White-collar jobs may not be back soon

Dallas Morning News via Boston Globe ^ | August 3, 2003 | Angela Shah

[sarcasm]

But those very same forces are now serving to prolong workers' misery. More college-educated executives and managers have been cut from payrolls this last recession, compared with previous ones. And it's taking them longer to find new work.

More worrisome to them, however, is that the jobs may never come back.

[Doohickey]

The only one I can think of is Nuclear Submarines! Damn, and here I thought my 13 years of submarine experience was wasted. I can't wait until nuclear submarine crews are privatized so I can leverage my skills!

[independentmind]

Improvements in technology mean that software code or tax forms can be written or processed in India or elsewhere -- at a substantial savings.

I can't even begin to describe what a phenomenally bad idea the outsourcing of tax return preparation to India is. There aren't many kinds of financial information that are more confidential and/or sensitive than that needed to prepare even a relatively simple return. And we've decided to ship this job off to people working half way around the world. It's a completely idiotic business decision. Have we lost our common sense?

[the gillman@blacklagoon.com]

The people who've been dumped are mostly guys who are well into their forties. If they don't catch on somewhere right away, they are finished. Hardly anyone in his forties who has been unemployed for over six months will ever get a real job again.

Whether the industries come back or not, those people are screwed. They are also angry. These are votes that should have been guaranteed for the pubbies. At best, they will stay home.

If the dems are smart enough to nominate a percieved moderate who addresses this issue, they will win, no matter how awful their "plan" is.

[raybbr]

How? I have never heard of this before. Do I call them and say I want to buy shares?

[Thunder 6]

"And Walmart has driven most of the "Mom and Pop" nuclear submarime manufacturers out of business!"

LOL...good one!
regards,

[DugwayDuke]

"Why can't you buy stocks directly from a company? Why do you have to go through the stock market?"

You can. It's called a DRIP (Dividend Reinvestment Program). Most of the large companies offer such programs.

"Why do banks pay 1.5% for money and we are paying 12-26% for the money we borrow?"

That's what's known as "stupidity". Get off the credit cards, pay cash, you'll live better.

"Don't tell me there isn't a mass gouging of the American people by the money industry. Besides, it's all on paper. Isn't that what caused the collapse of 1999? No tangible assests. Everything was on paper and when buying paper with paper collapsed so did our economy."

And, what do you propose to stop the "greedy capitalists" from "gouging the American people"? Will more regulation satisfy you? Surely, you must realize this sounds like something out of "Das Kapital"?

[pabianice]

Somehow or another, we'll create jobs that can't be exported overseas.''

Only through protectionist legislation, This has been tried before. It always leads to even worse long-term problems.

[DugwayDuke]

"You are ignoring the currency controls, OPIC and many other pgovernment policies that are encouraging the deindustrialization of the USA."

Yes, it's all a "conspiracy".

"Now since you are pushing the internationalist line which is Marxist..."

Please, don't give me the "Karl Marx" was a "free trader" trash. I think that was rather well demolished by someone else on another thread yesterday.

"I would not be criticiszing those who are noting the short term beneficiaries of these policies."

Yes, it's all a conspiracy by the "greedy capitalists to exploit the working class."

[Johnny Crab]

Americans are too stupid to hold technical jobs.

That's why Americans show 'em how not to launch rockets into villages, how to {insert technology here}. I have seen the enemy and he is NOT us.

[DugwayDuke]

"The people who've been dumped are mostly guys who are well into their forties. If they don't catch on somewhere right away, they are finished. Hardly anyone in his forties who has been unemployed for over six months will ever get a real job again."

Hogwash! I was "dumped" in 1994 at the age of 48. I was unemployed for over seven months. I took a job 2000 miles away at 75 percent the pay. I've been propmoted twice and I'm making fifty percent more now than I was before I was "dumped". BTW, I also moved back to the area where I lived before too.

