9 Articles Worth Reading
9 Articles Worth Reading
Date: Tuesday, December 20, 2005 7:43 PM
JOB DESTRUCTION NEWSLETTER
December 20, 2005 No. 1389
Article 1:
http://www.azcentral.com/arizonarepublic/business/articles/1213H-1Bvisas13.html
High-tech companies lobby for more visas
High-tech employers are lobbying Congress to raise a cap on visas for
specialty workers and allow an additional 30,000 such workers into the
United States each year. "It's a major, major issue for Arizona companies,"
said Shoshana Tancer, a Phoenix lawyer and member of the American
Immigration Lawyers Association. "It's not just the giant high-tech
companies. It is the small businesses that want people. They've graduated
with master's degrees and they want to work in the United States for a
time, and they have the skills (small businesses) need."
Article 2:
http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,178503,00.html
Economists Disagree on Immigrant Employment Puzzle
Around Hoopers Island, Md., there is a shortage of labor.
Are immigrants taking American jobs, or are native workers unwilling to
take on the low-paying arduous tasks often performed by immigrants? Even
economists disagree on the issue.
Article 3:
http://www.washingtontimes.com/business/20051213-120437-2017r.htm
China moves past the U.S. in tech exports
China last year surpassed the U.S. as the world's top exporter of high-tech
communications and information products such as cell phones, laptop
computers and digital cameras, according to a study released yesterday.
"They are absolutely eating our lunch. It's putting many Americans out of
work," said Bill Reed, a past president of the American Engineering
Association, an independent group that represents about 1,000 U.S.
engineers concerned about competition from immigration and imports.
Article 4:
http://worldnetdaily.com/news/article.asp?ARTICLE_ID=47857
Who killed General Motors?
A sea change has taken place in the mindset of our elites. The economic
patriotism of Hamilton and Henry Clay, of Lincoln and T.R. and, yes, of the
Robber Barons of the Gilded Age, who forged America into the mightiest
industrial machine the world had ever seen, is dead. Economic patriotism is
dead.
Article 5:
http://www.csmonitor.com/2005/1212/p09s02-coop.html
No such thing as 'temporary workers'
President Bush has recently been promoting his proposals for a large
temporary worker program as a way to effectively enforce immigration laws.
As Mr. Bush presents it, such a program to address growing concerns over
the flow of illegal workers would rest securely on a "win-win" basis. These
win-win scenarios do not reflect likely realities. Decades of experience
with such temporary worker programs in high-wage liberal democracies
worldwide show that neither the programs nor the migrants turned out to be
genuinely "temporary."
Article 6:
http://www.computing.co.uk/forbes/news/2147463/help-wanted-silicon-valley
Help wanted in Silicon Valley
For programmers, happy days are here again. But for their employers, fear
is setting in. Competition for talent among the "big three" Web
portals--Google (nasdaq: GOOG - news - people ), Yahoo! (nasdaq: YHOO -
news - people ) and Microsoft (nasdaq: MSFT - news - people )--is intense.
But nothing the companies can do will solve the problem--there are simply
not enough qualified candidates to go around, especially for the smaller
competitors swimming in the same talent pool. The tech industry is expected
to grow by 167,000 new jobs in 2006,
Article 7:
http://www.computerworld.com/managementtopics/outsourcing/story/0,10801,107048,00.html
J.P. Morgan Chase starts two-year hiring spree in India
J.P. Morgan Chase & Co. has started recruiting some of the 4,500 employees
it aims to hire over the next two years in India. The move will double its
head count in the country.
Article 8:
http://www.mercurynews.com/mld/mercurynews/news/13435576.htm
Betting on a boom
From the Gold Rush to the dot-com boom, the Bay Area has offered the
prospect of prosperity for those willing to work hard. American workers --
tech and non-tech alike -- have reason to feel they're under assault. From
General Motors on down, companies are whittling away health care benefits,
shedding pension obligations and forcing concessions from unions. They're
hiring more temporary workers, importing engineers with H-1B visas and
``off-shoring'' other jobs. All the while, employers are running lean and
demanding greater productivity.
Article 9:
http://www.mercurynews.com/mld/mercurynews/13441900.htm
HEADQUARTERS HERE, WORKERS IN ASIA
Valley start-ups' cubicles thousands of miles apart
INDIA IS MAJOR PLAYER IN A GROWING TREND
1. +++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
http://www.azcentral.com/arizonarepublic/business/articles/1213H-1Bvisas13.html
High-tech companies lobby for more visas
Jane Larson
The Arizona Republic
Dec. 13, 2005
High-tech employers are lobbying Congress to raise a cap on visas for
specialty workers and allow an additional 30,000 such workers into the
United States each year.
Companies say that would give them more flexibility to put the world's best
and brightest to work in America instead of in competing countries. They
say it would increase the chances of employees developing groundbreaking
innovations in the United States. But an increase in the number of these
visas could create tougher job competition for American workers.
"It's a major, major issue for Arizona companies," said Shoshana Tancer, a
Phoenix lawyer and member of the American Immigration Lawyers Association.
"It's not just the giant high-tech companies. It is the small businesses
that want people. They've graduated with master's degrees and they want to
work in the United States for a time, and they have the skills (small
businesses) need."
Business organizations such as the National Association of Manufacturers,
high-tech trade association AeA and Compete America are lobbying for the
increase. High-tech companies including Intel Corp., Motorola Inc. and
Microsoft Corp. are supporters.
The cap would cover H-1B visas, a category that allows workers in specialty
occupations to work in the United States for up to six years. They are
admitted on the basis of their professional education, skills or
experience, and employers are required to seek U.S. workers first and
attest that they have not laid off a similarly qualified U.S. worker. For
immigrants, an H-1B is often a prelude to applying for status as a legal
permanent resident.
This year, for the first time, the entire allotment of visas was claimed
before the fiscal year began. Some 65,000 H-1B visas were available for
fiscal 2006, which started Oct. 1, and all those were gone in August. No
more visas will be available until October 2007.
"We support the increase because the current cap does not correlate to
market demand," said Tracy Koon, director of corporate affairs for Intel.
"The current cap methodology is not flexible to changing business needs."
Koon said Intel hires foreign nationals only when it cannot find U.S.
workers with the education and skills it needs. Raising the cap would have
minimal impact on Intel this year, because the company planned ahead for
staffing, she said. But if a solution isn't found in the long run "and we
can't hire the talent we need in the U.S., we will be forced to go where
the talent is," she said.
The growing national controversy over immigration has made other employers
reluctant to publicly discuss their use of H-1B visas. Organizations such
as the Federation for American Immigration Reform and NumbersUSA, already
vocal on illegal immigration, have taken positions against H-1B visas.
