EDITOR’S VIEWPOINT/Virtual pain still hurts
High-tech advancements have made us more comfortable and productive, but now they are splashing mud in our faces as they jump feet first in the middle of our labor pool. The combination of cheap and educated labor and an inexpensive way to transfer huge amounts of goods and services over cables has turned the business kids loose in the world’s largest candy store, and they are sending America’s jobs out the door to other countries. And where will the cavities show up? Our cities and counties will be the ones suffering the pain as pockets of unemployed workers and unoccupied buildings bore holes in their economic landscapes.
Of course, business leaders use a Novocaine-coated word — transition — to refer to the increasing numbers of American jobs currently going overseas. Ask Flint, Mich., about its “transition” after General Motors left the city decades ago, or tell city leaders in LaGrange, Ga., how to retrain textile workers who lost their jobs when the Dunson and Dixie plants closed last month.
Maybe LaGrange’s displaced textile workers can be retrained as IT professionals … no wait, too late. IT jobs in the United States are sailing away by the thousands. One research firm, Gartner, estimates that one in 10 IT jobs at U.S. IT companies and one in 20 at non-IT companies will head to another country by the end of 2004. And, contrary to the idea that outsourcing to other countries will not steal more sophisticated jobs — the ones we can comfort ourselves in knowing that we will keep here — 11 percent of chief information officers (CIOs) already have outsourced IT system and architecture planning, and 14 percent have outsourced IT research and development, according to a recent report from CIO magazine.
Santa Clara County, Calif., the heart of Silicon Valley isn’t the only place that should be concerned. Cities like Denver, Boston and those in the North Carolina Research Triangle better be gearing up for a little “transition,” too.
Overseas outsourcing isn’t limited to IT positions; many mid-level finance and business services employees already have been displaced. Adding those types of jobs to the IT and manufacturing outsourcing trend equals an outsourcing parade that threatens as many as one-third of all private sector jobs.
While outsourcing isn’t new, the breadth and depth of its potential is staggering. By 2015, as many as 3.3 million U.S. white collar jobs may be in the hands of workers overseas, according to a Forrester Research study. That represents $136 billion in wages.
Helping to spread the phenomenon is the “survive at any cost” mentality inspired by years of a bad and virtually jobless economy. Possibly that explains why a local government would buy drugs from Canada, displacing employees working for an American distributor with those working for a Canadian one.
Whether you believe outsourcing is good for America or want to curb it, some Americans may find solace in another outsourcing trend: Last year, Reuters said it would be moving about 600 journalism jobs from New York, England and Scotland to India. See, you knew that outsourcing couldn’t be all bad.