re: "Obama: Sending Jobs Overseas Bad - Illegals Takings Jobs Here Just Fine"

Fred at Fred Fry International ("Citizen Journalist and Observer of Human Nature") talks about the varying impacts of outsourcing jobs and illegal workers.

Money quote(s):

"(T)he President has been hammering US Corporations for sending some work overseas, blaming this 'outsourcing' for lost American jobs. These Corporations have been vilified by the President specifically and Democrats in general.

This same President however fails to see that the end result is the same if they go and let these corporations go and hire illegal aliens to do the work. Sure the job is still here, but instead of sending the work overseas, they brought the foreign worker here to do the job. Illegal aliens are outsourced labor. Instead of sending the work to them, they came to the work."

&

"(I)f a company is outsourcing jobs to Mexico, each Mexican that takes one of those jobs is one less Mexican trying to get to the US. But when a Mexican in the US illegally takes a job in the US, the end result is the same, in that there is one less job available to an American. Not only that, but his 'success' is noted back at home, only encouraging more people to come illegally in search of work.

By letting Illegal Aliens work in the US, they are now competing for jobs that are very difficult if not impossible to send overseas. Think construction and landscaping as two of those industries where the work pretty much needs to be done here."

One thing Fred forgets to mention is the many millions of U.S. dollars in remittances sent home by illegal workers, money which is then lost to the U.S. economy.

TDN - Don't expedite offshoring with more work visas

From my archive of press clippings:

The Detroit News


Don't expedite offshoring with more work visas

Wednesday, January 28, 2009

Froma Harrop


New Mexico Gov. Bill Richardson, President Obama's former pick for commerce secretary, vows to create millions of technology jobs that can't be outsourced. Sounds good, particularly in this melting economy.

Read the whole article here.

Snippet(s):

"Richardson supports expanding the H-1B visa program, which had greased the departure of good-paying tech jobs to lower-wage countries."

&

"Indian outsourcing companies account for almost 80 percent of the visa petitions approved for the top 10 participants in the program, according to BusinessWeek.

The Indian commerce minister has called H-1B "the outsourcing visa."