"We don't see any reason at this point for them to increase H-1Bs," said
Ira Mehlman, spokesman for FAIR. "It's in the interest of the companies to
bring in as many as they can, but the government has an obligation to
protect the jobs and interests of Americans."
Supporters are pushing Congress to raise the cap this year as a short-term
solution, but want the issue of temporary workers to be decided as part of
broader immigration reform expected next year.
"These are short-term solutions we hope get us through to the broader,
comprehensive immigration reform debate," said Sandra Boyd, vice president
of human resources policy for the National Association of Manufacturers and
chair of Compete America.
The pool of highly skilled workers entering the state on temporary-worker
visas is relatively small.
Some 5,918 immigrants came to Arizona on H-1B visas in fiscal 2004. They
included engineers, nurses, athletes and others with specialized skills,
according to U.S. Customs and Immigration Service statistics. The number
has hovered around 5,000 since rebounding from a low of 3,717 in fiscal
1999. Spouses and children of temporary workers totaled 1,731 in fiscal
2004, compared to 1,376 five years earlier.
High-tech companies say they need additional visas because much
high-paying, specialty work can be done anywhere, and worldwide competition
for top talent has grown fierce. Opponents say businesses seek out H-1B
visa holders because they can pay them substantially less than American
workers.
A Congressional Budget Office study on immigrants in the U.S. labor market,
released last month, found the pay difference was not dramatic.
Foreign-born men from countries other than Mexico or Central America earned
10 percent less in 2004 than did native-born men, adjusted for education
and experience, according to the study. Foreign-born women earned 3 percent
less.
Demand for the H-1B visa is growing, supporters say, because American
universities are not graduating enough scientists and engineers. And
American-born graduates are being snapped up by defense companies, whose
employees must be U.S. natives to obtain security clearances.
"If we were able to graduate more students, we wouldn't have the problem,
and that's a national occurrence," said Herb Finkelstein,
industrial/government liaison in Arizona State University's Ira A. Fulton
School of Engineering.
Declining enrollments in engineering programs have been blamed on factors
ranging from students' weak preparation in math and science to the lack of
a national imperative such as the 1960s vision of landing on the moon.
High-tech employment, which plummeted in the 2001-2002 tech downturn, has
rebounded. In November, 2.2 percent of architectural and engineering
workers and 2 percent of computer and mathematical workers were unemployed,
compared to 4.8 percent of the total workforce, according to the Bureau of
Labor Statistics.
IEEE-USA, an association for electrical and electronics engineers, thinks
rates are down at least partly because discouraged workers have left the
field, spokesman Chris McManes said. The organization thinks the H-1B cap
is fine where it is, and that any reform should be part of a broader
immigration debate instead of budget wrangling, he said.
High-tech employers petitioning for H-1B visas the past two years include
Motorola, which sought nearly 600 for Arizona-based workers, and Freescale
Semiconductor Inc., which requested nearly 200, according to Customs.
"Our Arizona operations include a number of very, very specific and
technical jobs," Freescale spokesman Glaston Ford said. He declined to say
which jobs the company has filled with H-1B workers, but said its needs
include skills in radio-frequency and analog research and development, and
in specialty materials used to make computer chips.
"There are areas where a specific skill set can be very, very narrow," he
said. "Sometimes we can't find the skills locally and we have to go
international."
The proposed increase wouldn't directly affect Freescale, he said.
"We believe the industry needs more flexibility in addressing specific
skill sets, and a higher cap allows more flexibility," he said.
The proposal to raise the cap is a small part of the massive federal budget
bill being considered in Congress. The Senate-passed version includes the
extra visas; the House version does not. A conference committee is expected
to come up with a compromise by year-end on the many issues, including
visas, that separate the two chambers' bills.
The issue is part of the budget debate because the Senate version proposes
to raise the fee employers pay for workers' H-1B visas $500 each.
Sen. Gordon Smith, R-Ore., said at an Intel briefing this month that he
doubts the increase will be approved this year. Smith, who supports the
higher cap, said anti-immigration forces combined with the fact that visas
are a collateral issue to the overall budget make passage unlikely. He
predicted multifaceted reform next year.
"It would be tremendously important to keeping the brain power coming here
and prevent the brain drain," he said.
2. +++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,178503,00.html
Economists Disagree on Immigrant Employment Puzzle
December 13, 2005
By Caroline Zaayer
WASHINGTON - Around Hoopers Island, Md., there is a shortage of labor.
Thirteen years ago, Bryan Hall began hiring migrant workers to pick crab
meat from April to December. Now, he relies on 25 to 30 seasonal immigrant
workers as the young locals he used to employ moved away.
Then, earlier this year, when the visas for seasonal workers were snatched
up before Hall got his employees, he feared his seafood company, G.W. Hall
& Sons, would go out of business.
It took an act of Congress, led by Maryland Democratic Sen. Barbara
Mikulski, which allowed more seasonal worker visas to bring his employees
back, some of whom have returned every year for 10 years.
Hall's situation illustrates one side of the continuing debate about
immigrant labor: Are immigrants taking American jobs, or are native workers
unwilling to take on the low-paying arduous tasks often performed by
immigrants? Even economists disagree on the issue.
One sentiment almost everyone agrees on is the United States needs
immigrant labor, but there is no consensus on how much or in what way that
affects native workers.
About 40 percent of foreign-born workers are from Mexico and Central
America, according to a report by the Congressional Budget Office, and 75
percent of them work jobs requiring little education, including
manufacturing and housekeeping. They represent the fastest-growing segment
of the U.S. labor force.
It's a fact that more Americans are finishing high school and becoming more
qualified for higher-skilled positions, which creates a demand in the
low-skilled workforce.
The influx of cheap immigrant labor could also be pushing Americans to
finish high school because of the increased competition for low-skilled
jobs, according to the CBO report.
Unskilled immigrant workers compete for work with other immigrants and
Americans with little education, so the brunt of the impact is felt in the
low-wage sector. Economists disagree as to whether an abundance of low-wage
immigrant workers drive down wages for Americans in the same skill level.
Studies on the national level show cheap labor slightly depresses wages,
but David Card, professor of economics at the University of California,
Berkeley, found little if any effect on wages in cities and localized
areas. The wages in locations with a high concentration of immigrants grew
at the same rate as cities with low rates of immigration.
Additionally, without cheap immigrant labor, certain industries in this
country would cease to exist, Card said, such as textile manufacturers and
sugar beet farmers, because only the high-end companies could afford
American workers.
"The economy is changing all the time," Card said. "There are jobs that
don't exist here anymore."
