Start thinking about tomorrow

Like many companies in the US today, my company has flattened the corporate structure and, at the same time, outsourced highly skilled work to foreign countries. The jobs flattened were manger jobs where, for the most parts, the managers had advanced degrees. Those folks were basically demoted or let go and their work, for the most part sent down to the contributor level, leaving no layer between the contributors, who manage million dollar budgets, schedule and contract out with independent contractors, and generally keep the day to day business running, and the directors The work being outsourced is not basic data entry work, but knowledge process work in data manipulation that required much training and, in the past, required a college degree.

This has enabled our company to dismiss roughly 10-20% of the workforce in developed countries worldwide and, with the consolidation of office space due to fewer workers, enabled to company to recognize big savings. Of course those of the contributor level have no career advancement opportunities, as there are no mid-level managerial jobs for them to move into, but why is that important when there is money to be made? As one director in my company put it, there is no lock on the exit door, meaning that if a contributor wanted to advance in his or her career, they were free to leave to do so. Many have, but many, for various reasons have not. However this leaves me wondering, who will run the company in the future when today's leaders retire?

This wouldn't bother me if I thought this potential problem was limited to my corporation. However, many highly skilled white collar jobs are also being outsourced. The institutions doing the outsourcing, in the very lucrative finance industry in this case, use various excuses such as cost and how they are just outsourcing basic research jobs consisting of "grueling hours, traditionally done by fresh-faced business school graduates" that could be done for much less money overseas than in the US. Fair enough but, at least in my field, and I imagine in the finance field too, those grueling, mind numbing jobs were where you actually learned how to apply the knowledge you learned in school. If we are not providing those type of jobs to our youth, then how will they pick up the skills to run our corporations in the future?

I earned my doctorate, which was not in business so take everything I say with a grain of salt, almost a decade ago and have forgotten much of what I learned in school (though I can easily look up the information) yet I'm sure I'm a much better employee today than I was then because of the skill set I've earned through my work. Though my education level has remained the same I am much more qualified to lead the organization, or at least take a high level role, than I was a decade ago, but for the lack of the lower level manager position that would propel me up the corporate ladder. Of course, I can take my skills and leave any time as I am still young enough to do so. However, unlike my wife, whose education level is similar to mine, I have a job that has flexible hours and, basically lets me be Mr. Mom in lieu of higher pay, so I stay where I am for now. However this isn't about me, this is about our country's future in general.

Thanks to consolidation and outsourcing there are fewer contributors at my level than there were a decade ago. That means there are fewer people picking up the basic managerial skills necessary to replace the executives who retire. I imagine this going on throughout corporate America and this concerns me. What are we letting slip away to our competitors? What are we doing to our future?

For now, my company is solving that problem by hiring outsiders (which is why some people who wish to advance leave and then come back in a few years -- I'm always amazed that losing those assets for a years is apparently better for the bottom line then retaining those employees and letting them move up the internal corporate ladder) and who don't know much about our industry, meaning they have a sharp learning curve until they get up to speed. Moving back to the finance industry, some predict that the new wave of outsourcing may include "more sophisticated jobs like the creation of derivative products, quantitative trading models and even sales jobs from the trading floors," jobs that traditionally pay a very high salary and, due to having all the jobs in one place for a critical mass, has allowed Wall Street to remain the financial capital of the world for over a half of century.

As we outsource these type of jobs to "cheaper locales like India, the Philippines and Eastern Europe," I worry that we are also outsourcing our nation's wealth and independence (already done through our oil addiction) tomorrow for a quick buck today. What will happen to America's economy when the only ones qualified to lead our corporations and nation are foreign nationals? What will happen to our independence? What will happen to our wealth? Will we be the nation that this next generation of wealthy, educated executives export the grunt work too? How will this affect our nation's policies? Will we be able to control are destiny or be so poor that we are required to follow what other nations want? Will our children have to leave America to earn a living in the same manner that immigrants come to the US today to earn a living?

