Many of us in Rhode Island were glad to hear the news of Senator Whitehouse sponsoring legislation to help keep jobs in America, or at least reduce the monetary incentives for corporations to outsource their jobs to other countries. Senators Gillibrand and Schumer in New York also recently urged National Grid not to outsource IT jobs to other countries. But as I spend time researching and trying to discern how many white collar jobs we have probably already lost in Rhode Island, and how many more we are likely to lose, I have to wonder if these efforts by our elected officials are going to be “too little and too late” to stem the tide of jobs abandoning our state and country.
Pretty much any corporation of any size in Rhode Island has begun to outsource some aspects of their work. Financial businesses in particular, of which we have several in Rhode Island, are heavily into outsourcing their jobs to developing nations, where wages are currently a fraction of what they are in the US. Last time I worked for a non-profit human services agency, they too were outsourcing their IT jobs to India. Anything to save a buck. Probably some of our government agencies are outsourcing their white collar jobs to other countries as well. I don’t have any direct information on that, but I wouldn’t be surprised. It seems to be all the rage these days.
As a therapist, I am well aware of the soaring number of unemployed people in our state. Right now it seems about a third of the people who walk through my door are either directly (they themselves are laid off) or indirectly (their parent or spouse is laid off) impacted by The Great Recession.
It’s not just Rhode Island that is experiencing this enormous job drain as companies set up shop in the developing world. From the AFL-CIO’s research on trends in offshoring:
Goldman Sachs estimates 400,000–600,000 professional services and information sector jobs moved overseas in the past few years, accounting for about half of the total net job loss in the sector over the period. A Deloitte Research survey found one-third of all major financial institutions are already sending work offshore, with 75 percent reporting they would do so within the next 24 months. A U.C. Berkeley study found 25,000 to 30,000 new outsourcing-related jobs advertised in India by U.S. firms in just one month in 2003.
Bank of America, another big Rhode Island employer, has moved a lot of jobs overseas and will continue to do so in 2011 according to this article:
Last year, it [Bank of America] added about 1,000 employees to its Asian, Latin American and African operations, and will continue to shift some of its current U.S. employees overseas in 2011.
I hear anecdotal information about CVS Caremark outsourcing jobs. I’m not sure if any of the layoffs of the last 150 people will result in more hires overseas. Seems likely.
So what can we the people do? If I were the George Soros of Rhode Island (which God knows I’m not) I would start a campaign to help people communicate their frustration about Rhode Island companies moving jobs overseas directly to our state and national delegations, so that these leaders could in turn put pressure on these companies to stop taking away the jobs that provide for Rhode Island’s middle class stability. Perhaps this would be a worthwhile campaign for some of Rhode Island’s labor and progressive nonprofits. Before more jobs are moved away, we have a window of opportunity to use community and government leverage to say, “Save Our Jobs!”
Kmareka.com 
Thank God we can’t outsource plumbing,electrical reapir,construction,demolition,police,fire,rescue,sewer maintenance,etc.
The physical stuff can never be sent to China,India,etc.
Too bad we can’t put our politicians on the unemployment line.
I’m just in a real foul mood today,so excuse my miserable demeanor,or don’t.
You do realize that non specific white collar jobs like administrative stuff are totally expendable.
“Middle management”is much more ephemeral then “janitor” or “driver”.
I knew there was a reason I liked being a street agent and not an office puke.
BTW the sooner George Soros becomes worm food the better.He is an undisputably evil creature.
Thanks Kiersten. I remember when I used to call tech support and speak to the guys in Bangalore, couldn’t afford to have the Geek Squad come to my house. I had Dave St.Germain come over once and help me– he was looking for computer work so he could eventually earn enough to support himself. The fact that health insurance is out of reach would have been an obstacle, though, because he was disabled.
First we need trustworthy reporting, and even charts and graphs so that the financial stuff is put in a form that we can absorb after a hard day’s work.
CVS is a Rhode Island corporation. They ate up a lot of the small independent pharmacies and there’s not much competition now. So if they outsource, we should know about it, and also know how they compare to Walgreens and RiteAid, etc. We vote with our vote, and with our dollar.
“Free trade” is the fundamental problem here. Of course if its cheaper to operate overseas, businesses will do that. This improves profits for investors but disaster for working Americans who are not investors.
