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Well jaindow, that's a pretty sad statement for America when you have to leave your country in order to find a job. The ultimate relocation ? You certainly can't compare it to a job relocation within the US where it's just state to state.
With salaries in India a mere fraction of what is here you'd have to move the entire family and live in that country just to survive. Are you now an expatriate ? Do you ever plan to come back ?
What affect does that have on any US benefits when you come back as none of that work is counted since you quit here and got hired by the corporation in that country ?
This seems to be yet another unanticipated result of offshoring. Do you follow the jobs around the world or do you retrain so you can stay in YOUR country.
I'm in IT. I would not leave America; none of my peers that I have discussed this with would leave their country either. Several of us have backup plans that involve switching fields.
Corporations can move their facilities quite easily and hire locals in whatever country they settle in.
When prices get cheaper they can just pick up and move again. Vietnam is now the "new" IT place to offshore as labor costs are lower than either India or China; they are just ramping up on education but are slowing taking work away from India and China.
Beat me to it. I lived and worked in Russia for four years (in my 20s, starting a family) and it was an incredible experience professionally and personally.
Most laid off employees obviously aren't going to jump at this, but for those like View mentions, especially who had only been working at IBM for a few months or a year, it's definitely something to consider.
It's not like an international assignment or temporary transfer.
It's a move. It's packing up all your stuff and saying goodbye to America to go live and work in another country under their rules and salaries.
Might be a good experience for someone just entering the job market..they don't have much to lose and can make up lost time if and when they move back. SS may be around but you need to work in the US to get the SS credits.
It's not like an international assignment or temporary transfer.
It's a move. It's packing up all your stuff and saying goodbye to America to go live and work in another country under their rules and salaries.
Might be a good experience for someone just entering the job market..they don't have much to lose and can make up lost time if and when they move back. SS may be around but you need to work in the US to get the SS credits.
That was my point, that in a case like this, it makes sense only for young workers with no commitments. I just packed up and moved, but I'm back in the states now. If someone's young and smart and doesn't have commitments, there's absolutely no reason why he/she can't be flexible and creative enough to see this as a huge opportunity.
What I wonder is whether individuals who say they wouldn't go now, would actually have a change of heart when/if things get really desperate for them and/or their family. It's one thing to say you wouldn't go if you currently have a job or have just been laid off with some savings and time to search out new employment. But what happens to that same person or family when they are absolutely bankrupt with no job prospects and for arguement's sake we will say no welfare either because it has dried up? Yet this offer still stands. It's probably hard to say how many would stick to their guns and say "F you and your BS IBM" and how many would throw in the towel and go.
I remember getting in hot water in college during an econ 101 course where they were talking about elasiticty of demand. The prof was trying to make the argument that when gas prices rises demand falls because he preached as gospel that gas in this country has an elastic demand. Of course in his bubble world everything except medical care had an elastic demand. As soon as he said that I accidentally laughed out loud from the back of the huge auditorium classroom. Everybody looked at me and in one swift moment, feeling on the spot I said: "Well, sir, that's not right, people don't buy less gas, syphoning and drive-offs go way up!" The whole place lit up in laughter, the prof wasn't amused. My point with this anecdote is to illustrate that the working assumptions you make about people facing expat job opportunities are flawed.
When the social safety net shuts down as you suggest, what happens in America is not an exodus of people to take these jobs in India. What happens is that there is a spike in civil unrest. In other words, it becomes problematic for those who still have jobs to conduct business as usual. Present day Colombia comes to mind. IBM doesn't want that, their very incentive of being a US-flagged company is the obedient law and order system that characterizes America and that they exploit so well and callously. Humans are not commodities, neutrally shifting and falling into obscurity when they are not cost-effective, they only act rationally when their basic needs are met. But they act primaly when those needs are not met. They won't obediently move to India, they'll torch your subdivision instead... go ahead and call that bluff...
Yeah some tokens with few roots will take up the offer in India and live there for a year or two under roughly the same or lower quality of life as they had in the States (remember IBM is not paying a premium wage for you to work there, they're just saying there's a job in India), but the bulk won't re-culturalize all the way across the world to a place where they are the new minority and are really not liked or understood, never mind children in tow. It's not gonna happen. Honestly, proposing the same emigration to Mexico or South America is more feasible, by virtue of more practical travel back to the States than India.
This is why the idea of penalizing the corporations for their misuse of the SYSTEM, as some posters have suggested, is the true deterrent to this problem. The issue with it is that you have a bunch of working stiffs actually posturing against that very idea under the notion that we should make this country more "business friendly", because they still believe in a supply-side philosophy that asserts that the more money the company gets to keep will net the proletariat more jobs that the capital owners will create and trickle down for them. The sooner you recognize the company HOARDS that wealth and buys boats, not even from American hands mind you, instead of giving you a raise or giving your neighbor a job, the better off you'll be. Corporations do not have loyalty to the proletariat, the idea that the proletariat has faith in the company in modern times is truly sad and part of the problem. Like the above example, the lady whose husband lost his IBM job. Till the day he got pink slipped he walked on eggshells, probably speaking the praises of his IBM job. The day he gets canned IBM is the devil incarnate. IBM was always the devil incarnate, but the day we stop accepting this supply-side economic BS mantra of labor obedience in the eyes of corporate welfare is the day we'll have a snowballs chance in hell to have a semblance of job security. Till that day comes we're just watching this thing unfolds, and my money is on hardly anybody makes the jump to India, and pray to baby Jesus the social net doesn't crack, cause brother nobody is REALLY going nowhere then, they're going straight to your place of business....as they should. E pluribus Unum right?
I have always been annoyed by corporations expecting their employees to accept the "corporate culture" and to express undying loyalty to the company when the company does not have the slightest concern with the employee’s welfare. I simply do not understand why people are taken in by this nonsense.
Corporations will be disciplined only when employees actually have the ability to leave without any economic repercussions. Then and only then will we be free of corporate domination of our lives and our welfare.
I am amused by how vehemently conservatives object to government control but seem to be completely willing to have their speech, appearance, daily schedule, and associations controlled by a corporation they do not have any say in managing. Amazing what money can buy.
GregW..throw a little (or a lot) of consumer debt on top and now you have a slave who may hate his job but CANNOT leave because he needs his salary more.
Location: Georgia, on the Florida line, right above Tallahassee
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Irishtom29
Quoting the article-----"An IBM spokesman said the program shouldn't be seen in that light. "It's more of a vehicle for people who want to expand their life experience by working somewhere else," said the spokesman. "A lot of people want to work in India."
"Expand their life experience" my fat Irish ass. Want to work in India?!? Have you ever heard such nonsense in your life? These people will say anything and expect people to lap it up like spineless lickspittles. The contempt they have for the American people is disgusting.
2020 -
I am amused by how vehemently conservatives object to government control but seem to be completely willing to have their speech, appearance, daily schedule, and associations controlled by a corporation they do not have any say in managing. Amazing what money can buy.
Agreed. This week a few people we worked with got let go. And we were on the phone, nobody wanted to say they got laid off. It's like hello it's all over TV that this company is going to do layoffs. (30K in 3 years). And it's even on the intranet telling us this. Why can't we talk about it?
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