Good, bad or indifferent?
The numbers are in but what do they portend?
Both the pro and con camps now have new numbers to back up their arguments. The revised Forrester numbers project a loss of 3.4 million U.S. jobs over the next 11 years. Depending on where you sit in this debate, that's either major cause for alarm or business as usual. The upward revision is only slightly more than the 3.3 million figure Forrester came up with two years ago.
But here's what caught my eye: The report suggests that all the noise made by antioffshoring activists has paradoxically, helped accelerate the shift overseas by making businesses aware of the trend. Wouldn't that be a kick in the butt if true!
Chip off the block
Say what you like about T.J. Rodgers but the man's a refreshing change from the usual bland bozos you find running some companies. He speaks his mind without first checking in with his PR handler. Wish that were the rule in Silicon Valley but that's another story. In this case, check out his reaction to John Kerry's assertion that it is immoral for U.S. companies to increase their overseas outsourcing. "It is immoral for any CEO not to run his company in the best possible financial way for his shareholders." The man comes close to being a poster boy for boot strap libertarianism. But he speaks out of personal experience. Rodgers' company suffered its own near-death experience a few years back and he did what was necessary to get things back on track--including the export of Cypress' "entire assembly and test operation and several hundred jobs offshore."