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Outsourcing is killing US economy big time. The problems are really structural and I do not see any concerted effort from the government to deal with this. I have more than 12 years of experience in software industry and go without a job for 4 months. I am applying in all 50 states but I do not get hired. There are jobs in automation and I am learning java but it is taking time. There is a 2 year learning curve involved with this. Now I request the senior members to help me with the following questions.
A. My unemployment will run out in less than 2 months. I will try to get minimum wage jobs once it runs out but if I do not get them in time what are the other options that I have to keep paying my rent and food. Which department we have to approach to get social security benefits or something like that. I have never explored beyond UI because this situation never arose before.
B. One friend is trying to help me with automation work but he wants me to go corp to corp with his company. Usually I work on W2 and if I go corp to corp with my friends company does it affect my ability to claim unemployment in future in case I lose my job.
C. Someone recently told me that driving for Uber should not affect my benefits. But it comes under self employment and can really mess up with filing. Can I try that now or wait till I run out of benefits??
D. I generally file my benefits on Sunday and today it seems like the server is down and I could not file it online. Will my details stay online for the next two days assuming the server will respond tomorrow or day after or I have to call them??
E. I am really so scared with this situation and am really frustrated trying to live on little. I want to change this but there are no shortcuts in technology because it takes practical experience to learn. I am working and getting organized but I am bleeding meanwhile. Either you go up or down and there seems to be no middle ground in this.
Now keeping aside the personal situation and thinking about the general situation the prospects are very grim. Each manager in the software industry for every two people hired locally he will hire 5 people offshore. One manager handles 5 people working offshore thus effectively outsourcing 5 jobs. Big corporations have thousands of such teams and managers. The US treasury is losing the tax like say ten thousand dollars for 5 overseas workers. This profit goes into offshore accounts of big banks instead of US treasury. This is nothing but looting on a large scale....where the corporations are becoming rich and country and the workers are becoming poorer. I understand that outsourcing cannot be avoided but they have to pay higher taxes to the government or something like that.
My personal situation is not motivating me to write this but this is pure greed of the corporations. They have pay something back to the country for the jobs lost. I do not think they care a bit for the country or the people. It is all about profit. PROFIT. Very dumb and least creative way of making money...to increase the profits. If we consider that outsourcing is an historical necessity that cannot be changed then at least an effort should be made to transfer a part of the profit corporations are making to the country so that it can innovate and build new technologies and new kind of jobs. But that does not seem to be happening...with our political class sitting on a volcano playing golf.
Corporations big and small are also resorting to another thing of late. They want people who know open source technologies so that they do not have to pay for licenses. Every company big and small is on a rat race to save money on licenses. Once they find a cheap way to save money they will run like mad dogs. They lay off people with years of experience and when they hire they look for people who know these technologies without licenses. Either you should know how to work with these or you will not find a job. Period. They are getting lean and mean and making profits , it is all hunky dory but what about the human cost. Thousands of workers are at a crossroads where they have to learn new technologies or lose their ability to earn money. As people grow older age it does not help much either with these changes.
Corporations are getting richer. Each team working has an offshore component so your job is not indispensable anymore. You are constantly compared and measured with the productivity of third world workers who work 12 hours per day for years without a break. It is a total mess. The US treasury is losing money big time. Wages does not go up. There is no level playing field because the cost of living of an offshore worker is just 200 to 300 dollars and for a family 500 dollars.
What the government has done to repair the loss of jobs and tax money ...nothing. ZERO. They do not have plan nor a clue. When all the workers are sitting offshore , infrastructure also gets built up offshore and eventually research will also move offshore. With less number of jobs competition has become very severe and it pays very little money.
I wish I am wrong in my analysis and probably I have a pessimistic streak. I just had to put my thoughts out there.
Cue Democrats to talk about corporations needing to pay their fair share of taxes.
Cue Republicans to say that corporate taxes are what's driving them overseas.
Cue consumers to want to buy the cheapest item on the shelf regardless of where it's made.
Cue manufacturers to talk about how they need to keep up with other manufacturers that are offshoring their staff and isn't it better to do that to keep half of their workforce in the US employed than cut everyone?
There's a lot of blame to go around on this and it's hard to say that the government needs to do something because when they do the other side immediately says those policies will be bad for business. What's the proper government solution, tariffs? Those work against us when other companies institute them on American goods Tax increases? They already have enough lawyers to get out of paying them now. Tax enforcement? This works until they move their company to Ireland.
This is a no-winner until consumers can afford to not buy the cheapest thing possible from a big box store.
Outsourcing is killing US economy big time. The problems are really structural and I do not see any concerted effort from the government to deal with this. I have more than 12 years of experience in software industry and go without a job for 4 months. I am applying in all 50 states but I do not get hired. There are jobs in automation and I am learning java but it is taking time. There is a 2 year learning curve involved with this. Now I request the senior members to help me with the following questions.
A. My unemployment will run out in less than 2 months. I will try to get minimum wage jobs once it runs out but if I do not get them in time what are the other options that I have to keep paying my rent and food. Which department we have to approach to get social security benefits or something like that. I have never explored beyond UI because this situation never arose before.
