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Outsourcing America: An Interview with Ron Hira
 For the past three decades, Americans have witnessed a dramatic
decline in manufacturing jobs across the country (see story on
page 1). In their new book, Outsourcing America. What’s Behind
Our National Crisis and How We Can Reclaim American Jobs,
Ron Hira, Ph.D and Anil Hira, Ph.D now discuss another trend: the
loss of white collar service jobs to offshoring.
Why did you write this book now – in 2005? Haven’t most of the jobs that can be sent to cheaper labor markets abroad already gone?
Most objective observers believe that we are at the beginning
of something the consulting firms call an ‘irreversible mega
trend.’ A new round of globalization based on informatics has made
another 14 million white-collar jobs vulnerable to offshoring. While
the loss of manufacturing jobs weakened unions and separated productivity
from wage gains in the U.S., the loss of white-collar non-union
jobs may mean a widespread decline in the standard of living
for many more Americans.
What does this trend mean for the future of the American workforce?
Well, for one thing, it contradicts the favorite platitudes of policy makers
who promote what they call ‘free’ trade and globalization. As manufacturing
jobs moved abroad, globalization boosters insisted that U.S. workers would be
relieved of dangerous and repetitive manual jobs and be rewarded with more satisfying
mental jobs. In doing the research for this book, we found many dislocated
manufacturing workers who sought education and training in IT occupations when
their industrial jobs disappeared are now seeing the export of their second careers,
as high-tech goes offshore too. And no one can point to the replacement career of
the future, the way they once pointed to IT as manufacturing jobs decreased.
Do you see this job flight as a temporary dislocation—will the labor market stabilize again around jobs that, for one reason or another, cannot move easily?
No, this is not a temporary situation. The trend will continue because the
U.S. government imposes no penalty on corporations that move work
abroad. Most U.S. white-collar workers can be laid off at any time by their
employer for any reason that is not discriminatory. Wall Street analysts applaud the
destruction of U.S. jobs as a cost-cutting move, and the fact is, the government
actually rewards the export of jobs through tax benefits.
 In your book, you talk about the programs to help the adjustment process of transferring workers from one occupation to another as outsourcing and off-shoring eliminate jobs. What is the track record of these programs?
The track record is terrible; the resources {and the good paying jobs} are not there. Labor department statistics show that of the 5.3 million workers displaced between 2001 and 2003, 35 percent were still unemployed in January 2004. For the 65 percent lucky enough to find jobs, more than half took pay cuts. And the Trade Adjustment Assistance Act does not address the issue of offshoring service sector jobs at all.
Can you recommend steps that could be taken to save service jobs in the U.S.?
The problem is that our public policies tend to be company-centric, designed to help companies become more productive. This worked reasonably well when more productive companies translated into more jobs and general prosperity. But U.S. companies are now forcing U.S. workers to compete with foreign workers for their jobs. So we need a policy that is more worker-centric.
What would such a policy look like?
First, we think it would have to ensure that the benefits and the burdens of offshoring are distributed more
equitably. Second, we need to recognize the dimensions of the problem, and to realize that education isn’t a panacea. Education cannot address unemployment if there are no jobs.
Judging from some of the positions you take in your book, you seem to be an advocate of more public information about outsourcing and offshoring. How will that really address the problem?
Information is central, and the government has dropped the ball. The Bureau of Labor Statistics can get numbers about offshoring, but legislation is required to make companies disclose them. Corporations don’t want to make the numbers public: they take a public relations hit, they suffer employee backlash, and their customers will demand a price break.
What do you think about the fact that unions have often been blamed for the exodus of manufacturing jobs?
In the sectors now moving abroad there is no history of unionism. These
are new occupations where people work without individual contracts,
never mind collective ones. But nonetheless, the corporations involved blame
the U.S. worker and U.S. unions for their own decision to move abroad. So
unions have to address these charges.
In addition to pushing for more information about the trends, what else should we advocate?
You should push for adequate notice of a layoff, and reasonable relief for dislocated workers through wage insurance, for example. Health care insurance and pension plans need to be uncoupled from employment, also. We need resources for these things, and if corporations are going to move offshore, they should have to share the burden for funding it.
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