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America’s unemployed and downsized workers are furious that corporate profits, stock prices, and CEO pay are up – while hiring and wages are held down. But wait – U.S. corporations actually are increasing their payrolls. Just not in America.
In a two year period, these corporate giants hiked hiring in foreign countries by 729,000 jobs, even as they cut 500,000 jobs here. Hilton hotels, for example, moved a U.S. call center to the Philippines, calling it a move for “maximizing efficiencies” – which is cold corporate jargon for “chasing cheap labor.”
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Likewise, JPMorgan Chase, which hauled in $25 billion from the Wall Street bailout, is moving its telephone banking business from Troy, Michigan, to the Philippines. Dell, the computer peddler, has closed its last PC factory here, while creating tens of thousands of PC jobs in China. And get this: Hewlett-Packard has dumped its human resources staff in 10 states, moving the work to Panama. Hello, human resources is the corporate division that ostensibly helps resolve worker complaints and boost employee morale. So the message here is. “Hey, bud, got a problem? Take it to Panama.”
Yet, a clueless Harvard business professor recently pooh-poohed any concerns about this outflow of American jobs: “When companies succeed abroad,” he asserted, “people at home succeed.” Golly, professor, I can hardly wait for you to enjoy the success of seeing your job offshored to some orangutans in Malaysia.
Bear in mind that replacing American employees with low-wage foreigners does nothing to improve products or even make them cheaper. The savings on wage costs are simply pocketed by corporate executives and Wall Street financiers. It’s a massive redistribution of wealth from the many to the few. And the moneyed elites wonder why workaday Americans are furious?
“Tide of U.S. jobs still flowing out overseas,” Austin American Statesman, October 10, 2010.