U.S. Companies Moving More Jobs Overseas

[JPace]

http://www.reuters.com/newsArticle.jhtml?type=technologyNews&storyID=4039177

U.S. Companies Moving More Jobs Overseas
Jobs Overseas
Tue December 23, 2003 05:31 PM ET

(Page 1 of 2)
By David Zielenziger
NEW YORK (Reuters) - U.S. corporations are picking up the pace in shifting well-paid technology jobs to India, China and other low-cost centers, but they are keeping quiet for fear of a backlash, industry professionals said.

Morgan Stanley estimates the number of U.S. jobs outsourced to India will double to about 150,000 in the next three years. Analysts predict as many as two million U.S. white-collar jobs such as programmers, software engineers and applications designers will shift to low cost centers by 2014.

But the biggest companies looking to "offshoring" to cut costs, such as Microsoft Corp. (MSFT.O: Quote, Profile, Research) , International Business Machines Corp. (IBM.N: Quote, Profile, Research) and AT&T Wireless (AWE.N: Quote, Profile, Research) , are reluctant to attract attention for political reasons, observers said this week.

"The problem is that companies aren't sure if it's politically correct to talk about it," said Jack Trout, a principal of Trout & Partners, a marketing and strategy firm. "Nobody has come up with a way to spin it in a positive way."

This causes a problem for publicly traded companies, which would ordinarily brag about cost savings to investors. Instead, they send vague signals that they are opening up operations in India and China, but often decline to elaborate.

More.....

[mbperrin]

1. Look at that *Bush job machine

go!

Heh...you were thinking American jobs, right? Then yer thinkin' too hard!

[velocity]

2. In most cases it is pure GREED

Tell me why Microsoft has to cut corners with help desk functions in India.

[shivaji]

3. and when Wesley Clark said "Let the software jobs go to...

India, we can do something else here" blew my mind as to how green and ignorent Clark is on the outsourcing issue. If he becomes the nominee, I will have to be taken to poll kicking and screaming.

Hope Dean is the nominee and the winner in november.

[genius]

4. That's what free trade, NAFTA and the WTO are about

THat's why Dennis is the only candidate with the correct position on the issue.

[mbperrin]

5. You know something else? These "friendly"

headlines like "moving" jobs really irritate me!

Say what it is:
"More companies ready to sell you out if they can save 10 cents"

or

"US Companies spit on their employees on way out of country"

These are far more honest!

[rustydog]

6. Now do you see how America can have a booming economy

and a revived stock market?
Why pay union wages in this country when China will do the job for 1.00 dollar an hour?

Has anyone noticed that even though these products are being made for pennies on the dollar, yet we are still being gougedby corporate America.
If I'm going to be screwed, I like a little kiss first.

[w4rma]

8. Bingo.

Economy on the rebound?

By John Atcheson
Originally published December 24, 2003

WASHINGTON - Before America allows President Bush to take bows on the economy, let's take a closer look at this recovery. A simple thought experiment will help.

Imagine for a moment that you took all your credit cards and maxed them out. Now take your mortgage and borrow the maximum on it. Cash in the kid's college fund, your rainy day savings, your 401(k) retirement savings. While you're at it, stop paying for your health insurance and the maintenance on your house, your car and your yard. Now take all that money and spend it. Feeling pretty flush? Sure you are. You just pumped tens, maybe hundreds of thousands of dollars into your pocket.

But you'd never do that.

Because you know that just because you'd be living large for the time being, you wouldn't be wealthier. In fact, you'd be getting poorer by the minute. And yet, that's exactly what Mr. Bush's recovery is - a giant borrowing binge. But he'd rather you didn't know that. In February, the administration buried a report from its own Treasury Department that said our current fiscal policies, the ones Mr. Bush likes to claim are bringing on a "recovery," would create more than $44 trillion in chronic debt.

As the London Financial Times noted, $44 trillion is roughly equivalent to 10 times the publicly held national debt, four years of U.S. economic output or more than 94 percent of all U.S. household assets. No wonder things seem good. We've cashed in everything we own at the Bush Pawn Shop, and now we're flashing a serious wad of walkin' around money.

The Democrats like to point out that we're still down some 2.5 million jobs since Mr. Bush took over and that, absent a miracle, Mr. Bush is likely to be the first president since Herbert Hoover to have fewer jobs at the end of his administration than when he took over. But the real story is, how can we not be living even larger, after borrowing all our children's assets and shrinking the Federal Reserve rate to the lowest level since 1958? What have we got to show for it?

An essentially jobless recovery. Mr. Bush likes to say the jobs will come. They'd better. Because right now, all he's managed to do is spend about $350 billion of "your money" to hire 328,000 checkout clerks and greeters at the local Wal-Mart. Meanwhile, we've shipped some 2.6 million high-paying manufacturing jobs overseas since January 2001.
…
http://www.sunspot.net/news/opinion/oped/bal-op.badeconomy24dec24,0,3292091.story?coll=bal-oped-headlines
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_topic&forum=104&topic_id=956993#957507

[JoeMemphis]

7. I wish Democrats would really start slamming ...

... Bush on this issue.