Just as the elevator operator has all but disappeared, so, too, would the
hand car-wash without immigrant labor, he said. Many vineyards in
California use hand-picked grapes to make wine, but "if there were no
Mexicans, that would all be mechanized."
Small town meat-packing plants, once staffed with unionized Americans, have
become primarily immigrant workplaces, Card said. The shift probably
occurred as Americans finishing high school in small towns where
meat-packing is the only option moved to find better jobs in cities.
American workers in that position have an advantage over immigrants with
little education and no English ability.
The influx of unskilled workers in the United States can also be a good
thing for consumers. The CBO report notes that a large number of low-wage
workers allows employers to keep production costs down, thus bringing lower
prices to consumers.
Immigration proponents cannot argue that a strong supply of cheap labor
drives down prices for consumers without hurting the wages of low-skilled
workers, said Steven Camarota, director of research for the Center for
Immigration Studies. It's contradictory because the only way for savings to
be passed on to consumers is if the wages are lowered, he said.
As for the other side of the debate - that immigrants are taking American
jobs - it's too simple to say Americans don't want those jobs, said Fred
Feinstein, a visiting professor at the University of Maryland School of
Public Policy in College Park.
"There is no job that just immigrants will take and Americans won't take,"
Feinstein said. There are many Americans who work those low-skill jobs, who
need those jobs, who work full-time and still live in poverty.
It is not the nature of the work involved in maintenance and meat-packing
that turns Americans off, Feinstein said. It is the low pay and lack of
benefits that cause Americans to turn elsewhere.
Perhaps immigrants are more willing to take those jobs because they are
accustomed to much worse conditions in their native country, he said, or
perhaps they're more desperate for work or have fewer options because they
are in the United States illegally.
Businesses that cannot afford to pay higher wages cause another problem for
taxpayers, Camarota said, because those workers require more social
services.
Immigrant workers make up 35 percent of building cleaning and maintenance
positions in the country, and 3.1 million non-immigrant Americans work the
same jobs, according to the Center for Immigration Studies.
Using the unemployment rate and considering people such as stay-at-home
moms and college students who are not looking for work, Camarota said,
there are probably about 4 million Americans who could be employed if it
weren't for immigrant workers.
It is difficult to determine if unemployment is related to immigrant labor,
he said, and some economists say there is no correlation, but he said the
millions of unemployed Americans with a high school diploma or less could
be working if it weren't for an overabundance of immigrant labor.
"It leaves me scratching my head," Camarota said. "It's just very hard to
make the case that there's a huge shortage of labor."
College-educated people in the middle-and upper-income brackets are the
ones who say immigrants take jobs Americans don't want, Camarota said.
"What they're really saying is, 'They do jobs I don't want,'" he said.
On the same note, he added, employers who say they can't find Americans who
want those jobs are really saying they don't want to offer the pay and
treatment Americans expect from a job.
Hall could not pay more and stay in business, he said, because of the
intense competition for crab meat from foreign companies.
His workers, 90 percent of whom are immigrants, make about $100 per day
picking crab meat, he said.
When he didn't think he would get his seasonal workers this year, Hall
tried newspaper ads, job fairs and prisons but found no one who would give
up their home to work seasonally in a remote area.
"We can't find nobody that will drive an hour and a half to two hours to go
to work every day."
3. +++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
http://www.washingtontimes.com/business/20051213-120437-2017r.htm
China moves past the U.S. in tech exports
By Jeffrey Sparshott
THE WASHINGTON TIMES
December 13, 2005
China last year surpassed the U.S. as the world's top exporter of high-tech
communications and information products such as cell phones, laptop
computers and digital cameras, according to a study released yesterday.
The Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) report
highlights China's rapid rise as an economic power and a manufacturing hub
for sophisticated electronics.
As recently as 2003, the U.S. led in global information and
communications technology exports. But last year, China shipped $180
billion worth of such goods worldwide, exceeding U.S. exports valued at
$149 billion, said the OECD, a Paris think tank funded by 30 market-based
democracies, including the U.S.
American companies are exporting a steadily rising stream of advanced
technology goods to China, U.S. trade figures show. From January through
September, exports to China of electronics, biotechnology, information and
communications, and other advanced technology products hit $8.6 billion,
according to Census Bureau figures. That was an almost 17 percent increase
from a year earlier.
But Americans bought much more than they sold -- importing $40.7
billion in advanced-technology products from China, a 30 percent rise from
the first nine months of 2004, the Census Bureau said.
The congressionally chartered U.S.-China Economic and Security Review
Commission in a January report linked the rising high-tech imports from
China with job losses. From 2001 to 2003, when imports rose steadily, U.S.
employment decreased by 30,000 in the computer industry, by 91,000 in
electronic machinery, 11,000 in communications equipment and 25,000 in
semiconductors.
"They are absolutely eating our lunch. It's putting many Americans out
of work," said Bill Reed, a past president of the American Engineering
Association, an independent group that represents about 1,000 U.S.
engineers concerned about competition from immigration and imports.
But the cause of the deficit in high-tech goods is manifold.
American companies are setting up shop in China and exporting
finished products to the U.S.
Companies from countries such as Japan are doing the same, meaning
that the U.S. imports of electronics, for example, from Japan are falling
while they rise slightly from China.
Chinese companies are becoming more competitive, acquiring name
brands such as IBM or creating their own components.
"China itself is also manufacturing and exporting more electronic
components than ever before, with these now forming China's second-largest
export item, after computer and related equipment," the OECD said.
And U.S. companies are seeing their share of the Chinese market
erode as other nations, such as South Korea, muscle into high-tech
manufacturing.
"For example, China previously relied on electronic components, such as
computer chips, imported from the U.S. and [European Union] to manufacture
laptops and advanced mobile phones. However between 2000 and 2004, the U.S.
and EU share of China's total imports in these components dropped from 27
to 12 percent," the OECD said.
The U.S. electronics industry maintains that high-end work -- design
and creation of products -- continues to be the U.S. forte, while China is
a point of assembly.
Providing the know-how to manufacture leading products does not show up
in trade accounts, but it supports some of the best jobs, said Matthew
Kazmierczak, vice president for research and industry analysis at AeA, a
trade association for software, telecommunications, computer chip and other
tech companies.
"The higher-end stuff is still done in the United States. That is
something we want to maintain and keep here," Mr. Kazmierczak said.
The OECD report also noted that the U.S. remains the largest market for
high-tech products made in China. Sacha Wunsch-Vincent, author of the OECD
report, said that is a good sign for the U.S. economy.
"It doesn't really matter where things are produced. It matters where
they are used. The United States has a track record of using information
technology to increase productivity," he said.
4. +++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
http://worldnetdaily.com/news/article.asp?ARTICLE_ID=47857
Monday, December 12, 2005
Who killed General Motors?
