Job Migration Not Easy to Accept
“Jobs Migrating Overseas, but It’s a Two-Way Street” (James Flanigan, July 20) states, “The net number of jobs going overseas is overblown. The most thoughtful assessment is that 80,000 jobs will go overseas this year and 120,000 next year, says John McCarthy, a director of Forrester Research in Cambridge, Mass.”
If outsourcing continues to grow at that rate (50%) 9,064,000 jobs will be shipped overseas in the next 10 years.
The column also mentions Oracle Corp. as a positive example of how Americans need to accept the migration of our economy to Third World status.
Isn’t this the same Oracle-Logicon that expected the state of California to award a $95-million contract without soliciting competitive bids?
A major portion of Oracle’s U.S. market -- 45% -- is derived from state and municipal governments. I believe that our government should phase out Oracle and other vendors that move jobs to countries that are dumping talent in the U.S. market.
Finally, Mr. Flanigan, thank you for the advice on how our new perspective will help us to compete globally -- after we abandon the luxuries in life like mortgages, insurance, bank accounts, investments, retirement, automobiles, etc.
Steve Kritzer
Hemet
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As I am a programmer and not an economist, I am willing to be convinced that trade benefits both countries in the long run.
However, I will never be convinced that bringing hundreds of thousands of programmers from India into this country via the H-1B and L-1 visas is a good idea.
I believe that the real crime against the American worker is when corporations bring in low-wage immigrants to compete with Americans, using the excuse that they can’t find qualified American workers.
The current level of immigration is unsurpassed in the history of this country. It is unsustainable and divisive and causes us to gobble up ever more of the world’s resources. There should be some debate about how much is enough.
Douglas White
Orlando, Fla.
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Flanigan provides an articulate lesson in basic economics that is certain to confound the purveyors of panic who define the U.S. jobs market as a pie of fixed sized.
They believe that when, for example, manufacturing jobs go overseas it is not possible that there can be a concomitant gain for America.
The expanding numbers of consumers abroad who buy products conceived, designed, developed, marketed and distributed by U.S. companies adds to our economy enormous reciprocal value, including that denominated in jobs.
Gene Cincotta
Rolling Hills Estates
