It’s easy to say, “Let’s just re-educate the people who lost their jobs!” But who pays for it? I had been planning to relocate to Washington state, but I had not planned on being unemployed. I’ve just returned from the local community college. Since I’ve only been here since November, I would have to pay non-resident tuition. Since I was employed last year, I made too much money to qualify for a Federal grant to pay that tuition. So I would have to pay for it myself. Without a job.
And when people say, “Re-educate the laid-off workers!”, what do they mean? About whom are they speaking? Should a computer programmer be re-educated so that he knows how to say, “Would you like fries with that?”? Should he be re-educated as a ditch-digger? Or are they suggesting that a laid-off 40- or 50- or 60-year old office employee might be re-educated as a doctor or astronaut? Someone who works in a factory job might easily be re-educated to work in a different factory that makes a completely different product. But what does an IT person do when IT jobs are being shipped overseas at an alarming rate?
I wouldn’t mind having lost my job if the U.S. had a better safety net. A person should not lose his house or apartment just because, through no fault of his own, he loses his job. A person should not lose his medical or dental coverage just because he loses his job. Is this “compassionate conservativism”? I think not! The government should provide assistance to people in our situation. And I think that they should pay the tuition of any unemployed person who is seeking to become more employable.
But it’s bloody hard to pay thousands of dollars for re-education when you’re unemployed.
Wonderful. Jobs will come back when the US is reduced to Third World poverty levels, which will then enable us to compete with Third World workers. (Or to be more charitable, the US and the Third World meet in the middle somewhere.) Somehow, I don’t think most Americans would find this a satisfactory solution to the problem.
As for “jobs in other sectors,” what other sectors? What job can we create that could not itself be outsourced to a location where labor is cheaper? This is the sort of faith-based economic argument I was talking about.
Sorry, but this simply isn’t true. Comapanies outsource jobs in order to lower the cost of goods. If that weren’t so, you and could start a company to compete with MegaOutsource Corp, hire only domestic employees, and pay ourselves 1/2 of the standard MegaOutsource CEO salary. We’d put them out of businees because our total cost would be lower.
There is simply no difference between a product made by a US company which outsources some of its jobs to China, and a product made by a Chinese company and exported to the US.
As for the real problem, unemployment, the key is to balance the help we give to people in real economic distress with a need to keep a high level of personal responisbility in the system.
Consider Joe and Jane, who live in Oklahoma and work as customer service reps for a company that outsourced those jobs to India. Jane found a similar job working for a company in Florida. But Joe didn’t want to consider moving out of the state. “Why should I have to leave the town where I grew up”, he says. By giving special outsourcing unemployment pay to Joe, are we “helping him thru a difficult economic time” or “rewarding him for being inflexible”?
I’m not optimistic about the government being able to deal with this type of situation effectively. But perhaps the best we can hope for in the current political climate is for the government to allow people to create “unemployment IRAs” that can be used to bridge the gap between jobs. That at least is a blend of a government benefit (tax break) with a does of personal responsibility (plan ahead for a rainy day).
Well, were have you looked? Have you asked the American Embassy? The Indian Embassy? I know there are hurtles to overcome, but they are not insurmountable.
This link does not contian much advice, but it does contain quote from another article which it links to:
“some career advisers say ambitious Americans should consider emigrating to India or China for startup experience _ and get used to a developing-world salary, which averages one-sixth the $60 hourly wage for U.S. programmers.”
But it does. You have to get some paper, but usually this is not that hard. There are quotas and limitations, but if you are persistant you can certainly emmigrate most anywhere you want.
Never seen a thread on THIS subject before… :rolleyes:
Ok, lets imagine that, as unlikely as it seems. I’m game. I imagine that if the MAJORITY of the US workforce ever becomes unemployed all together, there will BE no US anymore. You can all cheer now and sing kumbya or what ever floats your boat.
And all those rich fat cats will either bury their loads of boodle in the back yard, in their mattress or invest it overseas for some good reason I’m sure you will tell us about. I’m still in imagining mode, but this seems to be straying even further from reality. All that investment you mention in the stockmarket…whats it DOING? Are these US companies or have the furriners taken over the stockmarket some how? If they are still US companies, whats all that investment DOING? Are the companies simply making money through osmosis or do you envision US flag companies shifting totally to overseas operations?
Well, if the MAJORITY of US workers our out of work and unemployed, how would a ‘dole’ function? Who would pay for it? If US firms are no longer even employing US workers at all but are shifting to complete foriegn outsourcing and marketting presumably (after all, if over half the US workers are unemployed, how can they buy anything?) why are they even IN the US anymore? They won’t be selling stuff here, employing people here, etc, correct? In addition, if such a thing ever came to pass the government would almost certainly have to burden them with taxes at higher and higher rates to make up the shortfalls (someone has to pay for the governments toys and programs after all, right?). I’m sure countries like India and China (or whoever is the cheap labor countries at the time of your fantasy world) would LOVE to have the Microsofts of the world re-locate to their countries and out of the US. No?
