> Once American firms become accustomed to the
> dramatically lower costs of non-domestic (or
> programming 'guest worker') IT programming, call
> center support and other types of labor, they will
> not, even if the market improves, abandon those
> low-cost options in favor of higher cost Americans.
There is no doubt that outsourcing is growing in all industries. (That's one important reason why traditional Left Nationalism and anti-imperialism is dying in large parts of Asia.) My question was about the scale on which this is happening in the software industry. If I am not mistaken, this is perhaps happening on a greater scale in the US (We don't hear about outsourcing by Japanese and European software firms as frequently as we do by US based firms.) leading to redundancies on a disproportionate scale. Consequently, there is great deal distress and insecurity.
> THIS is what the fuss is really about from those who
> are alert and free of anti-immigrant and racist
> fetishes. The almost certain, permanent, loss of
> large numbers of jobs. Even after a recovery.
The problem is that ruling circles in US and the developed world generally are committed to free trade in commodities and free movement of capital. It would be difficult to oppose free movement of labour power on that basis.
Ulhas