Security:

After reading the article below in MSN it is evident that American companies are outsourcing software, hardware development and financial services to companies in India and others at a rapid rate. Reading the article it sounds very innocent until you look at the ramifications to the US both economically as well as from a standpoint of national security.

The systems, that are supported and developed for in the US at a lower labor rate in countries like India,  form the backbone of the national infrastructure of the United States.  They include power companies, banking and finance, medical systems and technology.  Our edge as a country and as a competitor on the world stage is and will be technology and finance as well as having the best medical care in the world. Our national infrastructure is run on computers and electricity.

So, what would happen if the United States gave back-end access to a foreign Nation-State to these systems? God what a goldmine. To have access to anyone and everyone's personal financial records and the records of every major corporation in the United States not to mention the power grid and telecommunications network. In the blink of an eye you could shut down the entire United States Power grid and cripple the country or infect the banking systems and stop the exchanges. The possibilities are limitless.

Whether you like it or not developers, write the applications code for everything from the operating system on your computer to the communications systems on the telephone and power network. Giving access to the source code to these systems is tantamount to giving a robber the keys to your car. Embedded code, viruses and general direct access by these systems open up the very heart of our financial and technological systems to foreign countries. No one can guarantee whether the people that work for these companies are trustworthy or members of terrorist organizations or foreign intelligence services. Before the year 2000, access to these systems outside of the United States except by trusted networks was unheard of and outsourcing the most sensitive technology with direct accesss to the heart of American financial and other systems was undreamed of.

No United States company can guarantee the safety of these systems when they allow access to them by foreign Nation-states regardless of how much you may hear from these companies about it not mattering. The ability to cripple a system like that is so easy it is almost frightening. This means that companies outsourcing over seas and giving access to the code and systems that run the United States are creating the largest National Security Breach in the history of the United States.

Job Loss:

In the 90s America was sold on the idea of free trade and allowed the shipment of jobs in manufacturing over seas. The loss of these jobs was sold as a cost saver to the US and people could transition to technology and service as a means of improving their lives. Now the trend is to outsource these jobs as well. Manufacturing pays an average of 15 to 25 dollars per hour US in union states and less in non-union states. Service and technology however pay average salaries of 50,000.00 to 90,000.00 dollars US and constitute a large part of the middle class in America.

Loosing these jobs will decrease the purchasing power of people over a short period of time and the robust US market will decrease significantly. Signs are all around us about this. I live in Dallas Texas and cars are not selling and have not been for 2 years. People are loosing their homes and unemployment is at an all time high. People were living on their savings, then their retirement now their home equity. When these resources are exhausted the purchasing power is gone and the US market will decrease in an alarming rate. All business sectors will be affected.

Insurance: Why do you need it when you cannot pay the premiums.

Medical: Lost my health coverage with my job.

Investment: Why bother we burned it up trying to live and wait out the recovery that won't happen because the jobs that are to come are going over seas.

Retail: Only companies that are major discounters like Walmart or repair like Home Depot will thrive in this market place.

Fast Food and restaurants: Why go out it's cheaper to eat at home. Or only go out on a limited basis creating a fall in revenue in those market places.

If this trend continues unchecked, we are looking at the demise of the middle class in America and a split between the really wealthy and the poor in this country.

One of the most unsettling truths about the job market today can be found in two seemingly insignificant recent announcements by high-tech powerhouses Oracle and Hewlett-Packard.

Software giant Oracle (ORCL, news, msgs) said it's moving 2,000 developer jobs from the United States to India, doubling the number of developers it has on payroll there. Then Hewlett-Packard (HPQ, news, msgs) announced plans to close a customer-service operation in Florida and send the operation's 1,200 jobs overseas, again to India.

Though negligible when compared to the sheer numbers of job losses in manufacturing, the shifts by two technology companies are alarming for what they likely foretell: no less than the relocation of millions of high-end technology and service jobs from this country to less expensive foreign venues. In the process, there will be a redefining of what constitutes "safe" employment in America.

Source: U.S. Department of Labor and Forrester Research, Inc. All numbers have been rounded.

It’s one thing to see a labor-intensive industry such as textile manufacturing shift to foreign soil, especially when the process has been going on for decades. It’s quite another thing to watch the United States lose jobs that require highly educated workers and the support of a sophisticated technological infrastructure.

