Offshoring Is Major Cause of Technical Unemployment, IEEE-USA Survey

[Robert Oak]

WASHINGTON (8 March 2005) -- Offshoring is the second-highest cause of unemployment among U.S. technical professionals, according to the 2004 IEEE-USA Unemployment Survey released today.



The leading cause of unemployment, cited by 62 percent of U.S. IEEE members who reported being laid off, was a business downturn. Fifteen percent reported that their jobs were transferred offshore, while 10 percent pegged merger or acquisition as the cause of their layoff.



A correlation between results of the Unemployment Survey and the 2004 IEEE-USA Salary & Fringe Benefit Survey, which showed the first median income decline for U.S. IEEE members in 31 years, revealed that people in industries reporting the largest drop in income also reported the highest percentage of unemployment because of offshoring. The following chart illustrates this:



Industry % Drop in Income % Offshoring

Electrical/Electronic Manufacturing 2.5 16.2
Computers 2.4 17.4
Communications 1.8 15.2



"This data supports our contention that offshoring not only contributes significantly to U.S. high-tech unemployment, but also suppresses wages," IEEE-USA President Gerard Alphonse said. "Our concerns extend beyond job loss and depressed incomes to threats to our nation's innovation infrastructure. Because innovation tends to follow jobs, key drivers of our economic prosperity could be lost."



The 2004 Unemployment Survey was sent to 5,329 U.S. IEEE members who reported being laid off at some point in the 2003-04 membership year. This represents an 80.3 percent increase in members reporting unemployment over the 2002 survey. Dr. Laura Langbein, a professor of public affairs at The American University in Washington, D.C., analyzed and reported the results, which are posted at http://www.ieeeusa.org/careers/pdf/EmploymentSurvey2004Report.pdf.



Other findings reveal that 37 percent of the 988 respondents said they considered leaving engineering entirely, and 41 percent said they would not recommend the profession to their children.



"Another trend is that employers are providing much less service for laid-off workers than they did before," Langbein wrote. "Severance was provided in only 54 percent of the cases (compared with 90 percent in 2002) and extended benefits in only 27 percent of the cases (compared with 48 percent in 2002)."




http://coe.isu.edu/ieee/eisec/2005/Offshoring%20Major%20Cause%20of%20Technical%20Unemployment.htm

[mhr]

1. Duh! - Sorry For Being Impertinent Robert - But Any Fool Understands

That if you send work overseas and do not have an increase in similar work domestically, the end result is people can't find jobs!

Unemployed 60 months now.

[Robert Oak]

4. yeah, but the IEEE is the "cream" of the profession

minimum BS, often MS, takes years to become an engineer.

To me, this report is pretty devestating and proves what's going on.
Maybe we know this "obvious" fact, but you would be amazed
at the propaganda out there. Right now industry is trying to claim
Americans are not "educated in math and science", i.e. MIT, Stanford,
Cornell and so forth graduates now just plain suck (these are the same people who innovated and brought the US to number one) and therefore the industry "must" bring in foreigners as well as outsource high valued,
innovating career positions.

[BlueEyedSon]

2. NEWSFLASH: Gravity makes things fall down. Water makes stuff wet.

[Anakin Skywalker]

3. Doh! No Sh*t!

But you know what the Freeper @$$holes will say, don't ya? "Tech workers are just lazy!" Same damn lie they said about manufacturing workers when those people were losing their jobs.

[Robert Oak]

5. right on, they are working on that

I feel like slob because I looked down on blue collar due to the propaganda surrounding me and paid no attention to their warning
cries. The whole BS was if one went to college, was smart and worked hard, one would succeed...ye ole unfettered capitalist message and very America.

Only when I saw Michael Moore's "Roger and Me" did I start
to get an idea what was really going on and I must say I was a "lone duck" in the 90's knowing that the high tech world was already seriously abusing their engineers. People bought the psychological warfare
these corporations wage on their workers with 100 work weeks and "attrition" due to someone not being "skilled enough" (read they
are over 40) hook, line and sinker.

But, the good news is white collar people are starting to wake up and
realize the sham.

[mhr]

6. I Worked At MITRE Most Of The 90s Before I Turned 40

We noticed every year that the bulk of the yearly pruning was for those over 40.

I started saving like mad and that savings is what has kept me alive during my 60 month job drought.

[queeg]

7. Its not just the engineer jobs

Its the data entry, the lower tech end of the IT jobs that have harmed America more than anything. The data conversion and the 7-12 buck an hour scut work. And the loss of businesses that did that kind of work that hurt more than anything.