America’s Epidemic

Massive layoffs have become an epidemic in today’s economic climate. Americans are becoming unemployed by the thousands as companies weather the recession at the cost of their hardworking employees. In the midst of America’s woes, an industry lurking outside of our borders is reaping the benefits of America’s misery: Outsourcing.

As Citigroup announced massive layoffs exceeding 50,000 employees this week, there was one minor detail they forgot to tell the American public: The jobs would be outsourced to India. Tata Consultancy Services, the country’s largest IT software and service provider solidified a $2.5 billion contract to provide outsourcing services, application development and infrastructure support to Citigroup and its affiliates over the next nine-and-a-half years.

TCS also acquired Citigroup’s India-based outsourcing unit, Citigroup Global Services. The largest ever purchase for TCS.

The global meltdown has wreaked havoc on thousands of job opportunities for hardworking American citizens, and the jobs fleeing the U.S. are amassing at an alarming rate. Hyderabad, India has experienced an economic boom in light of our festering economy.

Over 100 Legal Process Outsourcing services have sprouted up in Hyderabad in the last year. LPO’s provide offshore employees to companies and law firms seeking legal support services at a reduced rate.

Around 70 percent of the new LPO’s mushroomed in the past five months alone as the global crisis devastated companies and their subsequently laid off employees. Hyderabad is anticipating an additional growth in the industry by 50 to 100 percent .

The American economy encourages outsourcing as a viable means of reducing costs. There are no laws prohibiting the practice, and American companies are forced to partake in this debilitating process just to stay afloat. Companies that try to take the high road and solely employ American citizens, often find themselves falling behind their rivals. With free trade agreements like NAFTA, Americans find themselves at a competitive disadvantage. It is impossible to contend with lowered wage rates and reduced manufacturing costs. We are increasingly subsidizing our own demise.

We make it effortless for incapacitating procedures like massive layoffs and outsourcing to occur. Other countries do not permit these types of economic shortfalls in their nations. Permission from authorities is needed for mass layoffs in China, and it is hard to obtain. Their government’s deep-seated fears of social instability mandate their unemployment polices.

The official unemployment rate in China is 4 percent. Meanwhile in the U.S. the unemployment rate has skyrocketed to 6.5 percent, reaching a 14 year high while we do nothing to stem the losses.

As American staples disintegrate at alarming rates, jobs are evaporating into thin air with no job creation on the horizon. Americans are helping boost foreign economies by employing offshore workers, while watching our unemployment tallies mount. Unless we create incentives for businesses to employ our own citizens, the bulk of Americans are going to continue fighting an upstream battle without a paddle.

Source The Times of India:

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