December 12, 2005
By Patrick J. Buchanan
Willys built the jeeps that carried Ike's armies across Europe. Ford built
the Sherman tanks. Packard made the engines for JFK's PT boat and for the
P-40s of Claire Chennault's Flying Tigers. Studebaker built the Weasel
armored personnel carrier.
Chevrolet built the engines for the Flying Boxcar, Buick for the B-24
Liberator, Oldsmobile for the B-25 Mitchell Col. "Jimmy" Doolittle flew in
his "Thirty Seconds Over Tokyo" raid in 1942.
Nash-Kelvinator built the Navy Corsair and Hudson the Helldiver that
succeeded the Dauntless dive-bomber that sank four Japanese carriers at
Midway. But no company matched the contributions to victory of General
Motors, the greatest company of them all.
Now, most of those companies with the legendary names - Packard, Hudson,
Studebaker, Nash, Oldsmobile - are gone. Of the "Big Three" that survive,
Chrysler is German-owned, and Ford and GM are bleeding, and their debt has
fallen to junk-bond status. Delphi, the auto-parts supplier for GM, just
declared bankruptcy.
Thanksgiving week - its share of the U.S. market down from 46 percent, 30
years ago, to 26 percent today - GM announced the closing of nine more
American plants and the dismissal of 30,000 more workers.
Many reasons are given for the decline of the U.S. auto industry. The
Volkswagen "Beetle" that invaded America in the late 1950s, the Toyotas and
Hondas that followed, the Korean Kias coming in today are, we are told,
cheaper and more reliable, and deliver better mileage. But there is a more
basic reason for America's industrial decline.
A sea change has taken place in the mindset of our elites. The economic
patriotism of Hamilton and Henry Clay, of Lincoln and T.R. and, yes, of the
Robber Barons of the Gilded Age, who forged America into the mightiest
industrial machine the world had ever seen, is dead.
To the economic patriots of the Old Republic, trade policy was to be
designed to benefit, first, the American worker. They wanted American
families to have the highest standard of living on earth and U.S. industry
to be superior to that of any and all nations. If this meant favoring
American manufacturers with privileged access to U.S. markets and keeping
foreign goods out with high tariffs, so be it.
But that Hamiltonian America-First vision that guided us for 150 years no
longer informs our politics. Economic patriotism is dead.
For the Davos generation of leaders puts the Global Economy first. They are
all good internationalists. If it's good for the Global Economy, it must be
good for America. Theirs is a quasi-religious faith in that same free-trade
ideology for which Hamilton, Clay, Lincoln and T.R. had only spitting
contempt.
And like Marxists who refuse to question their dogmas, despite manifest
signs of failure, our free-traders believe that everything that is
happening to America has to be happening for the best.
That U.S. manufacturing that once employed a third of our labor force now
employs perhaps 10 percent does not matter. That the most self-sufficient
nation in history, which produced 96 percent of all that it consumed, now
depends on foreigners for a fourth of its steel, half its autos and machine
tools, two-thirds of its textiles and apparel, and most of its cameras,
bicycles, motorcycles, shoes, televisions, videotape machines, radios, etc.
does not matter.
That tens of thousands of foreign workers are brought in each year by U.S.
employers to take high-tech jobs, that U.S. factories are shut down daily
here while opening in China, that professional work is being outsourced to
India, that we borrow $2 billion a day to finance consumption of foreign
goods - none of this matters. The nation does not matter. The country does
not matter. For we are all now in a Global Economy.
And so, as the jobs and skills of U.S. manufacturing workers disappear, and
the taxes they pay into Social Security, Medicare, and federal and state
governments fall, and the cost of their pensions is passed on to taxpayers,
and the government goes deeper into debt to cover rising social costs
corporations used to carry, other countries quietly observe.
Fifty years ago, a trade deficit of 6 percent of GDP, a hemorrhaging of
manufacturing jobs and a growing dependence on foreign nations for the
vital necessities of our national life would have been taken as signs of
the decline and fall of a great nation.
Our elites tell us that we have simply not read Thomas Friedman, we do not
understand that the old Hobbesian world is history, that we have entered a
new era of interdependence, where democracy and free markets will flourish
and usher us all into a golden age - and we Americans will lead the way.
If they are right, we are Cassandras. If they are wrong, they are fools who
sold out the greatest country in all history for a mess of potage.
5. +++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
http://www.csmonitor.com/2005/1212/p09s02-coop.html
from the December 12, 2005 edition -
http://www.csmonitor.com/2005/1212/p09s02-coop.html
No such thing as 'temporary workers'
By Michael S. Teitelbaum and Philip L. Martin
WASHINGTON - President Bush has recently been promoting his proposals for a
large temporary worker program as a way to effectively enforce immigration
laws. As Mr. Bush presents it, such a program to address growing concerns
over the flow of illegal workers would rest securely on a "win-win" basis
in the following ways:
The willingness of temporary workers and employers to participate in
the program would allow both to "win."
The US economy would benefit from higher productivity without
increasing tax burdens for existing public services.
US politicians would gain support from employer groups or sympathetic
ethnic or religious lobby groups pushing for such policies.
Mexico would "win" by exporting surplus workers who send back hard
currency to their relatives.
Yet these win-win scenarios do not reflect likely realities. Decades of
experience with such temporary worker programs in high-wage liberal
democracies worldwide show that neither the programs nor the migrants
turned out to be genuinely "temporary."
Mexico is unlikely to realize sustained benefits from exporting workers.
Migrants' payments sent back to relatives wane over time, and such payments
can stimulate land price inflation, conspicuous consumption of imported
goods, and rising inequalities of wealth rather than stay-at-home
development.
In the past, proponents have declared that such migrants would require very
little in public expenditures. Yet universally, some temporary workers find
ways to bring their families to join them, and then become substantial
beneficiaries of existing government-financed programs such as public
education, healthcare, and safety-net services for low-income residents.
Politicians have also discovered - too late - that temporary worker
programs really are labor subsidies to low-wage sectors such as garments,
labor-intensive agriculture, and in-home personal services, retarding
efforts to raise the level of national wages and productivity.
Temporary-worker programs are often portrayed as a legal and humane
alternative to unauthorized migration. But they fail to acknowledge that
the last major Mexico-US temporary worker program, the so-called bracero
program, actually was the initiator and accelerator of today's large-scale
unauthorized migration. The same is true across Western Europe, where
"guest worker" programs based on similar claims were embraced during the
economic booms of 30 to 40 years ago. Their "guests" for temporary work
were transformed into millions of permanently resident "foreigners," who
today have very high rates of unemployment and welfare dependency.
