Indian assault

Indian Assault

The story on India’s assault on U.S. services and the impact on U.S. companies has several major flaws. One: It believes ‘that harnessing Indian brainpower will greatly boost American tech and services leadership by filling a big projected shortfall in skilled labor as baby boomers retire.” If the boomers find their jobs transferred overseas and must rely on considerably lower-paying jobs (if they can find them at all), how will they be able to retire? I project many boomers will be working well into their seventies because they cannot afford to retire. Two: “Throughout U.S. History, workers have been pushed off farms, textile mills, steel plants . . . managed to move up to better-paying, higher-quality jobs.” Like what? Agriculture migrated to manufacturing which yielded to Services which now has passed the baton to Information Technology. Manufacturing jobs have vanished or will soon go to China. Services and IT jobs will go to India (“Kearney predicts 500,000 financial services jobs offshore by 2008”) With 234,000 IT professionals unemployed in the US, jobless rates more than doubling in three years, with India having a ‘$57Billion services export industry employing 4 million people by 2008’ it will only get worse. Where do you expect them to find work . . . at the local Wal-mart or fast-food chain at near minimum wage?
Three: Paying Indian workers 1/10 what an American costs will save corporations tons of money, increase their profits immensely and will lead directly to the hollow corporation, whose executive offices are located here but whose manufacturing and services/support outsourced off-shore. Unlike Ford whose $5/day pay was specifically created to allow his workers to afford the products they built, these companies do not understand if your customers have no job, you cannot buy the product, no matter how cheap it has been made.
In conclusion, This obsession with costs will only result with millions of formerly skilled workers contending with much lower-paying jobs, probably retail, if they can find work at all (the alternative is for the skilled workers to accept positions at comparable salary ranges to the Indians and Chinese—perhaps 15 to 20% of current levels—what everyone would consider poverty level wages). Even dual income families will be hard pressed to pay the increasingly higher insurance, health costs, taxes, tuition, and eek out a modest living. The route to the middle class has traditionally been higher paying manufacturing (soon to be in China) or services or professionals (as your article so well described it, flowing like a river to India). The end result, I fear, is the death of the middle class. Already, many formerly middle class families have been forced down the economic chain as a result of these outsourcing will little hope to regain their once vibrant lifestyles. The U.S., I fear, is rapidly moving into the standard third world economic double dip curve with a small immensely rich upper class having most of the income, a very large underclass and a small, meaningless middle class. Is this the future we want for our children and for us in our old age?
The decade of 00s will be long remembered as when the standard of living began falling for the average American. Today's youth and college graduates could well be the first generation NOT to economically exceed their parents. Perhaps “India will drive down costs in services” but that is small consolation for the laid-off manufacturing worker who retrained in IT only to see his second job go to India. Perhaps his third career should be in plumbing, painting, or gardening, those jobs should not be outsourced anytime soon (sic).
I am all for helping the Indians and Chinese improve their economies but not at my expense, my children’s future, and the creation of a wasteland that was once a thriving heartland.