Two weeks ago, IBM announced that it plans to shift all operations to India and offered US workers the chance to move to India if they would adapt to Indian wages.Cisco,another heavy hitter in the networking sphere,after announcing that it is planning major cutbacks,also announced moves to India and China.The pharmaceutical have already climbed aboard this train,moving research work in drugs to India to contain their spiraling costs.
Technology Review,MIT’s prestigious journal predicts that in the next ten years 36 million jobs in technology related fields will move to India,decimating an already reeling middle class.This is the kind of calamity that Paul Craig Roberts has been predicting for quite sometime now.As manufacturing moved to China,economists crowed that this need not worry us because we are the leaders in high technology and the best jobs will stay in US.That now sounds like a mirage.
A long age of suffering is upon us because there are now many more competitors who are gaining strength through their educational systems.They have also learned the American trick of empowering the people with capital and encouraging their enterprise.And they can do all this at fraction of our costs.All this bodes ill for our own economy.
Somehow I doubt that many employees will choose to take up IBM’s “offer” and move to India.
I see IBM’s offer to its laid off US workers to move to India at Indian wage rates as an excuse to eliminate even what little fig leaf it has to call itself a US corporation.This is in line with Carly fiorina’s statement that American workers are not any better than Indian or Chinese workers and the prevailing wage rates at the lowest cost producers should be the norm.The race to the bottom is on.It would not surprise me one bit to see Indian or Chinese wage rates are “in-shored”.
It grew.
Now a stand-alone post.
The Sky Is NOT Falling. It’s Just A Long-Overdue Adjustment. Bet on it. (I Am.)
Later…
AG
Could we have some references, please? I scoured Google News for any mention of this and came up empty.
I just googled IBM,Offer to US workers to move to India,
and got several hits including one from Crooks and Liars and another from NYTimes
I heard this story on All Things Considered a month ago. See here and here.
If your search engine came up empty, either you didn’t choose your terms well or your search engine is inadequate.
Okay, that’s a start, but I find no mention that IBM “plans to shift all operations to India”. There’s a little bit of information about IBM’s offer to relocate laid off American workers to India if they are willing to accept prevailing Indian wages, and some mention of the hush-hush approach IBM is taking with respect to the current round of layoffs, but as crappy as that is, there’s a world of difference between that and shifting all operations to India.
I’m in RTP where 11K IBM workers are, my husband included, and I haven’t heard that, though the layoffs are scary.
This comes from your lack of following IBM’s many moves over the past several years many of whom have already resulted in the transfer of its core operations to many centers in India along with the hiring and training of Indian workers and the corresponding attrition of American workers over here.By one estimate,nearly 50% of IBM’s workers are already Indian and a graduated assault on US workforce is underway.Because many of us are professionals and cling to our illusions that we are untouchable while blue collar workers could be hired and fired at will like Caterpillar did several years ago,we will keep thinking IBM will spare the professional classes until the water is gradually warmed ever so slightly in the pot and the frogs realize it is too late.
So the short version is that you lied about what IBM actually announced.
Warning shot? To me it sounds more like the fimal raking pass with the machine gun over a field of corpses.
Is that movement out there? Could be just wind. Can’t risk it! Empty another clip!
* * * * * * * * * * * * !
Okay, nothing is moving, wind or no wind.
___
PS. Look at it this way: Move to India, work for pathetic local wages, and THEN get laid off. Maybe you will be lucky and the Indians will deport you–there is no other way you will raise the fare to get back home!
You don’t go back home, silly! You go to the next place the jobs have been transferred to!
Some people will never learn …
Or maybe the Indians will deport you to your NEXT country . . . 😉