“Green” jobs are no solution, note the Massachusetts company moving the making of solar panels overseas in spite of a subsidy Massahusetts gave them.
What to do? Face reality of “free trade.” I think we need a sliding scale of tarifs, high for countries with no labor, environmental, or saftey standards, phased down to zero for countries (e.g. UK, Japan etc) with comparable wages and controls. This will give countries like China an incentive to improve working conditions there to lower the tarif on their goods.
I love the ‘sliding scale’. It’s used by organizations that recognize that an hour’s hard work for one person will rake in a whole lot less dollars than another person’s wage, and it’s a fair way to equalize the contribution a little bit. I’m going to a conference at Rowe Camp, and my tuition is scaled to my income.
Barry, your idea is sensible, and you don’t have to be an economist to understand it. I think that you might find allies in labor.
I second your answer,nancy-Barry is right on the money(no pun intended) about free trade and tarrifs.
Nowadays,there is no potential expectation of “signing on”with a company for the duration of a career.
I fear my generation was the last to be able to enjoy the benefits of growing up in this country.
we’ve become enmeshed in an international spider’s web,thanks to abominations like NAFTA and the GATT/WTO.
Now you see why I hate Soros.He manipulates currencies,which has the end result of economic ruin and starvation for the “little people”.
He has a lot of people fooled,like that gullible bunch in moveon.org who would be shcked to know they are supporting the motives of a greedy plutocrat.
Neither Barry nor I spelled correctly-it’s “tarrifs”-oh,well,I guess we made ourselves clear anyway.
Barry seems to have seen the same things I have,and to some degree,we’ve reached similar conclusions,although I suspect we’re not on the same page politically.
NO NO it’s “tariffs”-whew!!
As someone who writes about The Great Depression, I applaud your use of The Great Recession as a name for now: we need it named, and we need people to have a mental image of the corporate power that caused it. I just heard of a book Griftopia that sounds interesting, and uses the image of a squid or octopus….
Thanks, Shelley. I believe I lifted “The Great Recession” from David Sirota. I am wondering why it has taken us so long to figure out how disastrous our economy will be when so many jobs are moved somewhere else. Seems like we probably should have panicked about a decade ago. I am having nightmares of my children moving to India and working as servants until they can move into the regular job market there. Talk about a world being turned on its head.
I think you’re exaggerating,and anyway,why would people in India want to hire American kids with a soft upbringing as servants when there are lots and lots of very poor people from there who’d work day and night for bread?
Somehow I think your kids will do just great because I am sure you will obtain the best education for them.
Well, there might not be quite so many people willing to be servants when their economy is overflowing with American call center and IT jobs.
As for my kids, I intend to encourage them to do the jobs that can’t be outsourced — teaching and medicine being two possible avenues. Hopefully they will have the strength to handle it all.
Teaching could potentially be outsourced if you think about it.
Skilled trades can’t.Welding sounds good-it’s always needed.Plumbing,electrical,construction(plenty of women there nowadays).
Just want to add a quick word, b/c this hasn’t been mentioned.
One problem w/RI white-collar jobs has been corporate consolidation. In the not-too-distant past, there were 3-4 large banks with their HQ in downtown Providence. They are all gone, swallowed up into Bank of America.
Each of those banks employed a lot of people, and paid good wages. But, b/c of ‘economies of scale’ those higher-level positions were consolidated and then, eventually, moved out of state. BofA is in, IIRC, North Carolina (but could be wrong).
Time was, banks could not cross state lines due to fed regs propagated in the aftermath of the Depression. But, those laws were gutted, lots of jobs were lost, and a very few people have benefited enormously from the pain of others.
Yes, offshoring, NAFTA, etc. have been a big part of the problem. But we can’t overlook corporate consolidation. It’s been big, too.
I think that’s a factor in the argument against letting health insurance companies sell nationally. They would set up corporate hq in the states that have the weakest laws, and anyone who wanted to argue with them would have to take the legal battle out of state.
But you’re ok with one huge federal medical bureaucracy,right?
Make up your mind.
I hadn’t thought of the benk issue that much,but I use two banks that are both local and I will never bank at BoA or Sovereign .
So,I guess if everyone did that,we’d save some jobs or maybe the big banks would lay off people.
Hard to tell.
Consolidation removes responsibility and makes cuts easier to impose.