Most current proposals involve some form of "legalization" to "clear the
slate" of about 11 million unauthorized residents, usually via a gradual
process by which unlawful residents can earn legal immigrant status by
doing farm or other work. Here, too, the record is more than clear: Such
policies have a dismal recent history. In 1987-88, 2.8 million unauthorized
migrants obtained US legal status. Yet despite this massive legalization,
the farm labor market in California again is dominated by unauthorized
workers.
Given this history, one might wonder why some US politicians are now
proposing yet another guest-worker program. The subject is driven by odd
coalitions of long-antagonistic regional, ideological, economic, and ethnic
interest groups. Both conservative Republicans and liberal Democrats see
the potential to gain large numbers of additional political and financial
supporters. How? Conservatives expect to draw voters who favor their
traditional social and cultural values. Liberal advocates expect to swell
their political constituencies by favoring income redistribution policies,
organized labor, affirmative action, and so on.
Of course both expectations cannot both be right. In politics, if someone
gains, someone else loses. In addition, while guest worker and legalization
proposals are being promoted as panaceas to reduce unauthorized migration,
all contain the very seeds of their own failure. The most likely outcomes
actually would be to increase unlawful flows across the borders.
Why is a guest-worker program being pushed? Because some employer and
ethnic lobbies expect to benefit substantially and rapidly. There would be
costs, but these would be slower to appear, and would be paid for by the
federal and local governments rather than by the interest groups that
benefit. The result is politics driven by small, concentrated, and
well-financed interest groups that expect to profit significantly in the
short term.
People, as economist Adam Smith once observed, are "the most difficult
baggage to transport over borders." Among those who have carefully studied
recent experience, there is an overwhelming and concise consensus: There is
nothing more permanent than temporary workers.
Michael S. Teitelbaum, a demographer at the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation,
was vice chair of the bipartisan US Commission on Immigration Reform.
Philip L. Martin, professor of labor economics at the University of
California at Davis, was a member of the bipartisan US Commission on
Agricultural Workers.
6. +++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
http://www.computing.co.uk/forbes/news/2147463/help-wanted-silicon-valley
Help wanted in Silicon Valley
Competition for talent among Google, Yahoo and Microsoft is intense
Rachel Rosmarin, Forbes.com 12 Dec 2005
BURLINGAME, CALIF. - For programmers, happy days are here again. But for
their employers, fear is setting in.
Competition for talent among the "big three" Web portals--Google (nasdaq:
GOOG - news - people ), Yahoo! (nasdaq: YHOO - news - people ) and
Microsoft (nasdaq: MSFT - news - people )--is intense. But nothing the
companies can do will solve the problem--there are simply not enough
qualified candidates to go around, especially for the smaller competitors
swimming in the same talent pool.
The tech industry is expected to grow by 167,000 new jobs in 2006,
according to Economy.com, with high-tech employment rebounding to levels
higher than that reached during the tech bubble's peak. But a severe
drought of tech talent is imminent.
"The very survival of these companies is at risk," says Carmi Levy, an
analyst with Infotech. "If they can't find that talent to keep them
innovative, their competitive edge will erode." He points to the fact that
two of Google's most popular products--Google News and Gmail--were the
brainstorms of individual minds.
Many mid- and small-size companies won't be able to compete at all. Because
of this human-resources weakness, Levy believes about half of all existing
small and medium-size companies could stagnate and go out of business.
The ones that survive will figure out ways to tempt workers with stock
options and guarantees that individuals will have large roles to play in
shaping business, he says.
"The market is very hot right now, and demand is higher than supply for the
talent we need in source code and Web applications," says Kristen Roby,
senior director of talent acquisition at Microsoft. "After the dot-com
bust, kids entering college didn't want to go into this industry. It
resulted in an overreaction in the market."
That's not the case anymore. Roby says prospective hires at Microsoft are
typically deciding today between three competing offers, and they're taking
longer to choose between them.
Across the tech industry, entry-level Web developer and programmer salaries
are nearing $70,000, and project manager salaries go as high as $150,000 on
the West Coast, according Korn/Ferry subsidiary Futurestep.
Microsoft added 4,400 employees in its 2005 fiscal year, and more are
expected to join in fiscal year 2006, which ends next June. The
64,000-employee company hasn't hired at this rate since the heady days of
the tech bubble. At the bottom of the curve in 2002, only 2,600 workers
were added.
The hiring push comes during what will be a landmark launch period for the
company, with Microsoft expected to roll out a variety of products, from
legacy software such as Windows Vista, Internet Explorer 7 and Office 12 to
new Web-based applications like Office Live, Windows Live and updates to
Xbox Live.
But Roby insists she is not looking to hire specialists in these areas. She
says the company needs well-rounded product testers, developers and
marketers, and she doesn't "want to close the door on people without
experience, because these skills can be taught."
Yahoo! is taking a different tack toward its 2006 hires. "This year, we
want the greatest minds in specializations," says Libby Sartain, senior
vice president of human resources for Yahoo!.
"Its no secret what we want," says Sartain, who cites experts in mobile
platforms, voice-over-Internet Protocol, data mining, search matching and
filtering, advertising systems and Web development.
Overall, Yahoo! hired roughly 4,000 workers this year, swelling its ranks
to 10,000. While Sartain would not be specific about the number Yahoo!
wants to hire next year, she did say that finding enough quality talent has
been challenging.
But what's bad for the big portal companies is worse for startups and
midsize enterprises. "[The portals] are skimming the cream off the top and
leaving the lesser talents to the companies that can't offer the same
salaries and exposure, " says Infotech's Levy. "Google's barrier for entry
is so high."
Many point to Google as the primary impetus driving the talent war. The
company, which increased its size by nearly 70% in the last year, to 5,000
employees, plans to keep up its hiring pace--if it can.
The company failed to return calls for comment, but Google has been vocal
about its inability to grow its technical staff as much as it would like.
"Can we hire the quality and quantity of people that we want to? No," said
Google Co-President Sergey Brin at an analyst meeting in February.
During its third-quarter conference call in October, the company stated
that R&D spending increased 60% over the previous quarter due to
"successful engineering recruiting efforts," and that investors should
"fully expect to see growth in this expense line for the foreseeable
future."
Despite the current frenzy surrounding technical talent, experts aren't
willing to see this as a sign of a bubble mentality returning to Silicon
Valley.
"We've learned our lesson," says Levy. "As a society, there is a lot of
tempering going on with these hiring increases. We say, 'Wait a second,
let's think our way through this.' In the late '90s, business cases weren't
even bothered with."
Still, the supply and demand situation dictates that alternative methods
must be used to find the best talent.
"Very simply, there are not enough good developers to fill the positions
that each of these companies has," says Jack Hughes, founder of TopCoder,
an engineering placement firm.
