Losing The White Collar Jobs

Repeat of the auto lessons?

by Tom Adkins
02/01/04

The rumors are flying! Five thousand America On Line jobs got shipped to Pakistan. IBM just hired 20,000 tech support jobs in India. And Bill Gates is planning to fire everyone and move the entire operation to China. And start a completely automated laundry business, too. Called Washing Windows, or something.

It's the hot new talk by the economic water cooler: white collar jobs are being shipped overseas. And yours is next!

So, what’s really happening? You want to hear the truth? Here goes.

First, very few white collar jobs are leaving America. The actual figure is about 10,000. But that will change. More tech jobs really will be going overseas. There are several reasons why, and some of the reasons may surprise you. And it’s not all that bad.

First, let's remember how we got here. Remember the 90s? The capital gains tax cut and Welfare reform created a super-hot economy with low inflation. Unemployment dropped to 4%. Companies hired any warm body to fill a cubicle. And boy, was it fun at review time.A $10K raise? Hah! Conglomerated Amalgamated Incorporated offered me a $20,000 raise. And a $5K signing bonus. And a company car. And a birthday party! Match THAT!!!”

Alan Greenspan saw the stock market booming, employment rates rising, and spiked interest rates until it all came to a screeching halt in a tidy little recession. Strong companies wilted. Weak companies died.

But American business got a chance to retool, reorganize and rethink. They got leaner. They got meaner. And they got smarter. After they carted out the custom java machine and the wine refrigerator, they tossed away tens of thousands of unqualified, unproductive workers.

Now that the economy is in recovery, those glommers who mooched off the capitalist gravy train are flipping burgers. Meanwhile, the remaining workers are using retooled equipment to create record productivity, proving there really was dead wood…now properly disposed. Thus, we're making more stuff at better prices with bigger profits using less workers.

Presto! Capitalism!

Then if American workers are the most productive in the world, why are we sending their jobs overseas? First, we have a global economy. That means people in other nations no longer have to be featured in Sally Struthers infomercials. They can go get a job. And not only can they work, they perform better than those unqualified chumps we dumped during the recession.

And those overseas workers don’t exactly live in mud huts anymore. They are part of a Third World education revolution tracking opposite of our school bureaucracy that's been floundering for decades. Now, the turkeys have come home to roost. Our esteemed colleges produce technical illiterates who can surf the net, save the whales, but can’t program as well as some guy in an Indian town that still burns brides over insufficient dowreys. When you call that customer service number, you get someone who is sharp, motivated, and extremely well-educated. And they often speak English better than Americans customer service reps.

Plus, the third world offers employers a nuisance-free environment, free from unions, nuisance lawsuits and mindless government interference. The workforce is motivated, and they appreciate hard work and new found freedom. Sound familiar? This is the exact scenario from the 70s, as the US auto industry got spanked by foreign competition. American manufacturers and their workers had grown smug. “Functional obsolescence" entered the lexicon of American manufacturing, often suspected by consumers to be instilled at the drawing board stage.

Once again, American workers are whining that the foreign competition is hurting. But how can this be? Wealth production is at an all-time high! We have a 3% leap in disposable income. The unemployment rate dropped 10% last year. America is slowly eliminating the middle class…and sending them all into the upper class. And nobody wants those wrench-turning jobs. Sure, the poor are still poor, but they are being kept in misery by institutionalized government idiocy and cultural suicide. For those who avoid those traps, riches await.

But there’s a last irony. Those overseas companies become assembly areas for parts made all over the world, including the United States. It's certainly not unusual for American parts to get shipped at a profit to China, assembled, then sold at a greater profit in America. In fact, many domestic markets wouldn't even exist without foreign assembly pricing. And where does all that foreign profit go anyway? American treasury bonds, where it finances American business.

Americans love to bitch about foreign companies stealing our jobs. But it's no longer that simple. The world economy is truly intertwined, and usually to the benefit of all. In the end, the global economy is perpetually shedding and creating jobs. But it’s proving that when it comes to capitalism and the consuming class, the more the merrier. Isn’t that what capitalism is all about?