The Fear of the ‘O’ Word
Job cuts as a result of offshoring, the increase in the number of immigrants to fill up jobs that would have otherwise gone to Americans, and the increasing dependence of the US on the “third world countries” have led to loud criticism and a sense of paranoia amongst Americans. So high is the dread and disdain for the word ‘outsourcing’ that parents and students at a school in Northville ended up in a heated argument over the decision to outsource certain support services (like transportation and catering) of the district to local providers.
The problem seems pathological and rooted in semantics.
Last year, there were numerous reports stating that onshoring become the latest trend — “The Information Technology Association of America (ITAA) released a report that detailed the reasons for what it called lower cost domestic (LCD) sourcing, or onshoring alternatives could be a better choice for American business owners and IT executives.” The success rate of this concept is based on the facts that the U.S. would still stand to get the benefits — process quality, efficiency and cost saving — from outsourcing their labor force and keep jobs available to the U.S. workers. As long as the ‘O’ word is avoided, things are fine.
Similarly, in one of the recent press conferences, Hillary criticized outsourcing by saying, “We’re not just outsourcing jobs, we’re outsourcing our security.” It is understandable that outsourcing comes with security issues. But if it is onshoring, it all becomes politically correct. No matter the security then. What it means is that all outsourcing is bad; domestic outsourcing is pardonable; and outsourcing to a foreign country is sacrilegious.
The issue is not just outsourcing to india, its that the India market is uneven playing field. Couple that with the Visa sham and its shows are mature we are in the states that we don’t riot everytime another 5000 jobs go offshore. Indian would be rioting if 1 million people from Africa (I picked a place were the development is 10x less then Inida) were onshore in India doing jobs Indian’s had in some sector and 5 million were offshore doing the sectors work. The numbers are percapita basis (India has 3x + more people then the US / and the US economy is 10-15x bigger then India)