His firm works with Google, Microsoft and Yahoo!, among others, in
identifying elite programmers through competitions that pit contestants
against one another. He plans several international-based contests in the
coming year, citing China and India as specific areas where these companies
want to ramp up their hiring.
Microsoft expects roughly 60% of its new hires during the current fiscal
year to be based outside of the U.S. Yahoo!, too, is looking abroad.
Although it declined to break down its hiring plans for the coming year
based on geography, the company says 30% of its hires this year were
international.
Hughes is conducting a contest for Google in China, with the final round
ending Jan. 20. Hughes expects the best of the players to be hired by
Google, which is looking to staff up a new research and development center
in Beijing.
This is where Kai-Fu Lee is in charge of staffing. He joined Google in July
after leaving Microsoft, only to have his former employer try to block his
departure via a lawsuit. The battle is still being litigated and is just
another indication of the high value that these companies assign to top
talent, no matter where they are located.
"There aren't millions of these strong programmers around--not in the U.S.,
not in China and not in India," says Hughes. "These people are just worth
their weight in gold."
7. +++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
http://www.computerworld.com/managementtopics/outsourcing/story/0,10801,107048,00.html
J.P. Morgan Chase starts two-year hiring spree in India
News Story by Jeremy Kirk
DECEMBER 14, 2005 (IDG NEWS SERVICE) - J.P. Morgan Chase & Co. has started
recruiting some of the 4,500 employees it aims to hire over the next two
years in India. The move will double its head count in the country, a
spokesman confirmed Tuesday.
The new hires will work in the company's investment bank operations and
deal with settling derivatives contracts in the cities of Mumbai and
Bangalore. The jobs involve ensuring derivative contracts are routed to
their owners and payment is transferred.
J.P. Morgan Chase will recruit people who have experience in financial
services or have other qualifications, such as a master's degree in
business.
The new hires are not replacements for employees elsewhere, the spokesman
said. The growth in the derivatives business has prompted the need for more
workers, he said. The new hires could eventually move to other company
offices worldwide, he said.
J.P. Morgan Chase currently has 4,500 employees in India.
8. +++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
http://www.mercurynews.com/mld/mercurynews/news/13435576.htm
Dec. 18, 2005
Betting on a boom
By Mark Schwanhausser
From the Gold Rush to the dot-com boom, the Bay Area has offered the
prospect of prosperity for those willing to work hard. That hope fueled
high-tech booms in the 1980s and 1990s -- and many workers think it will do
so again in the next five to 10 years, according to a Mercury News/Kaiser
Family Foundation survey.
Despite that optimism, Bay Area residents struggle with widespread job
insecurity and sky-high real estate prices. Resiliency, risk-taking and
riches co-exist with frustration, uncertainty and financial hardship.
The yin and yang of life here explain why 87 percent of residents say they
are satisfied with the Bay Area as a place to live while 41 percent would
pack up and leave if they could find a comparable job elsewhere.
``Thinking about the future, the glass is half-full, but thinking about the
job market, the glass is half-empty,'' said Mollyann Brodie, director of
public opinion and media research for the Kaiser Family Foundation in Menlo
Park. ``Our cowboy spirit is still alive and well in the wild West, but
there is certainly a soft underbelly. We can't forget the difficulties some
of these families are having.''
The survey of more than 1,700 Bay Area residents explores the trade-offs
between work and home, the delicate balance between optimism and pessimism,
and the shifting patterns of prosperity and hardship five years after the
implosion of one of the biggest economic booms in urban history.
Among the highlights:
People are obsessed by work yet complain that job-related stress is
something they tote around 24 hours a day like a BlackBerry.
Most people think another economic boom is just years away, yet many
worry that might not be soon enough, especially the have-nots who have
weathered the downturn by spending less, saving less, putting off medical
care, draining 401(k)s and bleeding down their home equity.
Despite the Bay Area's worldwide reputation as an incubator for
risk-takers, most workers would opt to work for an established company
rather than a start-up -- and would prefer a steady paycheck over a chance
to pocket a Lotto-sized stock-option payoff.
The survey comes at a time when American workers -- tech and non-tech alike
-- have reason to feel they're under assault. From General Motors on down,
companies are whittling away health care benefits, shedding pension
obligations and forcing concessions from unions. They're hiring more
temporary workers, importing engineers with H-1B visas and ``off-shoring''
other jobs. All the while, employers are running lean and demanding greater
productivity.
The state's tech industry -- and Silicon Valley in particular -- endured a
wrenching transformation. In the five years since the Nasdaq stock market
peaked on March 10, 2000, shares in Silicon Valley's public companies lost
two-thirds of their value -- that's $2 trillion gone. Since 2000, 42
percent of the region's workers have endured at least one month of
unemployment or settled for a job that pays less or requires fewer skills.
Of those who lost a job, nearly one-third were out of work for six months
to two years.
While the Bay Area remains one of the richest regions on Earth, a broad
gulf exists between the haves and have-nots, with financial worries
particularly acute for those who are younger, less educated or a minority.
Yet even those more fortunate complain about job insecurity, financial
stress and clogged highways, the survey found.
``It didn't used to be like going to a cattle-call audition in New York,
where there were three jobs and 500 people after those three jobs,'' said
the self-described ``unsinkable'' Molly Brown, a former Broadway actress
who has endured long bouts of unemployment as a software developer in
recent years.
``It used to be you'd send out a risumi and get 10 calls, and you'd
choose to go on four interviews, and there would be competing offers,''
said Brown, who, like 85 percent of those surveyed, has lived in the Bay
Area throughout the five-year period. ``It isn't like that now. They don't
even post jobs because they're so snowed under with risumis.''
Scarcity of good jobs is not the only issue. Nationwide, Americans are
increasingly unhappy with their work. Just half of the nation's workers say
they're satisfied, down from 60 percent in 1995, according to the
Conference Board.
It's unclear whether this grumpiness is a byproduct of an uncertain economy
or whether employees are shifting the balance between their work and
personal lives. Over the past five years, countless Americans have reset
their cultural, political and family priorities in the wake of the Sept. 11
terrorist attacks, the Iraq war and natural disasters that include the
South Asia tsunami and Hurricane Katrina.
``What other period in time had so many different things that affected
world values and cultures and people's view of things?'' said David Insler,
a compensation expert who heads Sibson Consulting's western practice.
The Mercury News/Kaiser survey, conducted from Aug. 2 to Sept. 11,
reinforces the view that the Bay Area is a region that defies simple
generalities. Optimism coexists with pessimism, prosperity with poverty.
It's a place defined by possibilities, yet many residents struggle within
its limitations. As much as people love it here, many say they'd leave if
it weren't for their jobs.