[Dane]

Whether the industries come back or not, those people are screwed. They are also angry. These are votes that should have been guaranteed for the pubbies. At best, they will stay home

I don't know about that. A lot of these jobs are being outsourced in Gore states, CA, NJ, NY, IL, WA, etc. so a lot of these people probably voted for Gore anyway, for such touchy feely issues as enivro wackoism.

Also the estimates I see is that 500,000 will be outsourced so that means %0.5 of the total 2000 electorate effected and we don't how many have moved on and started their own business or went into other postions.

So you see you just can't use blanket statements like you did in the above italicized passage. It's makes for fiery rhetoric but not good analysis, but that may be your goal on FR anyway.

[Johnny Crab]

Repeat after me

MANAGEMENT HAS NO COMMON SENSE!

MANAGEMENT'S ONLY MISSION IS TO INCREASE NEXT QUARTER'S PROFIT!

All that "we're one big family here", "your folks are our folks", etc....corp-speak is nothing but BS. Learn it, know it, understand it, live with it.

Feel better?

[oceanview]

there is some momentum building on this, more papers are doing stories about it (maybe they are reading FR!) and realize it is a huge issue that could potential be the gamebreaker for Bush. Bush and Rove needs to get ahead of this issue now, there is still time.

[oceanview]

you have to do both, reward and punish. punish some with taxation, and take the money you get from them and reward the others.

[Dialup Llama]

>>Labor is ''a mouse click away, more skilled and at one-fifth of the cost,'' said Rudy Puryear, a partner with Bain & Co. in Chicago, who advises clients on such off-shoring issues. ''There's been an acceleration of that over the last three or four years.''

>Well, there you have it. The offshoring industry's new mantra to spin their selling-out of Americans. Americans are too stupid to hold technical jobs.

This mantra is a lie in more ways that one. Yes the end employee in Inda may make that much, but the service bureau is not passing those saving on. They are basically just laying in a low bid a 20% below everyone else. The savings realized aren't all that tremendous.

What is the answer? One thing is the days of casually sharing technical info are over. If I figure something out, it remains proprietary and people will have to pay to learn about it.

[Dialup Llama]

>''The bulk of their costs is people,'' said Donald Hicks, a professor of political economy at the University of Texas at Dallas. ''Anything that reduces people-related costs is a boon to the bottom line.''

This never seems to include CEO and executive pay. People who are, in their view, the only employees who cannot be outsourced and replaced.

[oceanview]

don't count on it.

its not just the actual people who lose their jobs, but all their co-workers too. if 100 people on an IT staff see 10 of their co-workers jobs offshored, its not just those 10 people who will vote Dem, but the other 90 co-workers who see the handwriting on the wall will also.

[George Frm Br00klyn Park]

S, The highly placed sycophants {bootlickers/Igors/asskissers} now know how top management feels about them. Another sector awakened. Peace and love, George.

[Fishrrman]

racebannon wrote:
Name one technology that is not in immediate danger of being outsourced or off-shored?

OK, I'll try: plumbing. Yes, plumbing (laughs)

Folks are always going to require the bathroom. And existing plumbing wears out with use (I know this from having replaced one entire bathroom downstairs, with my upstairs in need of rebuilding, too). This means there will always be a need for skilled laborers who can repair existing infrastructure as well as build new installations.

Got a kid reaching the point where he has to start thinking about a lifelong career? A career that will sustain him throughout his working life? Granted, one won't become "rich" by working a plumber's life, but the income will be above average (priced a plumber lately?), he (she?) will likely have more work than he can handle for years to come.

Also, a tradesman's craft is pretty much "self-directing" in the sense that one doesn't have a boss constantly looking over his shoulder or telling him what to do. One may get a bit dirty now and then, but at the end of the workday, he'll know his "hands are clean"....

Cheers!
- John

[the gillman@blacklagoon.com]

You are right about the Gore states since I live in RI and most of the people I've been talking too live in MA. But these were not Gore voters.

I guess it's ok that conservatives who live in blue zones are left to rot.
The present republican governors don't need to be reelected either.