While current unemployment of about 6% isn't high by historical standards, there's no denying this trend toward job exportation.

The next generation of vulnerable jobs
A study by Forrester Research predicts that U.S. companies will transfer 3.3 million service jobs overseas by 2015, compared with just 102,000 jobs shifted in 2000. Meanwhile, the payroll associated with those jobs will rise from $4 billion to more than $136 billion, according to Forrester projections.

The early job exports are predominantly in the areas of information technology (including software and product development), customer service, back-office accounting and sales. Other major U.S. corporations that have sent service jobs overseas, where wage rates can be as much as 50% lower, include:

As the trend gathers steam, Forrester predicts, other and more sophisticated types of knowledge-based work also will be exported.

The bottom line, says John Challenger, CEO of Challenger, Gray & Christmas, the Chicago-based outplacement firm: "It’s false to think the only jobs that could go overseas are low-skilled jobs that pay low wages."

5 safer sectors
The employment picture does have a bright side, though: plenty of good jobs in growing sectors are essentially unexportable.

Most are in services industries that figure to be among the fastest growing segments of the U.S. economy in coming decades. These industries run the gamut from fast-food server to physician, from security guard to bank president, and they can be found with employers both large and small.

Challenger identifies five sectors with an especially low risk of exportation:

• Health care. "You can’t go overseas to see a doctor or nurse or get physical therapy," Challenger points out. The aging of America’s population makes health care a good long-term career bet, he adds, singling out medical transcription and nursing as two particularly hot areas.
• Other in-person services. These are the jobs, like those in health care, that require a face-to-face interaction between provider and client. They are spun off by almost every human activity and interest. Teaching and training "of all kinds" constitutes one potential growth area, Challenger says, because "education is being thought of as more of a life-long thing."
• Real estate. Just as land is not exportable, neither are many of the activities involved in its development. In addition to real estate service, the category also includes residential and commercial construction and the burgeoning home-improvement industry.
• Financial services. As usual, it makes sense to follow the money. America’s vast capital holdings have spawned entire industries dedicated to their preservation and growth. Like the money itself, the jobs associated with it will be kept at home.
• Security. One outgrowth of the war on terrorism is increased demand for all types of security and military personnel. "I see a lot more of this being needed over the next 20 years," Challenger says.

The services sector, in particular, is approaching red-hot status. General hiring in the services sector will be 22% greater on campuses this year than last, according to a recent survey by the National Association of Colleges and Employers, made up of college and university career counselors. And the most aggressive recruiters, says Bill Currin, director of Wake Forest University’s Office of Career Services, are those from financial services companies.

Currin also notes that while government hiring is projected to be down this year, a worker shortage is developing at the federal level that will become acute in the next few years.

Hot jobs for the short run
Projections by the federal Bureau of Labor Statistics provide additional clues as to where the jobs will be in coming years.

For the 2000-2010 decade, the BLS predicts, technology will account for eight of the 10 fastest-growing occupations, as measured by percentage increase. They are:

Of this group, the two software engineering jobs would seem to be the most susceptible to eventual relocation overseas. The two non-tech positions -- home-care aides and medical assistants -- are the least so.

When measuring the total numbers of new jobs created, the top 10 skew heavily toward in-person kinds of service jobs; food preparation and restaurant work, customer service, nursing, retail sales, and office and clerical work are among the occupations that dominate. Computer support and applications-software engineering are the only tech categories represented.

Where technology jobs are concerned, it’s important to distinguish rapid job creation from an inability to be exported. As more countries achieve parity in their technology infrastructures, they could be magnets for jobs that currently are U.S.-based, depending on differentials in labor costs.

An ignored jobs source
Another potential source of export-proof jobs -- one that perhaps is being overlooked -- is America’s small-business community.

While the BLS payroll survey indicates that 1.1 million jobs have been lost since the U.S. economy began to pull out of recession in the final quarter of 2001, its household survey indicates a gain of 1.4 million jobs.

This discrepancy may be attributable to the fact that the payroll survey often fails to capture self-employed workers or those who labor for the smallest companies. The household tally, by contrast, does account for such jobs.

So while looking for work that doesn’t travel well, job seekers would do well to think small.