Tech Firms Defend Moving Jobs Overseas

bobcows writes "Yahoo is reporting about leading technology companies urging Congress and the Bush administration Wednesday not to impose new trade restrictions aimed at keeping U.S. jobs from moving overseas, where labor costs are lower. 'There is no job that is America's God-given right anymore,' Carly Fiorina, chief executive for Hewlett-Packard Co., said Wednesday. 'The problem is not a lack of highly educated workers,' said Scott Kirwin, founder of the Information Technology Professionals Association of America. 'The problem is a lack of highly educated workers willing to work for the minimum wage or lower in the U.S. Costs are driving outsourcing, not the quality of American schools.'"

Re:Trade restrictions..

[krem81]

In international trade, you win by playing fair, even if everyone else is not. Consider the example you just gave: if a country gives subsidies to a domestic industry, they're simply giving YOU money for buying their product.

Re:Holy cow

[km790816]

RTFA: Scott Kirwin, founder of the Information Technology Professionals Association of America, said that.

Although the way the story was posted on /. made it hard to tell.

Re:moving jobs overseas

[WindBourne]

Also, it would be nice to have a true label that says where manufactuering occured. All too often we hear "made in USA" when in reality it was made in china, but boxed here. But I agree. I do not like the idea of laws to keep jobs here. I would suggest incentives to start up companies based here as well.

Carly Fiorina never said it

[adamjeffery]

Carly Fiorina never said workers should work for minimum wage. Quote from the article no one read: "The problem is not a lack of highly educated workers," said Scott Kirwin, founder of the Information Technology Professionals Association of America. "The problem is a lack of highly educated workers willing to work for the minimum wage or lower in the U.S. Costs are driving outsourcing, not the quality of American schools."

Re:You've had the bad luck

[techiemac]

Actually it could be worse if you had to start a job in construction. I have quite a few "blue collar" friends in auto body and construction and they make more than me as a software engineer! I even have a friend of my who went from becomming an accountant to a carpenter because it makes him happy. I chose my profession because I enjoy it, not to make a ton of money (though that doesn't hurt :) ). But even though a job is blue collar, it doesn't make it bad.

Re:You'd expect that from someone making millions

[q-the-impaler]

"The problem is not a lack of highly educated workers," said Scott Kirwin, founder of the Information Technology Professionals Association of America. "The problem is a lack of highly educated workers willing to work for the minimum wage or lower in the U.S. Costs are driving outsourcing, not the quality of American schools."

RTFA: Not Fiorina but Scott Kirwin

Comment removed

[account_deleted]

Comment removed based on user account deletion

Job search suggestions

[plopez]

look for small to mid sized companys in health care (hospitals have lots of IT), finance, engineering and manufacturing. Very few jobs exist per se in software companies to start with. Small to mid-sized companies are the vast majority of jobs in the US as well (something like 2/3rds!). If you are in any way competent you can become the company guru and outsourcing is usually not an option for smaller companys (too expensive). Just be prepared to wear many hats.

Re:Outsource expenses - CEOs

[ToadSprocket]

Not only does she take home a ridiculous salary, she spends enormous sums on everything apparently. My mother works for an electrical contractor in San Jose. They put in $100,000 sounds systems on each of her 2 corporate jets. I am sure she is asking everyone there to cut 15% of their budget every year while she is doing this as well. Add these costs to here salary to get a better picture of what she costs them.

Re:Holy cow

[rsax]

After reading the article and then reading the comments on /. I kept noticing that numerous readers keep making the same mistake. I didn't want to post this earlier to risk sounding like flamebait but guys, seriously, what's with your reading comprehension? First of all she didn't say that, Scott Kirwin founder of the Information Technology Professionals Association of America said that. And secondly he was using that as an argument against outsourcing jobs so try not to take it word for word as his opinion. Sheesh.

Re:Outsource expenses - CEOs

[truenoir]

You don't, you get it with the remaining $114.5 million of her presumed current salary, which is what the original poster was pointing out.

Re:Outsource expenses - CEOs

[Embedded Geek]

The 2290 jobs come from reducing her salary ($115M - $0.5M = $114.5M = 2290 jobs @ $50K), not from the money she gets to keep (which is 10 times $50K = $0.5M).

Re:moving jobs overseas

[Politburo]

There's a bias in many comments on this issue. There is the idea that ALL factory jobs are mindless and can be done by monkeys. This simply isn't true. While there obviously are assembly-line type jobs which are very simple, there are many factory jobs which do not require a college degree, but still require technical knowledge that comes largely from experience, and is not taught in a few minutes.

While my experience is not going to represent every factory, I have worked in a factory, on the floor. It really opened my eyes to a world which I had previously known only through stereotypes and the media.

Re:Jobs are earned, not stolen or given

[whitefael]

They are being earned by these Indians due to the fact that the Indians can do the jobs better.

Doing a better a job? I don't think that's it. They might be doing just as good a job (and sometimes an inferior job -- so says my brother-in-law who had to fix their programming mistakes), but the working wage of $12,000 a year is why high tech jobs are being outsourced to Indian companies.

Re:Pay foreigners US minumum wage!

[nizo]

get a job in the service sector, Doctors, Nurses, Pharmacists, Police, and Firefighters will always find work.

Actually, even doctors aren't safe (see here) [cwa-1062.org]

Re:Not Funny!

[2short]

<i>I wish I could find it, but sometime recently one of the business rags had an article in it where it was found that you could replace the CEO with anyone off the street at random. The stock price would briefly dip, but would quickly rebound as though nothing had happened.</i>
<br><br>
It was <i><b>found</b></i>? Surely you mean it was theorized? For it to have been found, you'd have to do a study. You'd have to actually replace the CEOs of a bunch of publicly traded corporations with random people off the street and see what happened. Let's just say I'm a bit skeptical that very many corporate boards would volunteer their companies as participants in this study.<br>
So lets assume it was theorized. Well, I theorize it is bull. Which is not to say CxOs are necessarily worth what they are paid.<br>
If it were up to me, CEOs would get a very modest salary, plus a bonus equal to some multiple of the stock price 5 or 10 years later.

Re:Not Funny!

[ckaminski]

I was being a bit facetious there. I know American steel is good, it's just cost prohibitive, almost twice what Taiwanese steel costs.

Replacing the steel rotor hubs on my car would cost me $70 a piece with American steel or $40 a piece with an identical part made in Taiwan. Where's the cost? Surely not all labor?

I don't have an answer... :-/