So, on the one hand we are to imagine your fantasy world, but we can’t play too, ehe? Well, fair enough, it IS your fantasy. But since you turned around and asked questions about these new fangled ‘faith based’ industries of the future, I’ll do my best to explain it from my own perspective.
The reasons they wouldn’t be outsourced immediately are basically cost, as well as where the market is (i.e. most likely its IN the US). If we assume that the industry of tomorrow was developed by a company in the US, initially they would want to keep it pretty close to the vest. In addition, as they did the development here, they would begin the tooling up to manufacture here as well initially, again wanting to keep their great discovery close to the vest. Remember that the initial cost of a product or service is always high.
Look at DvD players as a good example of this process. Initially the costs were high and people payed them, as their choices were very limited because only one or two vendors initially manufactured them. As more and more companies reversed engineered or tooled up to manufacture them, costs slowly started to come down as functionality was added. Eventually there were many competing companies producing DvD players and competing for market share. DvD player manufacturing was then outsourced (though in this case the outsourcing was done mostly from Japan if I’m remembering correctly) to cheaper labor areas to lower costs and maintain market share for the companies that produced them.
Remember that countries like India and China aren’t nearly as flexable (yet) in being able to retool rapidly for a whole new product line. They also don’t have as much capital floating about that allows them to do such things. It takes time for those cheap labor areas to ramp up for new production or services…and time is money. Thats why initially the great new thing, whatever it is, will most likely be produced or the service done here in the US.
I don’t think this is true. I know that I can’t just show up in Canada and get a job. I know that it’s also difficult to emigrate to Australia or New Zealand. I would suspect it’s just as difficult for an American to relocate to Europe as it is for a European to move to the U.S.
Here’s the deal: I’m single, moderately young, moderately attractive, and have a good (if twisted) sense of humour. If anyone wants to sponsor me to move to England, France, Italy or Australia, I’m available.
So basically, my previous post was already touched upon before I posted it.
Have you actually applied to jobs overseas? Generally, all you need to do is find someone who is willing to employ you and sponsor you to get a visa. If I could do it, I’m sure you can too.
That is incorrect. This figure represents ownership of all types of equities, including mutual funds (both individual and company sponsored retirement funds and stock ownership plans). If you read the report that this datum was drawn from, there is a complete breakdown of ownership of all the types of equities. See Figure 14 on page 25:
I have looked, at both Embassy sites with no success. Also, this is sort of beside the point. I am talking about no barriers or hoops to jump through. A 100% open border. If the economy is going to be global, it should be no more difficult for me to follow a job to a different country than it is for me to follow a job to a different state. Fair is fair.
Also, this statement:
Is simply not true. In this country basically a potential employer has to file an I-140 Petition with the Department of Labor identifying the person they want to employ and why there are no individuals available to perform the job for which they are petitioning. Then an application has to be filed with it to the Bureau of Citizenship and Immigration Services, either an I-129B for a temporary worker or an I-485 for permanent residency. This is a very complex process.
This Cite seems to corroborate a lot of this, though I will state straight up that I got the information from my Mom, who has worked in immigration for about 30 years, and so have not read the entire website through (this was because I recently had a friend who wanted to stay in this country and work).
I don’t get it. Suppose my company makes and sells widgets and we now find out we can buy them cheaper abroad than we can make them locally. What is the difference between
(a) exporting jobs (buying widgets abroad) and
(b) importing cheaper goods (buying widgets abroad) ?
I can tell you one thing though: about the only one thing pretty much all economists agree on is that protective barriers would hurt the economy.
To create jobs you need capital and a lot of the capital invested in the USA is foreign capital which would disappear from the USA if they could invest more productively elsewhere. It is no longer a national economy but international. There is no way around that and the only way to success is to be able to compete in the globlal marketplace.
Some consulting work I do involves importing in Europe some telecomm American products from a company in California which was bought recently by a Singapore company and which subcontracts the manufacturing in China (where else?). This arrangement allows a few guys in california to have some pretty good jobs but erect any barriers and the only thing you achieve is that those jobs disappear, not that any more jobs will go to America. There is just no way around it.
Take the ADSL microwidgets we sell in Europe. It is cutthroat competition and any increase in cost would simply mean we would have to abandon that market.
If you try to isolate your economy from the rest of the world and dictate wages, prices, etc, well, it’s been tried in the Soviet Union and in China and other communist countries and the results were not so good. There is just no way around it. It is a world market and you have to compete in it. Anything else is smoke and mirrors in the short run and disaster in the long run.
[ So I would have to pay for it myself. Without a job.
Not everything is easy.
And when people say, “Re-educate the laid-off workers!”, what do they mean? About whom are they speaking? Should a computer programmer be re-educated so that he knows how to say, “Would you like fries with that?”?
If it will help him/her better there future maybe they should.
Should he be re-educated as a ditch-digger? Or are they suggesting that a laid-off 40- or 50- or 60-year old office employee might be re-educated as a doctor or astronaut? Someone who works in a factory job might easily be re-educated to work in a different factory that makes a completely different product.
This happens all the time …auto industry ,for example, retools machines every other year to accompany new models.
But what does an IT person do when IT jobs are being shipped overseas at an alarming rate?
