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Gina Vermiglio, a mechanical engineering student at the Illinois Institute of Technology in Chicago, isn’t anxious about finding a job when she graduates in two years. Her circle of friends, including a boyfriend who graduates in December, isn’t worried either.
Vermiglio’s brainy crowd may not be fretting about U.S. engineering jobs moving to India and China, but everyone else seems to be.
The angst about the loss of high-tech, white-collar jobs is busting out all over, from the covers of Time and BusinessWeek magazines to the stump speeches of presidential candidate John Kerry. The Sturm und Drang is palpable on techie Web sites such as YourJobIsGoingToIndia.com.
Yet a growing number of experts are speaking up to argue that the “offshoring” crisis is seriously overblown, particularly when it comes to information technology jobs.
“Despite all this hysteria, we still grew IT jobs by 10 percent last year. Do you think you’re any less reliant on technology today than you were four years ago?” asks John McCarthy, a researcher with Forrester Research, a technology research and consulting firm in Cambridge, Mass.
Sure, some high-tech and engineering jobs are going to Asia. Some 290,000 IT jobs have moved offshore since 1999, Forrester estimates. Many of them are relatively low-level positions such as code writers or program debuggers, say those who track job shifts.
But the hand-wringers are overlooking an even bigger phenomenon: An ongoing shortage of high-tech workers in this country that has been only partially allayed by importing foreign tech workers.
The shortfall will only get bigger, economic experts say, as robots take over more factories and new doctors perform minimally invasive surgery using computers and miniature cameras. Even our houses are going high-tech with fancy sound systems and nanny cams to monitor the hired help.
“We have been avoiding the need for more technically trained people for the last 10 years,” said McCarthy. “We’re paying the piper.”
McCarthy acknowledges he played a role in generating fears about job flight.
In late 2002, he authored a widely quoted Forrester study predicting that 3.3 million more U.S. service industry jobs and $136 billion in wages will move offshore to countries such as India, Russia, China and the Philippines over the next 15 years.
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http://www.miami.com/mld/miamiherald/business/national/8230966.htm
1 Comment Add your own
1. David Francis Vermiglio | July 22nd, 2005 at 8:57 pm
Yes i’ll agree whats the use of worrying, the jobs will take on the same cycle go round to the cheapest operative but in the end, it will ultimately go to the stayer the best, the skilled person who understands and can deliver. You need the people who can sustain quality at the price that can be afforded, time after time day after day. every day.
I work for Ford motor company in Liverpool England, now Jaguar cars, we were not the best, but we were handicapped our components were 2nd grade, the Germans got the cream of the crop. We produced the Ford Esscort very successfully.
Now that we’re Jaguar, no second best we demand the best, look at the JD POWER Report, we deliver it’s a Jaguar brand, Ford own the company. No other motor manufacturer can compete. We are a lean machine.
Our body shop is world class, and is quality maintained, i now ensure that that weld tips are changed at the right time, to give the best quality 100% of the time. We can’t afford any mistakes. We will produce the new Landrover Freelander from next September, it’s got be good or i’m out of a job.
Beleive me we don’t like crap, i’m no sap.
ALL’S i’ve come on this site for is to try to get Gina Vermiglio to contact me and my family in England, Geneology etc you know. Well thank you all anyhow.
Good bye for now.
By the way we’re going to Florida 23/07 this year.
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