Re: Will Price of Delphi and other Tools collapse?

"Wayne Niddery (TeamB)" <wniddery@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote in message
news:482a1c67$1@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

The fear of losing jobs to outsourcing is based on the same ideas as most
have about new technology making many jobs obsolete. It does cause job
displacement, but what many miss is that it also creates opportunities for
new jobs in many other areas and often in entirely new job types. An easy
example is that computers have obsoleted vast numbers of clerical jobs,
however in return, at least as many people have been able to become
programmers at rates much higher than those clerical jobs ever paid. So in
the long run, outsourcing increases the local standard of livng.

Which sounds good to everybody except the one that lost the job. It's nice
that a clerical job lost can become a programmer job at a higher salary, but
in most cases the clerk that lost the job won't be the programmer that gets
the new job. Suppose losing a bunch of programmer jobs resulted in the
creation of a bunch of jobs for airline pilots. You'd be a rare one if you
lost the programming job and qualified for the pilot job. And not everyone
who loses a job has the resources to go back to school to train for a higher
level job. So stepping up would then involve several years of lost wages,
plus student loans to be repaid out of the new salary. I don't think the
math supports the theory that the local standard of living increases.

Cheers,
Van Swofford
Tybee Jet Corp.


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