Posted on 02/03/2009 9:21:51 AM PST by COUNTrecount
The climate is warm, there's no shortage of exotic food, and the cost of living is rock bottom. That's IBM (NYSE: IBM)'s pitch to the laid-off American workers it's offering to place in India. The catch: Wages in the country are pennies-on-the-dollar compared to U.S. salaries. Under a program called Project Match, IBM will help workers laid off from domestic sites obtain travel and visa assistance for countries in which Big Blue has openings. Mostly that's developing markets like India, China, and Brazil.
His challenge? Creating open environment for Internet users without compromising information security and privacy."IBM has established Project Match to help you locate potential job opportunities in growth markets where your skills are in demand," IBM says in an internal notice on the initiative. "Should you accept a position in one of these countries, IBM offers financial assistance to offset moving costs, provides immigration support, such as visa assistance, and other support to help ease the transition of an international move." The document states that the program is limited to "satisfactory performers who have been notified of separation from IBM U.S. or Canada and are willing to work on local terms and conditions." The latter indicates that workers will be paid according to prevailing norms in the countries to which they relocate. In many cases, that could be substantially less than what they earned in North America.
IBM has laid off more than 4,000 workers in the United States since the beginning of January, according to an employee group. The company has confirmed layoffs but won't comment on specific numbers.
A spokesman for Alliance@IBM, a workers' group that's affiliated with the Communications Workers of America but which does not have official union status at IBM, slammed the program. "IBM is not only offshoring IBM U.S. jobs but they want employees to offshore themselves through Project Match," said the spokesman.
An IBM spokesman said the program shouldn't be seen in that light. "It's more of a vehicle for people who want to expand their life experience by working somewhere else," said the spokesman. "A lot of people want to work in India."
In addition to India, China, and Brazil, IBM is offering to relocate redundant U.S. workers to a number of other developing markets, including Mexico, the Czech Republic, Russia, South Africa, Nigeria, and the United Arab Emirates, according to the notice, which was obtained Monday by InformationWeek
I have been a consumer of IT resources for years. You are not alone in this experience. In fact you hit on IBM's real motivation for paying US people to go to India instead of just hiring people from India and avoiding this cost. I am very good friends with a director of HR for IBM in India. He says IBM at the office where he works had a turnover of more than 35,000 people last year alone. This relocation assistance is their attempt to introduce some sort of stability in their India work force.
I believe these relocation packages have terms to them requiring the employee to stay with IBM for a required period of time or they have to pay some of the relocation back to the company. I speculate that perhaps part of their visa assistance will make the stay in India (or other country) dependent on the employee staying with IBM.
It’s all part of the new Obama One World Economic Plan.
Import Indians, Somalis, Nigerians, and Pakistanis, and export Americans.
Level the playing field.
Much easier to join the ranks of the unemployed and take the handouts of Obama. And then- 95% of the population is going to get a tax break whether they pay taxes or not. You would probably come out ahead being unemployed.
This is freaking ridiculous. They want American labor but they want to pay third world prices for it.
Screw them. Wait until they learn that middle management and marketing can also be outsourced.
Corporate America wants India labor to work around the clock (3 shifts). If you are partnered with a US based team, you could be working by the US clock and sleeping during the day.
My dad has worked in Nigeria for several years now. I went to work with him this summer. Pretty wild place. The hazard pay is higher there than in Iraq.
They believe that anything that is “software” should have no import duty imposed (it is transferred via internet communication lines).
It doesn’t matter that we can be talking about a multimillion dollar software package being developed and compiled elsewhere.
I think you're dead on.
It’s all part of the new Obama One World Economic Plan.
FMCDH(BITS)
I agree...its time to hit US companies with tarrifs if they outsource.
Outsourcing just re-distributes American-held wealth out of the country...and Americans still with jobs end up having their taxes raised to cover the slack
The only reason that they outsource is that they get away with paying less competent Third Worlders less money.
Only the most Anti-American Free Trader Globalist thinks thes elow paid foreign workers are more competent than Americans
>>It sounds like they are sending workers back home.<<
As someone who has been in IT since the early 80’s, I was making an educated guess that that is what was going on.
I don’t understand why they wat American workers. I thought that we were “non-competative”. Oh wait! There’s a clause in there that says you can expect to be paid the “prevailing 3rd world country wages”.
Of course the free traitors will say “it’s not bad”. “opportunity”!
No actually they’re intereted in “non-competative” American workers. They want some real americans so the can train themselves to emulate us better as our replacements.
Who the hell wants to go to India?
LOL, you probably must have not heard about the killings of Indian students in America. Try a search sometime.
Czech Republic doesn’t sound too bad either.
“You sound just like my flaming lib union member neighbor”
I guess a broken clock is right at least twice a day. I’m concerned that if we keep sending jobs overseas, we will send the U.S. treasury with them.
I like cheap goods, but I’m afraid that I won’t be able to afford those cheap goods if all my customers lose their businesses.
It does sound nice, but I'm a total wimp when it comes to cold weather. ;-)
Iraq is high enough of a hazard for me - or at least it was. It's relatively peaceful now and I'm not complaining. LOL
I've had enough excitement in the past few years. I want my next overseas gig to be doing military support at some base in Italy or Spain. ;-)
Um, Mr. CEO, will I still be able to grill a steak without being beaten to death by an angry mob?
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