Environmental Impacts of Outsourcing and Downsizing: A Global Perspective

[Genecks]

I've been on the web googling before evo's post and found some difficulty locating information I have been looking for. (googling should be put in a dictionary )

I'm looking for information on the environmental effects of American based countries putting their businesses in foreign land.

I'm also wondering what the current wages they are offering foreign workers is. (found a little bit)

I continue to look for information on the current education of people in foreign lands who are being paid less than their American counter-parts.

 

[Evo]

Members, before replying - remember on homework questions, please guide the student in finding the answers on their own, do not answer the actual questions for them.

 

[Genecks]

If you must move it to homework, so be it. DON'T QUOTE THIS AREA. JERRY CRANE. RVC. DFB.

http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_qa3797/is_200404/ai_n9373403

Downsizing occurs in shrinking industries, which are contracting because of a lack of demand for their products..

..Technology plays a role, too, in the long term, because in dwindling industries it tends to make smaller firms more efficient. Market forces push companies to operate efficiently, which means having an optimally sized workforce, and "technology determines what that efficient size is, and long-run downsizing occurs when technical change requires a reduction in the size of the labor force."

I question the truth to this. Is it because there isn't enough demand as in, an exponential demand that wasn't previously there? How much of a lack was there? 2%? 3%? .05%?

A balloon contracts as I put it in my freezer, even a colder atmosphere than it was once in.

In this report I'm giving, I am in no way hateful towards foreigners except in one area. I feel they should demand higher wages. That's not so bad, right?

As I read on, I notice more and more that because people are demanding higher wages, as I want them to, they are losing their jobs.

http://money.cnn.com/2005/08/23/news/international/india_outsourcing/

Many U.S. and international companies maintain that outsourcing business processes such as customer service call centers, administrative and accounting processes to low-cost and low-wage countries like India helps to keep down their own cost of doing business...

"Four years ago, a typical call center employee would have earned between 5,000 to 6,000 rupees ($114- $136) a month. Now it may be up to between 7,000 to 9,000 rupees ($159 - $204) a month," he said. "The rise in labor costs isn't significant yet. What's more important is that these increases so far have not been passed on to clients in the U.S." ...

Gartner estimates that India's current 85 percent ownership of the BPO market share could dwindle to about 45 percent by 2007... A new report from market research firm Gartner, Inc. warns that a labor crunch and rising wages could erode as much as 45 percent of India's market share by 2007.

The idea is that, Americans ask for higher wages, thus they will have their jobs shipped overseas. However, when those people over seas ask for money, they too will lose their jobs. I don't believe the idea that demand is decreasing exponentially. I believe business people are being cheapskates and avoiding shelling out cash.

See, I came to awareness while just typing a bunch of crap up I thought of outsourcing.. then it HIT ME. What if we get these people to ask for higher wages??! well what do you know.. they are... the businesses don't like this... these people are starting to understand capitalism... they were once uneducated about it.. but now they aren't...

What I want more information about is the environmental conditions businesses leave behind screwing up with their schemes to get rich quick.

Some of the current wages of foreigners who are taking the jobs.
Also, their current educational standpoint.

True this paper is on socioeconomics.. but I throw in the environment and population rate increase and it all goes well.

So basically.. if you educate the whole world, they all ask for equal wages.. they have more health control and decrease the population... then the population will decrease.. wages will increase.. education will increase... people won't be as ignorant.. and the whole world will be hunky dory, along with the environment.

If something interesting cultural wise were to come out of this, it would be the businesses idea to Americanize foreign countries so that

#1. they do American work.
#2. They buy American products.
#3. they eat at mickey d's.

 

[Evo]

Your thread will get a better response here.

 

[Genecks]

What's fascinating to me is that soon India will go through a depression. They will recess. They won't have their power very long if they keep asking for higher wages.

Through the sapir-whorf thesis, their culture has transformed to obtain the english language, and many aspects of their culture have become more eurocentric/american.

 

[EnumaElish]

As I read on, I notice more and more that because people are demanding higher wages, as I want them to, they are losing their jobs.

Same thing with environmental standards; taxes; any cost aspect. There is a substantive volume of econ. / soc. lit. on the "race to the bottom" in international competitiveness, where "the only winners are the losers" as measured by the value of investment net of costs (to the country). Since capital seeks to maximize profit, assuming that other aspects of profit are the same, it will invest to a country that can promise more concessions than other countries. You might look at it as a "death spiral" in different countries' eagerness to attract capital investment in terms of the total value of concessions related to labor, the environment, capital taxes, etc.

 

[Evo]

There was a very interesting program on Indian BPO's the other night on PBS. The workers are all twenty somethings, and yes, they have adopted more modern and western lifestyles. It apparently does pay well in relation to other other jobs. I believe all of the workers interviewed were college graduates. Many are women which otherwise would not get decent paying jobs. A lot of the single women workers used their money to support their parents and siblings.

 

[EnumaElish]

Last night there was another interesting program on PBS (Wide Angle?) on environmental disasters brought about by profit seeking (and job creation) -- including Soviets' dry-out of the Aral Sea at the cost of complete destruction of Uzbeks' livelihood. That made me shake with anger and my eyes welled up. It also included an auto battery producer in Tijuana who, when cited by Mexican authorities for the environmental mess it had created, simply packed up and left the country (and the mess).