Study Claims Offshoring Doesn't Cost US Jobs

SwashbucklingCowboy writes "Infoworld has an article up about a survey by the Software & Information Industry Association claiming that offshoring doesn't cost American jobs. The article quotes the executive director of the SIIA as saying, '[Offshoring] was used almost entirely as a form of expansion, not as a replacement.' Well, if a job is created elsewhere that could have been created in the US, isn't that a job lost?"

Comments

Re:who's saying that?

[Marxist Hacker 42]

Everyone knows that the only jobs that count are the jobs in the United States. The rest of the folks in the world don't need jobs, they just need government cheese.

Wrong. What we're really saying is that instead of being parasites on American businesses, maybe they should create an industry of their own and compete with us fairly instead of stealing jobs.

It's racism against Americans

[Travoltus]

Americans can't pursue these jobs overseas. The jobs are for companies that are serving Americans. Offshoring denies Americans jobs that serve Americans. Because of where they're born, ironically. Offshoring is the belief that it's more virtuous to hire a foreigner to serve American customers, than to hire an American to serve American customers.

That's as not so thinly veiled racist as racist can possibly get.

Re:Protectionism

[Marxist Hacker 42]

I'm not entirely sure why so many people believe that hiring an American is somehow more virtuous than hiring a foreigner.

It's called patriotism. I'm sure it's a value you've never heard of before, because the type of person that would throw away money overseas doesn't care enough about the United States to begin with to bother.

Is it just thinly disguised racism?

No, it's completely undisguised competitivism- Economics as warfare and every country on their own with no allies.

A belief that Americans are more worthy of a job because of where they happened to be born?

Nope- nothing to do with that, for the patriotic will gladly hire the legal immigrant who has given up foreign allegiance as quickly as a natural born citizen.

Or is it just a fear that they aren't as qualified for their own job as someone else could be?

Nobody is so qualified for their job that they can't be replaced by somebody who makes $2 a day. No skillset is so unique that it can't be duplicated in 7 billion people, so essentially there is no such person who is so qualified for their job that they can't be replaced in a system that gives no value to keeping the job local.

Re:who's saying that?

[Marxist Hacker 42]

Oh, I gotta hear the explanation for that logic....

Up until the creation of the European Union, the United States government was the *ONLY* government to provide a stable money supply for the world. If the United States didn't exist, there would be no reserve currency at all until recently. In the competition to provide the world with a stable money supply, the European Union are our enemies.

Re:every job lost is a job gained.

[xero314]

Even though the parent was modded funny I have to say that he's closer to reality than many people realized. I wish I could find the study, but it was shown once that off shoring can actually cost more than it saves when you add up logistics, and the know fact that you do get what you pay for (pay low and get low quality).

Re:who's saying that?

[drinkypoo]

Sorry, I'm awfully short on patriotism these days. I love the land my country is on but I think as an entity it has done more harm than good.

Ultimately the only thing that's going to put an end to things like terrorism is to have the whole world be open and unfettered, and for something like equality to be achieved. Given that the first world has been deliberately twisting the third in order to keep them down and maintain the status quo (take a look at just what the US has done to middle and south america throughout history for some excellent examples - most of them engaged in at the point of a sword, or the end of a gun) I'd say that outsourcing is just the free market attempting, in its clumsy way, to establish equality.

I am not a patriot. I believe in the rights of all humans, whether they live in the USA or not. Does that make me a traitor? I suppose from a certain narrow-minded point of view, it does. But I believe that all of us humans are on this rock together, that all of our actions necessarily affect everyone else standing here in the mud, and that we are going to have to go into the future together if we want to get there.

Re:Another Example:

[ZivZoolander]

ahh but a dvd is a consumer based good, what about non consumer based goods, a company I worked for a few years ago, produced widgets for elelctronic factories in china, because the increase in minumum wage we were forced to move the company out side the US. for one simple reason our price per widget was to high. And It was done for one specific reason , to free ourseleves of the US labor. I know this, because it was my desision. It may not be the noblest of moves, but atleast i will admit it. So i will settle this dispute....... offshoring takes away amarican jobs.

Re:who's saying that?

[Marxist Hacker 42]

Interestingly faulty logic. The United States could exist just fine without patriotism, if it replaced it with a shred of common sense.

No nation can exist without patriotism- it takes a patriot to give up their life to protect a country from invasion. Laws cannot exist without patriots.

Exactly. One of the other empires which declared independence could have done an excellent job. One not founded on religious persecution and civil war.

All empires are founded on religious persecution and civil war. There has never been an empire that wasn't.

Why would they outlaw money in their own country?

I said outlaw DOLLARS, not money. The key is to create a stable money supply at home first using NATIVE currency, not US dollars.

I'm having trouble following your argument, and knowing exactly what side you're arguing for...

I'm arguing for the side of local trade and banning foreign trade.