Re: Author Says Offshoring 'Real WMD' for U.S.

From: Dwilliams (animallady2002_at_yahoo.com)
Date: 10/19/04 

Date: Mon, 18 Oct 2004 20:02:51 -0500

Lou Dobbs had a very interesting program tonight.

"leslie" <LESLIE@JRLVAX.HOUSTON.RR.COM> wrote in message
news:rpTcd.7544$sO5.4161@fe1.texas.rr.com...
> This paragraph is from the following article, an interview with
> Ashutosh Sheshabalaya, author of a new book, "Rising Elephant".
>
> "Never before in history have high-end jobs moved out. The biggest risk
> for the U.S. is that it gets caught by surprise in being a renter
> economy. The U.S. could end up doing the final branding and packaging
> for the world market, while the work is actually be done elsewhere.
> You cannot have an economy that does not have a skills base of its
> own."
>
> http://itmanagement.earthweb.com/career/article.php/3422581
> Author Says Offshoring 'Real WMD' for U.S.
>
> "Author Says Offshoring 'Real WMD' for U.S.
> October 15, 2004
> By Sharon Gaudin
>
> America's high-end, high-paying IT jobs are increasingly moving to
> India, threatening the U.S.'s predominant position in the world and
> setting India up to become the next superpower, according to the
> author of a new book, Rising Elephant.
>
> Ashutosh Sheshabalaya, a former journalist and technology consultant
> who heads Allilon, an IT services firm in Europe, is issuing a warning
> that the offshoring of U.S. high-tech jobs marks the remaking of the
> American workforce, as well as the world economy.
>
> While offshoring IT jobs has raised concerns and voices in the
> high-tech community, Sheshabalaya says it's a far more complex and
> dangerous issue than most Americans understand. He predicts that this
> relocation of high-value jobs will ''erode the foundations of Western
> supremacy.''
>
> Sheshabalaya calls this the "real weapon of mass destruction."
>
> ''Entire chunks of the Western economic system may be eroding at a
> faster pace than few believed possible only a few years ago,''
> Sheshabalaya contends. ''The consequences of the relocation process
> remain unfathomable.... momentous.''
>
> The author points out that while U.S. workers have suffered through
> the offshoring of textile and manufacturing jobs, this will be the
> first time the economy has had to deal with the loss of high-value
> jobs. This is a direct assault on the American middle and upper-middle
> class. And there should be no mistake, he adds, that India has any
> intention of simply pulling in low-end call center and programming
> jobs. High-value, high-tech jobs are equally at risk -- only the
> timing is different.
>
> India's focus, Sheshabalaya says, is a ''full sweep of high-value
> white-collar services.'' He calls it the Great Displacement.
>
> And the relocation movement quietly began about 20 years ago, starting
> in the mid-1980s and then slowly picking up in the mid-'90s. The
> dot-com boom masked some of this movement. Workers and industry
> analysts were too caught up in the wave of big salaries, bigger
> bonuses and more jobs than the U.S. workforce alone could fill to
> notice. With a down economy and the death of the dot-com boom, the fog
> has cleared and the statistics on offshoring are mounting.
>
> According to Forrester Research, an industry analyst firm, 3.3 million
> American jobs will move overseas by 2015. Sheshabalaya notes that
> means 800 American IT jobs will move to India every day for the next
> 11 years. Another analyst firm, Gartner Group, predicts that one in 10
> U.S. tech jobs might be moved out by the end of this year.
>
> Technology employment in the southern Indian city of Bangalore has
> overtaken that in Silicon Valley.
>
> In a one-on-one interview with Datamation, Sheshabalaya talks about
> the failings of the American government to deal with this crisis, what
> happens when U.S. students stop studying computer science and
> America's waning days as a superpower.
>
> Q: You say India is positioning itself to become a world power -- a
> superpower. Is this really possible?
>
> It is not only possible -- in many senses, it's inevitable. The
> question is over what time frame will it happen. This isn't an
> accidental success story that India is doing well in IT. There is a
> massive consensus in India that this is a good way to leapfrog over
> all the challenges of development of a very poor country. What is very
> important about IT is that it cuts across all the major interest
> groups in India as being one of the most crucial possibilities for the
> country to become a big power and then a superpower.
>
> Q: How soon do you see this happening?
>
> By the year 2040 or 2050. It's going to be a paradigm shift. It won't
> be tomorrow and it also won't be very dramatic. It will take a
> generation or two in international politics... The use of the words
> 'great displacement' is very important. This will take some time. This
> will be more subtle than you might think.
>
> Q: Do you see India and the United States being superpowers at the
> same time, or do you see America's global influence waning because of
> the job exodus?
>
> It's a transition. I'd say it's a matter of one going up and one going
