THERE’S good news and not-so-good news in the American workplace. The good news is that the economy is growing and businesses are spending once again, on high technology. The Commerce Department reported a sharp pickup in spending on equipment and software in the third quarter. Not so good is the news that high-tech jobs have not come back, at least not so far.

Jobs in America’s sprawling information-technology (or IT, as it is known in the info world) sector — including everything from software research, design and development to computer engineering — are down 20 percent from late 2000. Salaries are down, too. In 2000, senior software engineers earned $130,000. The same job now pays no more than $100,000. A lot of high-tech jobs are moving offshore. Is that a cause for concern?

When I was labor secretary, I fought to preserve U.S. jobs. So you might well assume that I would see the number of high-tech jobs moving offshore as a troubling trend. And yet, I do not. I’ll explain why in a moment.

On Sept. 30, Congress let the cap on H-1B visas issued to foreign high-tech workers shrink from 195,000 to its old level of 65,000. The ostensible reason: to make sure more high-tech jobs go to Americans.

Bills are pending in several state legislatures barring state government projects from using offshore high-tech workers.

High-tech workers are organizing against foreign outsourcing. One group of them — the Organization for the Rights of American Workers — has demonstrated outside conferences on strategic outsourcing in New York and Boston.

read the full story:
http://www.timesstar.com/Stories/0,1413,125~1511~1755638,00.html