Tag Archives: jobs

Outsourcing isn’t the problem – Salon.com

19 Jul

What’s going on? Put simply, America isn’t educating enough of our people well enough to get American-based companies to do more of their high-value added work here.

Our K-12 school system isn’t nearly up to what it should be. American students continue to do poorly in math and science relative to students in other advanced countries. Japan, Germany, South Korea, Canada, Australia, Ireland, Sweden, and France all top us.

American universities continue to rank high but many are being starved of government funds and are having trouble keeping up. More and more young Americans and their families can’t afford a college education. China, by contrast, is investing like mad in world-class universities and research centers.

Here’s the nut:

The core problem isn’t outsourcing. It’s that the prosperity of America’s big businesses – which are really global networks that happen to be headquartered here – has become disconnected from the well-being of most Americans.

 

via Outsourcing isn’t the problem – Salon.com.

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America’s dream unravels – FT.com

7 Apr

Has the 1% already flushed the workforce down the tubes?

Far from being an afterthought, or a moral side issue, the fate of America’s labour force is its most pressing problem. Almost every elected American pays lip service to an economy of the future based on brain power. But it takes time to build a new generation of homegrown brains and the country is doing its best to deter foreign ones. Unsurprisingly, much of the action is therefore shifting with the IQs, whether that is to Singapore, Canada, Germany or China. Roughly three-quarters of US private R&D comes from manufacturing companies, which now account for barely a 10th of the US labour force. In spite of a recent shift towards “reshoring”, the trend is still eastwards.

via America’s dream unravels – FT.com.

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Megawatt Coal Plants Don't Bring Jobs Home

31 Mar

Utilities sell coal plants by promising jobs in compensation for the environmental hit. A study of “the six largest new coal-fired power plants to come online between 2005 and 2009” indicates that more jobs were promised than were delivered. Writing in The New York Times, Tom Zeller, Jr. reports that “only a little over half, or 56 percent of every 1,000 jobs projected, appeared to be actually created as a result of the coal plants’ coming online. And in four of the six counties, the projects delivered on just over a quarter of the jobs projected.”

How’s the song go? “Sixteen tons, and what do you get? Another day older and deeper in debt.” And now you don’t even get a job burning the 16 tons. Have we sold our soul to the company store forever?

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