Love-hate relationship
For all their differences, Bay Area residents are increasingly defined by
and obsessed with their work.
About 49 percent of non-retired residents say nothing matters more to them
than work -- that's where they draw their most satisfaction in life. That's
up from 39 percent of Santa Clara County workers in 1985 and 41 percent of
workers in Santa Clara, San Mateo and Alameda counties in 1999.
Work isn't what everyone lives for, but 74 percent say it helps define who
they are, and 64 percent say what they do for work is more important than
the paycheck.
Against such a backdrop, it's understandable that most people say it's a
mark of disgrace to be out of work. Among the unemployed or
``underemployed'' -- those in a job below their skill level or salary
history because it was the best they could find -- seven out of 10 say they
feel there is a stigma attached to being unemployed.
As the balance between work and life has tipped toward work, frustration
has mounted. Nearly six out of 10 workers complain that job-related stress
pollutes their home life. About 33 percent say they're staying longer at
work than they did five years ago -- nearly double the number who are
working less. And 25 percent of all residents are less satisfied with the
amount of time they spend with family and friends.
Put it all together and you have a big chunk of the labor force looking for
change. Aside from the 41 percent who would leave the Bay Area if they
could find a comparable job elsewhere, more than one-third are more willing
to consider changing careers than they were five years ago.
``The valley attracts and rewards people who are optimistic, maybe
unrealistically optimistic,'' said Mike Curran, director of the NOVA
Workforce Board, a government-funded employment and training agency serving
several South Bay cities. ``The DNA says that this will all work out in the
long run. When it doesn't happen, people will choose to leave.''
The next big thing
The tech boom was one for the record books. But people in the Bay Area are
inclined to say it's just a matter of when -- not if -- there will be a
repeat performance.
Nearly 60 percent are confident the Bay Area will enjoy another
dot-com-sized economic boom -- with most expecting the good times to roll
within five to 10 years.
``I think we're just waiting for the next guy in a garage with the next
great idea,'' said Robert Thomas of San Jose, who owns a small business and
invests in rental units. ``Only now it won't be a garage, it will be one of
these R&D buildings renting for pennies per square foot.''
That kind of optimism helps explain why 54 percent of residents are
confident their household finances will be in better shape by 2010, while
only 7 percent expect they'll be in worse shape -- a nearly 8-to-1 ratio of
optimists.
Some experts say optimism is underpinned by the fact that many residents
have suffered so mightily during the ground-shaking economic bust that
they're convinced things can only get better.
Though the Bay Area ranks among the nation's most affluent areas -- with a
median household income of more than $75,000 in Santa Clara Country --
there remains a deep financial divide between the haves and have-nots and
those who have secure jobs and those who don't.
Overall, 20 percent of residents say their finances have deteriorated the
past five years. Among the underemployed and unemployed, about 40 percent
are worse off. Regardless of their job status or incomes, about two out of
three residents say their finances cause them stress.
More than one of three residents has burned up all or most of his or her
savings during the past five years. Even among the securely employed who
held jobs throughout the previous five-years, 20 percent say they'd last no
more than a month before suffering a significant financial hardship if they
lost their jobs. The financial buffer would last only a week for a
comparable percentage of underemployed workers.
Many residents have cut back spending over the past five years. About
one-fifth have skipped or postponed medical care because it's too costly.
About 16 percent have been unable to pay for basic necessities such as
food, utility bills or housing.
Molly Brown, 44, is among them. Since leaving a six-figure but
``poisonous'' job, the software developer has had long droughts between
temporary contract jobs that offered no health benefits. She has siphoned
down the equity in her Albany home to pay basic living expenses for herself
and her 2-year-old son, putting her among the 12 percent of Bay Area
homeowners who have borrowed money or taken out a second mortgage just to
keep afloat.
``That was my key to survival,'' Brown said. ``After my nest egg money
disappeared, that was what I was living on.''
Region of risk-takers
The mythology of the Bay Area -- and Silicon Valley in particular -- holds
that there is no other place where workers are willing to shoulder so much
risk in return for a chance at riches. Tales abound about how workers
became millionaires by accepting pay cuts in exchange for stock options. To
hear some tell it, the tech industry's pace of innovation relies on such
trade-offs.
Stock options remain a common currency in the Bay Area, more so than
anywhere in the nation. More than one-third of households have received
stock options, and 62 percent of those have made money from them. But is
this truly a region of risk-takers? Or is the area's trademark optimism at
risk?
Despite their risk-taking reputation, nearly two out of three Bay Area
workers would prefer a career with a steady paycheck over one that offers a
shot at tremendous financial success. A comparable percentage would opt to
work for an established company rather than a start-up.
If they had to choose between two jobs with the same pay, 36 percent of
workers said job security would tip the scale, followed by the scope of
health insurance (25 percent). Stock options rated fifth at 6 percent. Even
the amount of vacation time counted more highly.
Phil Trounstine, who tracks consumer confidence at San Jose State
University's Survey and Policy Research Institute, says Bay Area residents
have become increasingly pessimistic.
``The crash of the dot-coms was a reality check for hundreds of thousands
of people throughout the region,'' he said. ``The bubble burst, and a lot
of people got hurt. A lot of people lost jobs and homes, their stock
options are under water, and their BMWs got repossessed. They're a lot more
cautious now.''
Trounstine and others point to Electronic Arts of Redwood City, the world's
largest video game maker, as a symbol of the changing nature of the tech
industry's risk-based economy. Facing lawsuits from salaried workers
seeking overtime, the company in May converted some salaried workers into
hourly clock-punchers. Instead of bonuses and stock options, they're
getting overtime pay.
But Andrew Dahlkemper, Electronic Arts' vice president of human relations,
says workers still have a taste for risk and want part of their pay pegged
to the company's success on Wall Street. A 2004 survey of the company's
worldwide workforce indicates that comfort with risk tends to rise with
one's rank. As a result, executives continue to get options, which are
risky but can pay off like Lotto tickets. Lower-level workers get a form of
restricted stock, which is safer but has less upside.
To Junfu Zhang, who studies the high-tech industry for the Public Policy
Institute of California, the pertinent question isn't whether residents
have grown more cautious. The real issue is whether there are still enough
risk-takers to lead the way to the next boom.
He thinks there are.
``Once the leaders start to jump on opportunities, other people will see
the chance to hit a home run and many people will follow,'' Zhang said.
``You don't need everybody to be very aggressive and risk-loving.''
9. +++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
http://www.mercurynews.com/mld/mercurynews/13441900.htm
Dec. 19, 2005
HEADQUARTERS HERE, WORKERS IN ASIA
Valley start-ups' cubicles thousands of miles apart
INDIA IS MAJOR PLAYER IN A GROWING TREND
By John Boudreau
BANGALORE, India - Call it the global garage.