B. One friend is trying to help me with automation work but he wants me to go corp to corp with his company. Usually I work on W2 and if I go corp to corp with my friends company does it affect my ability to claim unemployment in future in case I lose my job.
C. Someone recently told me that driving for Uber should not affect my benefits. But it comes under self employment and can really mess up with filing. Can I try that now or wait till I run out of benefits??
D. I generally file my benefits on Sunday and today it seems like the server is down and I could not file it online. Will my details stay online for the next two days assuming the server will respond tomorrow or day after or I have to call them??
E. I am really so scared with this situation and am really frustrated trying to live on little. I want to change this but there are no shortcuts in technology because it takes practical experience to learn. I am working and getting organized but I am bleeding meanwhile. Either you go up or down and there seems to be no middle ground in this.
Appreciate some feedback on this.
I suggest you focus on what is important, which is bringing in an income. Get a job, don't worry about unemployment. You are being offered a job to go corp to corp right now, then do it. If you don't understand how to do corp to corp, then talk with a CPA to get you set-up.
You need to network. Go to user group meetings for software and meet others working who can hire you. Or recommend or refer you to jobs. It is a place to learn things and stay active. Get involved in open-source projects that interest you.
You said 12 years in software. Does that mean actually programming as in writing code? What programming languages do you know now?
I'm not clear on what you are referring to that has a 2 year learning curve? You think Java takes 2 years to learn? If you have experience coding in other programming languages it shouldn't take more than a couple of weeks to feel comfortable working in a new programming language and within a month or two be productive in it.
I wish I am wrong in my analysis and probably I have a pessimistic streak. I just had to put my thoughts out there.
You are unemployed. That's not fun. You aren't going to solve the problems of the economy and the world, you only have to get a single job for yourself. Not for an entire industry of people, just for you. That's what you need to focus on. Try overcoming your pessimistic tendencies by changing your internal dialogue from "Why is it that way..." to "How can I do X". When start thinking "How can I..." it puts you in a completely different direction. I wish you success.
Cue Democrats to talk about corporations needing to pay their fair share of taxes.
Cue Republicans to say that corporate taxes are what's driving them overseas.
Cue consumers to want to buy the cheapest item on the shelf regardless of where it's made.
Cue manufacturers to talk about how they need to keep up with other manufacturers that are offshoring their staff and isn't it better to do that to keep half of their workforce in the US employed than cut everyone?
There's a lot of blame to go around on this and it's hard to say that the government needs to do something because when they do the other side immediately says those policies will be bad for business. What's the proper government solution, tariffs? Those work against us when other companies institute them on American goods Tax increases? They already have enough lawyers to get out of paying them now. Tax enforcement? This works until they move their company to Ireland.
This is a no-winner until consumers can afford to not buy the cheapest thing possible from a big box store.
BMW, Mercedes, Subaru, Honda, Volkswagen, (they want a union shop), and who knows who else build automobiles here. So offshoring is not the total answer, although we no longer make televisions and most other electronic items here in the US. Part of what drove manufacturing out of the US is lack of quality because they were so focused on the short term, not the long haul. All that's really happened is a shrinking middle class.
40,000 Verizon workers are on strike, one of the reasons is they want to outsource customer service. Do you want to speak to someone in New Dehli when you have a problem with FIOS? Whenever I get customer service that's not in the US, I ask to speak to someone here. I don't need someone who doesn't seem to understand the nuance of American English or that can only give me answers they been taught from a flow chart. That plus ever other sentence is, "I'm so sorry."
Also the CEO of Verizon made 13 or 14 million dollars last year, he has a "golden parachute" worth $40million. While I can see paying the big boss, big money, this is OBSCENE, and he is not the only one. CEO salaries have gone sky high, along with health care, and college tuitions. Yet middle class earning have been stagnant.
It's gonna be great, Trump doesn't have any substance to his \speaches but he's gonna build a wall, and it's gonna be great. And he's gonna send the bill to mexico. He's gonna deport all the immigrants, and it's gonna be great, the greatest deportation ever scene. He's not gonna let muslims in here, and it's gonna be great. He's gonna get rid of Obamacare and replace it with his healthcare plan and it will be great. It's gonna be a GREAT ELECTION!!!!!!!
It's gonna be great, Trump doesn't have any substance to his \speaches but he's gonna build a wall, and it's gonna be great. And he's gonna send the bill to mexico. He's gonna deport all the immigrants, and it's gonna be great, the greatest deportation ever scene. He's not gonna let muslims in here, and it's gonna be great. He's gonna get rid of Obamacare and replace it with his healthcare plan and it will be great. It's gonna be a GREAT ELECTION!!!!!!!
Neither did Obama or Hillary. None of them had any goddam idea how to run the country and relied on other people. However, Trump as a business man has much better insights to how to run a business than either of them. I much rather a business man run this country and clean up all the inefficiencies than some bureaucrat like Hillary expand government and more pork.
Bloomberg had no political experience but he ran NYC like a business and improved its business decisions greatly. Obama has failed to understand basic business concepts, he has enriched the 1% while preventing the middle class from gaining wealth through his social policies. If these policies aren't removed, the upper middle class will have to pick up the tab on the taxes when the middle class gets overtaxed or loses jobs.
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