I suppose some of this is inevitable in a global economy; talent follows the money in the capitalist world. London was the world financial capital before Wall Street was. It is inevitable that sooner or later another city will take that crown. This has happened before and will happen again and may even be good for the economy in the short term. I just don't see why we are in such a rush to give up our competitive edge, not just in finance but in many highly skilled white collar industries that we have dominated over the last 50 or 60 years.

Maybe I'm wrong, and this is a good thing that will let us innovate further as we retrain these former financial wizards into engineers and doctors who need to be local. Maybe we'll get over our xenophobia and start insourcing skilled labor again. However, if there is one thing that has become evident in our society in the recent past is that money is power and I'd say tomorrow's leaders will be the ones beholden to those who show them the money, which we basically are sending overseas.

Outsource this

I read a disturbing op-ed piece in the NY Times last month that argued, in essence, that we should outsource science careers to cheaper countries to take advantage of their low wages to better America. My question is to who in America would actually benefit? Yes collaboration with scientists in other lands, who are paid much less than scientists here, can work well, especially if we use them to do basic research while our scientists do more advanced research, but long term I fail to see how this can not be disastrous for us. Where will our future more senior scientists get the necessary training if they don't start out doing some of the basic research that the writer of the piece argues for? Do we really want to get into a downward spiral of scientists' wages with other countries at a time when knowledge is power? We can't build on a society where our short term economic gains outweigh our long term needs. Outsourcing may work quite nicely for corporations, especially in our global economy, but it leaves the average American in a lurch. A few of us will do quite nicely, while the rest of us will be wondering what the heck happened as we ask "What good does outsourcing do for me if my $80,000 a year job is exported to India where they can find someone to do the same work for under $7,000 a year and any other job I am qualified for is also exported?"

I understand that jobs going to other countries is something that is here to stay because it keeps down costs for corporations. Must be "nice" to live in a society where you are able to live on under $10,000 a year, assuming you like living in crowded neighborhoods, crammed into subway trains, have a lot of pollution etc that are all cost savings for corporations. If all these "good" jobs keep going overseas because it is cheaper, America will have to either decrease our standard of living to bring our competitiveness down to their level or impose some sort of tariff on those overseas manufacturers who have much lower costs because they don't have to worry about pollution or workers' rights (this could be used to help corporations with American workers, which have to pay added "taxes" to comply with our health and safety laws compete more efficiently). Otherwise, we have to wonder what will the average American do to earn a living in the future, aside from provide services to foreigners who will be able to dictate terms because they will have all the money by then.

For decades we have been outsourcing jobs to other countries. First it was the blue collar manufacturing jobs. We told the middle class blue collar workers to go back to college or take a lower paying job for the better good of the US. More recently, we've been telling our educated workforce that their jobs are now outsourceable and they should go to graduate school to get even more education so they could specialize for the better good of the US. Now we're telling our scientists that their jobs can be done elsewhere for the better good of the US? No wonder our trade deficit is so high; if everything is done in other countries, what will we be actually exporting in trade?

Instead of importing scientists, or outsourcing scientific work to low wage countries, we should be expanding on increasing our scientific abilities here. Instead of looking at short term financial gains, we need to take the long term approach. I'm not naive and know that money makes the research happen, but it's 11:58 PM and we need to start thinking about tomorrow. One of these days the rest of the world is going to realize that we're only a bunch of leeches, living on our past glories, running up huge bills while we continue to party and waste resources and not contributing a darn thing to the world.

Years ago, Trenton makes, the world takes, could've been a motto not just for NJ, but for the entire US. Granted, we were helped in the later 20th century by the little fact that most of our competitors were bombed out by WW2, but that slogan said a lot about our nation, even as we moved into a post-industrial economy; we may have been selling services in lieu of goods, but at least we were still selling "something." Now, with outsourcing, it seems as if it's the world that makes and the US that takes. This can't last forever. We need to invest in our future; sending all our productivity overseas and letting somebody else do the work while we just sit on the beach and blog isn't going to work forever.