IBM Offers to Send Laid-Off Staff to Other Countries
TheAmit writes to tell us that many recently laid off IBM employees have been offered jobs if they will only move somewhere it is cheap to employ them. IBM's new Project Match program offers some financial assistance for moving and immigration help for visas. "However, the move has not gone well with the IBM staff union. Slamming the offer, a union spokesperson said that not only were jobs being shipped overseas, but Big Blue was trying to export the people for peanuts too. He added that at a time of rising unemployment IBM should be looking to keep both the work and the workers in the United States. "
I have a few tech friends from India and it's funny because one of them said that on a yearly salary in the US, they could retire comfortably back home. Fact is, a dollar goes really far in other countries and companies could probably provide an even better standard of living for their employees if they were located in other countries. Now, I'm not saying that this is the ideal situation. Just that the reality for some companies is that they cannot or will have trouble surviving/remaining competitive when another company, based in a cheaper location, can undercut them by a significant amount. It's not simply a matter of CEOs fattening their profit margins but that eventually, efficiency will take over. What I believe will happen, is that an economic homeostasis will occur (over several decades) whether we like it or not.
Ah, pay me no heed as I'm just ranting.