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Reps Smith and Inslee Request GAO Study on Offshore Outsourcing
From: Dave Farber <dave () farber net>
Date: Wed, 23 Jul 2003 12:51:24 -0400
I happen to agree with the need for such a study . I car see a book in five years "the china that can say nr" --substitute many nations for china
Date: Wed, 23 Jul 2003 09:21:15 -0700 (PDT) From: Travis Winfrey <winfreyt () yahoo com> Subject: Reps Smith and Inslee Request GAO Study on Offshore Outsourcing To: dave () farber net WashTech News July 18, 2003 Reps Smith and Inslee Request GAO Study on Offshore Outsourcing By David Beckman 'We need to know where jobs are going to be.' -- Rep. Adam Smith (D-Wash.). A Washington state congressman requested a federal study yesterday that would attempt to determine to what extent the rising trend of offshore outsourcing is affecting the loss of U.S. tech jobs. Rep. Adam Smith (D-Wash) delivered a written request late Thursday morning to General Accounting Office Comptroller General David Walker in Washington, D.C. Smith said in a news release yesterday that he wants the GAO to investigate the impact offshore outsourcing has on U.S. high-tech workers, aerospace engineers, and various levels of state and federal government workers whose jobs have been sent offshore. Fellow Washington state congressman Jay Inslee co-signed the request. Smith said that in light of the nation's high unemployment rate, the United States needs to develop a new jobs and industrial plan and determine a focus for the "New Economy." "We need to know where jobs are going to be," said Smith, who represents Washington's 9th District. While government programs invest in retraining unemployed workers, it is not clear whether there will be jobs for those workers to fill, Smith said. "Offshore outsourcing (of information technology services) has become increasingly common for U.S. organizations, generally because of the perceived cost savings and to enhance competitiveness in the global economy," Smith said. But Smith said he is concerned that retraining and educational programs may be training people in the United States for jobs that are being sent overseas. The recent practice of moving service and development work to countries such as India, Russia, and the Philippines has been employed ever more widely by companies such as Microsoft and Boeing in order to slash domestic labor costs. The magnitude of the effect on domestic jobs and on the U.S. economy has so far not been measured. "Part of the problem with the issue is just tracking and understanding it," says Stan Sorscher, research director for the Society of Professional Engineering Employees in Aerospace (SPEEA). "We're analytical people by nature. Seeing the actual data would be much more helpful in understanding the impact." The rate of unemployment in Washington state has concerned Smith for some time, said Smith's Communication Director Katharine Lister, especially when constituents complained that offshore outsourcing is responsible for the loss of many of the state's information technology jobs. "We've been working the GAO (request) for a couple of months now," Lister says. She says the reason Smith assumed a low profile on the issue until now is that the congressman "tends to labor under the radar screen." Inslee assumed a somewhat higher profile. He met with representatives from SPEEA and the Washington Alliance of Technology Workers, or WashTech, on June 6 in Seattle. The groups asked to meet with Inslee to discuss remarks he reportedly made while on a visit to India. Press reports said Inslee told Indian government and tech industry officials that measures before Congress or state legislatures intended to curb offshore outsourcing "would not go anywhere." They also asked Inslee to initiate a GAO study on the effects of offshore outsourcing. Inslee said he would investigate making such a request. Two weeks later, however, Inslee said he was unsure whether he could build support for such a study. "I'd like to say we could do that, but I don't have a thousand investigators to be running that type of assessment," said Inslee, whose congressional district includes parts of King, Kitsap, and Snohomish counties. According to Washington state employment reports, more than 80,000 jobs have been lost in that region since 2001. According to the GAO's congressional protocols, any member of Congress can make requests for GAO investigations. The requests are usually made in the form of a letter addressed to the GAO's comptroller general. http://www.washtech.org/wt/printer.php?ID_Content=4590 __________________________________ Do you Yahoo!? Yahoo! SiteBuilder - Free, easy-to-use web site design software http://sitebuilder.yahoo.com
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