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The jobs dilemma

Three Floridians - each has experienced offshore outsourcing personally - share three distinct and different takes on where the trend might lead us.

- First in an occasional series on jobs moving offshore.

Iraq. Homeland security. The deficit. Outsourcing?

It's a no-brainer that a few key and controversial issues will dominate much of the debate in this year's presidential race. But how did outsourcing - shipping U.S. jobs offshore to cheaper countries - suddenly demand the spotlight?

To paraphrase past political wisdom: It's the global economy, stupid. And the worrisome lack of new jobs being created in the United States.

It's also a moral question of corporate responsibility.

A recent Gallup poll of U.S. adults shows 61 percent are "very" or "somewhat" concerned their job, or the job of a friend or relative, might be lost to offshore outsourcing. And a whopping 85 percent view the job-export problem as "very" or "fairly" important in deciding how they will vote for president.

Moving U.S. jobs overseas is a complex and emotional subject. I recently spoke with three Floridians with three distinct and different takes on where the outsourcing rush - and possible backlash - might take us. Each has experienced the phenomenon that's been nicknamed "offshoring" up close and personally.

Born in Bangalore, India, now living near Brooksville, Jai Shanker knows the outsourcing game inside out. A few decades ago, he was in the first wave of India's low-price software professionals to arrive in this country to handle the information technology, or IT, tasks of U.S. corporations.

"Getting into IT was the dream of every little Indian boy," Shanker says.

But after the brief Y2K boom, after the dot-com bust and after the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, the rosy future of tech careers dimmed dramatically. Unable to find tech work since 2001, Shanker frowns at the current outsourcing binge of U.S. jobs to his native India.

"There are thousands of highly educated and experienced people like myself that cannot find work in the USA," Shanker says. "Corporations now want cheap wages and are willing to set up shop in India. The cost of living in India is a fraction of what it takes to live here, so you can live like a prince there for a tenth of the American wages.

"Comparing people living in India with Americans living in America is a brainless exercise," he fumes.

After gaining an elite, high-tech master's degree in India, Shanker was recruited by Tata Consultancy Services, which would become India's top consulting firm. With an H-1B visa, Shanker was sent in 1980 to work on a software development project in Atlanta.

"One of the few things that people in Atlanta knew about India was curry," he recalls.

Shanker eventually resigned from Tata and took another tech job in Atlanta. He met and married his wife of 22 years in Atlanta and became a U.S. citizen. His career prospered at several corporations, and he later ran a profitable division for a software company.

During business trips to India, Shanker saw how the country was starting to share in the tech revolution. That participation exploded, he says, when America discovered there were millions of English-speaking Indians willing to work for substantially lower pay in their home country.

After losing his job a few years ago, Shanker and his wife sold their Atlanta home, cut costs and moved to what was once their vacation home near Brooksville. Along the way, Shanker, born a Hindu, embraced the Christian faith. His spirituality, he says, helps him deal more positively with his inability to find work.

"CEOs were looking for any place to cut costs," he says. "I'm happy, in a way, because this is good for India."

But is it bad for America? If companies keep outsourcing overseas, U.S. pay scales will get knocked down to Indian wages, Shanker says. "I listen to economists who say outsourcing is a good thing and I feel like I live on another planet."

Shanker, 49, insists he is no protectionist. "I think capitalism is great. People with ideas and energy should become rich. But a social conscience should also be there."

Shanker immigrated to this country to use his education, earn a decent living and own a home. Now those goals are in jeopardy.

"Are we a country," he asks, "that will become one of extreme rich and poor people? Is that our ambition? There is no well-thought-out strategic plan for our country right now."

Hindman should know. He served for three years as president and chief operating officer of Clearwater's IMRglobal Corp., an early player in the offshore outsourcing business. And he has traveled worldwide, 15 or more times to India, to establish offshore operations designed to trim U.S. corporate costs.

India boasts a long list of reasons for moving certain U.S. jobs offshore, says Hindman, who now works for Sterling Management Resources in Tampa. Sure, wages are low. India's infrastructure is good, as long as you keep backup power generators for when the electricity fails.

But, Hindman asks, did you know about India's strong work ethic? Or how the field of information technology commands so much more respect in India and attracts the best and brightest? Or that India offers such favorable tax incentives to encourage overseas capital investment?

India has its drawbacks, too. Like the election-year perception that India is stealing U.S. jobs. Like the tricky task of managing workers halfway around the world. Like the rising demand for India's outsourcing, which is no longer as cheap as it used to be.

But the pros outweigh the cons. "A protectionist approach in this country would put us behind," Hindman says. "If that happened, where would all of technology's innovations come from?"

Mike Emmons was perfectly happy developing Web sites as an independent contractor for Siemens AG in Lake Mary, north of Orlando. But a few years ago, he said, the company decided to import lower-wage tech workers. Siemens told its U.S. workers to train them. Then it replaced its local tech force.

To Emmons, 42, that strategy - outsourcing in reverse - seemed mercenary at best. Companies had been banned three years ago by Congress from displacing U.S. workers with foreign IT workers on H-1B visas. But Siemens and Tata found a loophole: a little-used visa called the L-1 allowed multinational companies to transfer their employees between countries.

Emmons left Siemens and found other jobs at less pay. But where most U.S. workers would gripe and forget, Emmons decided to do something more.

He's a longshot this year running for a seat in Congress, hoping to unseat Rep. John Mica, R-Winter Park. Why? Because he thinks an irresponsible Congress has given up on its workers, allowing millions of jobs to be lost through expanded foreign work-visa programs.

His Quixote-like campaign has won him attention from CNN, CBS-TV, radio shows and newspapers.

On Friday, Emmons said he is not against companies trying to find lower-cost ways to do business. But he's angry that companies must bear other costs - notably health care benefits - so severe that businesses are forced to find expense savings through outsourcing or, as Siemens did, the import of cheaper workers on L-1 visas.

One solution? Push for a universal health care plan. "Take away their health care costs," Emmons says. "That's one way to make companies more competitive."

Emmons admits his campaign has been slow to gain traction.

"They say I am a one-issue person. I'm not," he insists. "It's about the future of this country. It is time the government starts working for the people and not for some select CEOs."

I'll be writing more on the outsourcing debate in the weeks ahead. Unless this column gets outsourced to India along the way.

- Robert Trigaux can be reached at trigaux@sptimes.com or 727 893-8405.

A Gallup Poll Tuesday Briefing surveyed 1,005 adults in March on their opinions of jobs moving overseas.

Very concerned -41%

Somewhat concerned -20%

Not too concerned -19%

Not at all concerned? -19%

Very important -58%

Fairly important -27%

Not important -14%