Engineering & The Book Beat
Question #2
Friedman traveled the globe, interviewing entrepreneurs, software designers, inventors, and engineers in India, China, Russia, Japan, and the US – all of whom were seeking ways to “plug and play,” compete and win. He points out that engineers in India and China are not going to be satisfied with competing for low-end jobs. “They’re not racing us to the bottom, they’re racing up to the top.”
Should we be worried about jobs going abroad?
November 4th, 2005 at 4:04 pm
Some jobs will go overseas and there is very little we can do about it due mostly to our high cost of labor. The more creative jobs, specifically the jobs that require intimate knowledge of American Culture and values will stay here. As widespread as American culture is in other countries, there are some subtleties that will not make it overseas and will prevent such jobs from being outsourced.
November 8th, 2005 at 6:14 pm
We should clearly be concerned about jobs going abroad. But that doesn’t mean we should directly resist it. We have about 15 years before the combination of other countries’ amplifying human resources, our own creaky education system, a diminishing commitment to cutting-edge research, and an aging population really starts to bite. Off-shoring so far is a canary in the coal-mine, not yet a threat to the system.
Moreover, our apparent competitors have bigger problems to overcome than we do. India has extreme poverty, intractable social divisions, dodgy infrastructure; China has slowing population growth, horrendous pollution, little respect for intellectual property; they both lack mature capital markets that can allocate resources to growing enterprises. And it’s unclear that either government can create the climate of lawfulness needed to squeeze out corruption in the public and private sectors. And all of these trends will play out in a global environment of population growth that will apparently peak at 9 billion, then start shrinking around 2050.
The challenge posed by off-shoring is really just a small-time proxy for the larger challenge of how to create a sustainable economic model that isn’t based on population growth and exploitation of natural resources. All countries will face the same problems arising from this reality, and they’ll make off-shoring seem like a quaint issue. The U.S. starts from such a position of advantage in this arena that current worries about off-shoring seem almost self-indulgent. Yes, by all means, provide support and re-training for workers clearly damaged. But these kinds of activities should be part of a broader effort to equip people with cognitive tools to contribute to society through work.
November 8th, 2005 at 6:32 pm
Globalization and competition are not zero-sum equations. I think it is naive for the United States and the West to expect that predominance will last indefinitely. Should we be concerned and aware of the changes? Yes. But, we should also welcome them.
November 9th, 2005 at 10:33 am
No, this is the way the global economy is currently set up to work. In fact this actually helps the average American by lowering his/her cost of living and maintaining or improving their quality of life. Other countries are on the rise and the U.S. will soon be number 2 in the world behind China. Throughout US history we have always had an abundance of talent innovation and I believe that this will continue to be the case. The U.S. economy will be safe in this century.