This race exists, because American employees keeps many unnecessary expenses, making local workforce very expensive. In reality, even if people in India or Russia will have the same life level as in USA, they will cost 2 - 3 times less. There are many core reasons, driving work costs up and workforce offshore. (1) Number 1 - LIABILITY and LAWERS. It became anecdote for the all world around. Some girl in NY failed near the train - and company pay her $24M dollars for _future lost_. My friends closed boat rental because of liability costs are too high. Palo Alto Hospital pay to the mother many millions because _she believe they did not do their best..._. Who pay it all - Hospitals, transport companies, rentals? Not, it is paid by customers, consumers (I do not want to revert liability to the doctor, but I am forced to pay for others who can claim liability). lawyers are doing nothing, they just pull money from others and drive costs high - and it drives workforce offshore. (2) Number 2 - landlords and real estate costs. Who pay for the homes ($500,000 here and $1,000,000 in Santa Barbara) - homeowners? Not, employers -> consumers. I can live in Moscow paying $300 / month for the apartment, I can not live here paying less than $1,000 for apartment. Who pay it? Employers, at the end. This is main driving engine. No one want to outsource (with exceptions, of course - if you are from country A, you will likely outsource engineering to country A) - it is much more convenient to have a local workforce vs. remote. But if call center agent pays to the lawyers, pays for liabilities, pays $2K/month for the rent here - and the same agent in India pay $200 , no liabilities (because smart people are responsible for themselves, because _coffee is hot, and train is dangerous_), no huge lawyers costs, no huge payments to licensed doctors (while many unlicensed can not get a job, and many do not take this career because of huge liabilities) - employer have not other chance than outsourcing. Smart employers keeps core team local and outsource utilities, technical jobs, mass programming etc; other outsource everything and then die, but no one have a chance to survive, paying this liabilities, rentals and so on, when competitors are not doing it.
On Fri, 24 Sep 2004, Robin Lynn Frank wrote:
This race exists because of imbalances in prosperity in world.
This race exists because governments beholden to corporate interests, permit it to exist.
No, with free trade, it exists because of imbalance.
Unless of course you are completely against free trade, and hence blame the government for not tariffing the problem out of existence - which of course means you end-up paying more for your clothes, food, oil, computers, etc. Which means growth in your economy slows down, your stocks dont do as well, etc...
A US company that sacrifices the welfare of US workers for the sake of its bottom line, or to curry favor with a foreign government, is not one I care to do business with.
See Suresh's post, what do you do for clothes?
BTW, I work for an American technology company. I'm probably doing a job that would otherwise be done by an American (or, at least, a US resident, good few of my colleagues in the US are not of american origin), and I'm probably doing it for a lower salary than an american would - and that's despite fact that cost of living in my country is at least comparable to that in the USA (if possibly even slightly higher).
But think to yourself, what happens to the profits made by american multinational, US parented, companies?
regards, -- Paul Jakma paul@clubi.ie paul@jakma.org Key ID: 64A2FF6A Fortune: Left to themselves, things tend to go from bad to worse.