Get together with other IT guys and put your heads together.
I wouldn’t mind having lost my job if the U.S. had a better safety net. A person should not lose his house or apartment just because, through no fault of his own, he loses his job. A person should not lose his medical or dental coverage just because he loses his job. Is this “compassionate conservativism”? I think not! The government should provide assistance to people in our situation. And I think that they should pay the tuition of any unemployed person who is seeking to become more employable.
I agree wholeheartedly with this ,although I do not plan rely on the government when something goes wrong with my job.Just as i do not rely on Social Security for my retirement,although that is a long way off
But it’s bloody hard to pay thousands of dollars for re-education when you’re unemployed.
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Damn Right ! i wish you the best …the struggle sucks
Well, ok, but I can’t just show up in Texas and get a job either. Hell, I can not even wake up tommorrow in the city I live in now and “get a job”. You have to do things to get jobs.
Where ever you move, you have to make adjustments. If you move there with no contacts and no prospects this is harder. I’m not sure how we go from this fact, to the idea that it can’t be done.
Depending on where you want to move, you have to contact you orginating country and get a passport. You then have to contact your destination country and get a visa (I believe any travel agents care to correct me?). I understand that typical visas do no allow you to work, but some do. Simply ask the destination country what those take.
That someplace in the middle will be very close to where the U.S. is now. The U.S. is already extremely competitive, even with our high labor costs. It wouldn’t take a much weaker dollar for the balance to change.
Try this list of sectors. The sectors that can be easily moved overseas make up a small part of the total U.S. economy. All sectors can be partially out-sourced, but that just makes the sector more efficient overall and thus able to hire more American workers in the specific areas that Americans are more productive.
Here’s another solution: Eliminate the minimum wage.
Don’t like that? Then it’s a loosing proposition to compete with a worker in another country who can do just as good a job as you can, but only asks for a fraction of your salary.
But the fact is, you have a bit more than just your skills to offer. Just by living in the US, with a better infrastructure, better patent protection and other judicial factors, you have more “productivity” in you than your Chinese counterpart. There are risks to doing business in China that don’t exist in the US. Economists and businesspeople can quantify those risks and decide how much of a wage delta is worth the move. If you’re outside that wage delta, you need to have a plan B.
All this talk about jobs often starts with an assumption that “jobs” are some sort of natural resource that a person goes out and finds-- like water or air. Jobs get created by people willing to invest and take risks. I’ve started companies and created jobs. It ain’t easy. But if you can’t “find a job”, maybe you should be thinking about creating one (or more) instead.
I have not actually looked for a particular job in another country, but I have looked at imigration requirements for a couple. The basic requirement is that there must be no citizens of that country that are qualified to fill a given position.
My previous job was as a Data Management Analyst. I ran data through programs, checked it for quality and accuracy, wrote Easytrieve Plus programs to correct problems or to improve quality, wrote JCL to run the programs, and contacted customers to discuss data issues with them. I think it is extremely unlikely that England, say, would not have an English citizen who is qualified to fill such a position.
I wouldn’t mind living in France or Italy, but I don’t speak French or Italian. (I’d be more than willing to learn, though!) So if anyone knows of a company in Canada (Vancouver, B.C. area) or England, you have my e-mail. But given that I’m not a doctor, scientist, or have any specialty that could not be filled locally, the only way I, as an American, could just move to another country would be if I got married to a native. (Which also would not be a bad option. )
Here’s an idea for retraining: I have a Private Pilot Helicopter certificate. Since the administration supports overseas outsourcing, and since outsourcing led directly or indirectly to the loss of my job, let the government re-train me to be a commercial helicopter pilot. I’m already half-way there. And I would then have a “specialty” that is relatively uncommon in many places. But of course the government won’t do that. Flipping burgers at a McWallJob for 30% of my previous salary is equivalent employment in Bush’s eyes.
AFAIK, Texas does not have legislation that says a person from California can only get a job there if there are no Texans who can fill the position.
And there’s the rub. Unlike Texas, you need permission to work in another country. And the standards that I have seen in other countries require a “specialty”. That is, a person who wants to work in that country needs to be able to do something that a citizen of that country cannot. For example, a country would find it desireable to accept an orthopedic surgeon because there might be a shortage in that country, while they would not be willing to let someone imigrate who wants to be a cashier.
As I mentioned before, the company that laid me off in California is headquartered in Nottingham, England. I’ve just applied for a job in Nottingham that was posted last December. Having been employed by this particular company for over nine years, I am quite suited for that position. I already have a passport. Let’s see what happens.
Don’t let the “speciality” laws discourage you too much. There are many ways around them. People are hired all the time for positions that you and I would agree are pretty generic. However lawyers and business men are able to define them in such a way that they can hire just about anyone they want.
They certainly impose extra restrictions. And in the long run, I think they will fade away. But in the mean time, just talk about the issue with the origination or destination embassy. Sometimes they have resources to help with things like that. Also, discuss the issue with the company in question. Don’t simply apply for the one job. Apply for as many in that area that you can.
Finally let us know what you learn. (That’s the most important part :))
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