there is no crisis. return to your homes, citizens.

[rone]

Global Insight, a private consulting firm hired by the Information Technology Association of America, an industry lobbying firm, said that, while outsourcing does result in some short-term U.S. unemployment, its long-term benefits outweigh its costs.

While the outsourcing problem has been taken to FUD extremes, i just can't help feeling skeptical about this particular study.

Comments

[huaman.livejournal.com]

The study acknowledged the impact of outsourcing on U.S. IT workers, but warned against what it called protectionist measures that would restrict the flow of jobs overseas. Instead, it recommended offering displaced workers government assistance and new training.


I mean I guess maybe I *could* benefit from updating my waitressing skillset, right?

[wisn.livejournal.com]

Having grown up and lived for 30 years in areas where the most significant changes have been due to industrial outsourcing for, I've observed that outsourcing results in long-term unemployment and leads to long-term lower standards of living for a greater percentage of the population.

When industrial jobs are gone, they never come back in the same volume, and they rarely come back at all. Skills within industrial labor are not necessarily transferable, the people involved are not necessarily capable of upgrading themselves to better jobs.

It will be interesting to see what happens as outsourcing climbs its way up the food chain. If there's no need for programmers, there's no need for their managers either, and all those $55k/year salaries needed to scrape for $250k homes are not going to be easily replaced by the $18k/year jobs at Wal-Mart.

Maybe in another 20 years the midwest will be the new Gujerat, where there's a thin line of professional middle class between the working white collar and the wealthy, and there will be pools of programmers willing to work for $1500/month salaries.