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No articles on Monster Career Advice elicit quite the same response from readers as those we produce on the topic of offshoring American jobs overseas. This trend touches the careers of hundreds of thousands of Americans. And it's an issue many Monster readers are impassioned about.
When we published the article “Dueling Perspectives on the Offshoring Debate” we did not expect to receive so many charged emails expressing anger and frustration over the entire situation. Following are some excerpts from the feedback we received:
This article is the worst I've read about jobs and offshoring. Three-hundred-thousand jobs created in this country for the past couple of months is considered a turnaround by the administration, and now 300,000 jobs going offshore is considered a small number of jobs? Which is it?
The politicians told us that NAFTA would be creating all these jobs in the USA. Riiiight. Then there was GATT. Now the clever economists who contributed to your recent article on offshoring say that it's only 300,000 jobs lost, and 300,000 people aren't significant -- we're just like a rounding error.
I've got a college education, several IT certifications, excellent experience, and it took me over a year and a half to land a decent job after the place I gave my blood, sweat and tears to for five years "outsourced" my career to the Third World. It will take me years to pay off the debt I ran up just trying to make it.
I can't imagine what it must be like for an inner city kid with just a high school education and not much job history now that all the factories are gone.
From my viewpoint, this outsourcing issue is only a symptom of a far deeper malaise. Everybody offers their opinions, offers stats to buttress those opinions, but no one is coming up with any real solutions. The article pointed out several sides of the offshoring issue. One can spin data to say anything one wants, it all depends on the perspective (or the desired result) of the person or organization doing the analysis. I am constantly reading, here and elsewhere, how people who have been laid off are having trouble finding work. Hell, they have trouble even getting interviews. Despite scads of experience, it seems the only jobs are for menial work at a pittance of a salary. One can survive with [what] one makes at Wal-Mart if he can forego certain necessities -- such as eating a balanced diet.
The answers to this dilemma are difficult. We (like it or not) now exist in a global economy. America has been the 400-pound gorilla in the global economy for so long, we have become complacent. But even a 400-pound gorilla can be worn down by constant sniping. So how can Americans compete in a global economy and still maintain their current lifestyle? That is the big question!
I've never thought of myself as a potential "rounding error." What people in the government appear to not understand is that once the jobs are gone, they do not come back. The current erosion of jobs overseas in IT is no different than what has happened to the manufacturing sector. I haven't heard of any steel mills opening as of late. Once the doors are closed, they do not reopen. What saddens me most is reading about talent entering college today in search of a career in IT. I almost feel like telling them, "Don't bother. Study healthcare instead. There will always be sick people to take care of.”
The real truth is service jobs are leaving now by the thousands -- the ones that were going to replace the lost manufacturing [jobs]. The college enrollment in the tech sector is on the decline. More patents then ever are being submitted by foreign countries (Hint: You need to be building something in order to innovate or invent a new process). [There's been a] loss of technical expertise in manufacturing, processes and patents. Heaven forbid a real war breaks out; we could not put shoes and clothes on the soldiers, let alone guns -- the steel industry just isn't there to support it.
Your article spins lies like no one ever did. You are supposed to be for the job seeker, and here you support the offshore-job-rapists.
It is not just computer white-collar workers who are losing jobs; we in the legal profession (industry) are being offshored to India.
The feeding frenzy and the greed are simply outrageous! I am not surprised at your highly slanted yellow journalism, though. You are only another greedy parasitic garden slug growing a garden of lies.