> down. Europe is going down faster. The U.S. is figuring it out faster
> than Europe. The displacement isn't a one-way street. There will be a
> lot of up and down for both sides in this process... By 2050, the U.S.
> will not be where it was at the turn of the millennium. It will no
> longer be the case that the U.S. will always get its way.
>
> Q: You use the phrase "the real weapon of mass destruction" when
> talking about this job relocation. Are you saying that India pulling
> in high-skill jobs is virtually a WMD for the U.S., along with many
> European countries?
>
> Actually, this is a quote from the Washington Times. But I do agree.
> It seems to have numbed and paralyzed many already.
>
> Continue on to read Sheshabalaya's predictions that U.S. IT workers
> will end up moving to India to find jobs, what happens when students
> stop studying computer science, and what is ahead for the U.S.
> economy.
>
>
> Q: What do you see happening to the U.S. economy because of
> offshoring?
>
> Never before in history have high-end jobs moved out. The biggest risk
> for the U.S. is that it gets caught by surprise in being a renter
> economy. The U.S. could end up doing the final branding and packaging
> for the world market, while the work is actually be done elsewhere.
> You cannot have an economy that does not have a skills base of its
> own...
>
> The worry for me is that... nobody is clearly putting across what
> comes after these high skill jobs leave. Try to explain what will
> replace these high-skill sets. The U.S. has long been the place where
> everything happens. It was a place for discoveries. If these skills go
> someplace else... there could be a very big snapping of elasticity of
> the way it held everything together.
>
> Q: Won't high-level IT jobs need to remain here in the U.S.? Won't
> companies need project managers and architects within the company's
> walls?
>
> People who are facing the customers, facing the decision makers in
> large corporations are going to be required. They need to actively
> redefine their roles. Over the next 40 years, there will be a very big
> drift... Those roles will start shifting outside the United States.
> When that happens, I'd say the process will accelerate very quickly.
>
> Q: Are you saying that U.S. IT workers will end up moving to India to
> find work?
>
> For me, that is very much an undercurrent that has not been looked at
> realistically. It's the only thing that carries its own solution.
> There is no reason why high-skilled workers can't move to India where
> the work will be done. There will be a high-level physical transfer.
> They will be connecting with the Indian high-tech machine. In the next
> five years, it will happen virtually. Americans will be working for an
> Indian company but still will be based in the United States. Later on,
> the choice may be for American IT people with a high-level of
> familiarity of the American market to actually go to India.
>
> Q: But if companies are largely sending work to India because it's
> cheaper there, wouldn't U.S. workers going to India expect a huge pay
> cut?
>
> There will be a lot of upward leveling of pay in India. There also
> will be an encouragement for people to take lower wages but benefit
> from lower taxes. And they would benefit much more by working in India
> than in having no job.
>
> Q: Do you think the U.S. government could be, or should be, doing more
> about this situation?
>
> Definitely. This is one of my biggest complaints. Someone should have
> been explaining what is going on so people aren't side swiped. The
> government is pretending there is no problem or that they can block
> the problem out of existence with legislation. Not allowing job
> insurance for the IT profession is a problem. There is an absolute
> need for that. If this wave is accepted as being inevitable, then it's
> important to try to ride the wave... They need to give incentives to
> Indian companies to hire people in the U.S. and that's just not
> happening.
>
> Q: In your book, you say U.S. students will stop majoring in computer
> science when they see that there are fewer jobs available to them
> here. Is the U.S. moving toward a time when offshoring isn't a choice
> but a necessity because we no longer have trained people who can do
> the job here?
>
> If students stop studying IT, there will be no choice but to go even
> faster into India. It becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy. Students
> should not be looking just at jobs here in the U.S. Why don't they
> look beyond the U.S.? There are a lot of jobs -- they just might not
> be here.
>
> Q: It sounds like you're predicting that the United States is moving
> into what will be a difficult time.
>
> Oh, definitely. There is no question about that... Somebody needs to
> start talking about what is in the next stage. There obviously is a
> kind of numbing about what is happening here. There is a profound
> structural crisis coming. What must be figured out is how this can be
> proactively handled."
>
>
> Jerry

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