accountability Office (GAO-02-881) and the Commerce
Departments Technology Administration (Education and Training for
the Information Technology Workforce) to support IEEE-USAs
contention that very few H-1B technical skills training grantees are
preparing U.S. workers for the kinds of professional level jobs for
which U.S. employers typically recruit foreign nationals on H-1B visas.
IEEE-USA believes that high-tech professionals need much more
individualized instructional opportunities than are generally available
in traditional Workforce Investment Board administered programs.
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