In The News

Cost Differentials and Labour Flexibility Mean Opportunity for Outsourcing

Edward Alden January 28, 2004
Although the US Senate just passed an amendment to prevent the outsourcing of government work to foreign countries, private-sector business in the US won't be following suit. According to this Financial Times article, sending more blue-collar and white-collar work to India and elsewhere is a smart business play for companies in the US, the UK, and other countries with relatively high labor...

Education Is No Protection

Bob Herbert January 26, 2004
Columnist Bob Herbert begins his New York Times op-ed with a critique of a conference held in New York to update executives on the new trend of outsourcing white collar jobs to countries with an educated but cheaper workforce. Such 'upscale outsourcing' is a relatively new phenomenon in much of corporate America. In the current US job market, prospects for white collar jobs already look...

Impatient Jobs

Seema Sirohi January 20, 2004
The IT industry has started to chime in on the outsourcing debate. A group of the top eight American IT companies recently commissioned a report in favor of outsourcing, arguing that countries which yield to protectionism end up stifling their own industries and innovation. The report also slams the US educational system for not producing enough qualified graduates in math and engineering. Soon...

At Conference, Fox Backs Bush's Guest-Worker Plan

Elisabeth Bumiller January 13, 2004
At a 34-country meeting in Mexico, achieving agreement on a free-trade zone of the Americas seems unlikely, says this article in the New York Times. Washington's hope to achieve a Tree Trade Agreement of the Americas by 2005 faces multiple hurdles. The presidents of Brazil, Venezuela, and Argentina are wary of an American-led free trade zone, arguing that their countries' prior...

Why Not Let Them Work?

Mechthild Küpper January 9, 2004
Germany's one million illegal immigrants are hard to typify, says this article in the F.A.Z. Weekly. Unlike the Turkish immigrants who are in the country legally but have not acculturated themselves to Germany, the author writes, many illegal immigrants are integrating well by learning German and seeking steady work. Workers from Poland and Eastern Europe, many of whom enter on tourist or...

Bush's Proposal for Immigration Reform Misses the Point

Andres Oppenheimer January 8, 2004
A day after US President George W. Bush announced proposed changes to US immigration policy, some are saying the changes do not go deep enough. If it meets with approval from the US Congress, Bush's proposal would grant identity cards to millions of illegal workers and allow them to continue to work legally for three years. The plans were announced just one week before Bush meets with the...

Even Labor Unions Can Gain from Free Trade

Tamara Kay December 23, 2003
In the long negotiations before the implementation of the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA), pundits, politicians, and unions alike predicted that NAFTA would bring increased animosity between transnational unions. They would now be competing for the same jobs, the argument went, and so labor solidarity will obviously break down. Instead, says labor scholar Tamara Kay, North America...