There's a new breed of start-up in Silicon Valley: the mini-multinational,
launched from the get-go as a global business. The upstarts, often in tech,
set up headquarters in Silicon Valley to take advantage of funding, ideas,
management and the prestige. But they have major operations in places like
Bangalore or Shanghai, China, giving them access to overseas markets, a
cheaper but increasingly innovative pool of talent and ever-faster product
development by a round-the-clock workforce.
Take NetDevices, a networking technology start-up founded in 2003. Its
headquarters is in Sunnyvale, but two-thirds of its 150 employees,
including most of its engineers, are in India.
Communication among NetDevices colleagues, more complicated than mere
cubicle chatter, is carefully choreographed to avoid work-flow hiccups that
can cause days of delay. There is the critical nightly handoff of software
code-in-progress to engineers across the Pacific Ocean. Quick cell phone
conversations at all hours. Weekend e-mail exchanges.
``You have to bring order out of chaos,'' joked Ramesh Maganti, general
manager of NetDevices, with offices in Bangalore and Hyderabad.
India, with its booming tech economy and wealth of engineering talent, has
become one of the biggest participants in the global garage. In the past
three years, venture capitalists have invested more than $400 million in
U.S.-based start-ups operating in India, according to TSJ Media, a VC
tracking firm in Chennai, India.
The model was used in Israel five or six years ago, said Ash Lilani, head
of global markets for Silicon Valley Bank, which has an office in
Bangalore, the southern Indian city that is the pre-eminent tech center in
the country. In the past 15 months, Silicon Valley Bank has helped as many
as 50 valley start-ups set up offices in India, he said.
`Instant companies'
In the past year or so, Bryan Stolle, chief executive of San Jose-based
Agile Software, has seen a dramatic uptick in start-ups using his company's
product-management software for high-level work conducted across many time
zones. He calls them ``instant companies.''
``The true impact of the globalized economy is just starting to work its
way through everyday life,'' he said. ``There are going to be radical
changes in the historic definition of what a company is.''
Agile has its own operations around the globe, including Suzhou, China, and
Bangalore. Managing the far-flung business, Stolle said, ``is not simple.''
But companies have no choice as India and China become major economies,
said Sanjay Anandaram, founding partner with JumpStartUp, an early-stage
venture fund with offices in Bangalore and Santa Clara.
``The distribution of capital is global,'' he said. ``The rise of two
continent-size economies onto the world stage is causing these disruptions.
Your markets are no longer just the United States.''
India's tech economy, for instance, is taking off even as the country
continues to suffer basic infrastructure problems such as poor roads. There
are more than 55 million cell phone subscribers in India, and that is
expected to explode to 170 million by 2007, according to technology
research firm Gartner. This year, Indian consumers are expected to buy 5
million PCs, 70 million wireless phones and about 4 million DVD players,
reports Semico Research.
The rise of these ``micro-multinationals,'' Anandaram said, is changing the
work rhythms of Silicon Valley engineers and executives and prompting young
companies to develop multiple market strategies.
July Systems, a Santa Clara start-up founded in 2001 to provide software
that allows companies to sell ring tones, games and other content for
mobile phones, was among the first global start-ups to land in India. All
of its engineers are based in Bangalore so the company can capitalize on
the booming Asian cell phone market, said Guruprasad Krishnamurthy,
director of product management. ``The product was completely
conceptualized, architected and implemented here,'' he said.
`Hybrid' start-ups
New Path Ventures is a venture fund that backs ``hybrid'' start-ups
operating across the globe.
Tushar Dave, co-founder of New Path, said that if one of the start-ups it
backs, Nevis Networks, a Mountain View start-up with significant India
operations, were solely in the valley, ``we would have spent over $150
million as opposed to about $30 [million] to $40 million.
``It wouldn't have been a viable company to fund,'' he said. ``A lot of
people get concerned that a lot of jobs are moving outside the U.S. We
fundamentally believe that by using these innovative models, we are
creating jobs'' in the valley, too.
Stephen Savignano, chief executive of Ketera Technologies, a procurement
start-up that has about 80 engineers in Bangalore and 30 employees at the
company's Santa Clara headquarters, noted that it's now essential for even
small companies to move overseas -- and not just for technical reasons.
``The writing of code isn't as big of a differential of the value of the
company as it used to be. Now it's understanding the market requirements
and translating that into solutions as quickly as possible,'' he said.
Rafiq Dossani, senior research scholar at Stanford University and an expert
on India's tech explosion, has some doubts about the global start-up
concept. Having engineers scattered in different parts of the world can be
unwieldy for early-stage innovation, he said.
``You can't have 10 people sharing ideas -- the serendipity you have from
people sitting around talking,'' Dossani said. ``It can't be planned
through a WebEx call.''
Fly 30 hours for a chat
Indeed, the global start-up requires delicate communications skills,
workdays that stretch into different time zones and a willingness to fly 30
hours to have coffee chats with colleagues to foster creativity and
camaraderie.
``It's tough, believe me,'' said Ron Victor, general manager of marketing
and business development for HelloSoft, the San Jose start-up whose
software is used to operate chips on cell phones and other devices. The
company has an engineering team in Hyderabad.
Yet the 24-hour workforce means much more can be accomplished more quickly,
he said. It also makes for long days as workers stay up late or get up
early to communicate with colleagues across the globe, Victor said.
For Indian engineers, it's a chance to be involved with product creation
from the white-board stage onward, instead of simply being handed
specifications from headquarters in Silicon Valley, said Sampada Joshi,
senior software engineer with NetDevices.
``It's a great feeling,'' she said. ``We are doing everything from
scratch.''
Global innovation also requires more than virtual communications. ``There
is nothing in the world that can replace a handshake,'' Victor said.
Executives and engineers must endure regular journeys to India and Silicon
Valley. ``Physically, it takes quite a bit of energy,'' said Seenu Banda,
co-founder and chief executive of NetDevices. He travels to India about
once every two months. ``It's not as easy as it may sound on a piece of
paper.''
Executives and engineers must endure regular journeys to India and Silicon
Valley. ``Physically, it takes quite a bit of energy,'' said Seenu Banda,
co-founder and chief executive of NetDevices. He travels to India about
once every two months. ``It's not as easy as it may sound on a piece of
paper.''
[remaining article snipped due to space limitations]
www.ZaZona.com
Support this Newsletter and ZaZona.com by donating:
www.zazona.com/Donations.htm
To Subscribe, Unsubscribe or to view the Archive go to:
http://www.zazona.com/shameh1b/JobDestructionNews.htm
Back to archives