Washington Examiner (a conservative publication) with a story on how many large corporations are laying off workers while at the same time perhaps duplicitously funding lobbying efforts to change immigration laws to allow legal entry of additional foreign workers.
A new immigration law, the corporate officers say, "would be a long overdue step toward aligning our nation's immigration policies with its workforce needs at all skill levels to ensure U.S. global competitiveness."
The officials cite a publication of their trade group, the HR Policy Association, which calls for immigration reform to "address the reality that there is a global war for talent." The way for the United States to win that war for talent, they say, is more immigration.
Of course, the U.S. unemployment rate is at 7.3 percent, with millions of American workers at all skill levels out of work, and millions more so discouraged that they have left the work force altogether. In addition, at the same time the corporate officers seek higher numbers of immigrants, both low-skill and high-skill, many of their companies are laying off thousands of workers.
For example, Hewlett-Packard, whose Executive Vice President for Human Resources Tracy Keogh signed the letter, laid off 29,000 employees in 2012. In August of this year, Cisco Systems, whose Senior Vice President and Chief Human Resources Officer Kathleen Weslock signed the letter, announced plans to lay off 4,000 — in addition to 8,000 cut in the last two years. United Technologies, whose Senior Vice President of Human Resources and Organization Elizabeth B. Amato signed the letter, announced layoffs of 3,000 this year. American Express, whose Chief Human Resources Officer L. Kevin Cox signed the letter, cut 5,400 jobs this year. Procter & Gamble, whose Chief Human Resources Officer Mark F. Biegger signed the letter, announced plans to cut 5,700 jobs in 2012.
Those are just a few of the layoffs at companies whose officials signed the letter.How about a federal fiscal program to fund educational programs at the firms, for firms to pay for services to educate the surplus existing workers to obtain the new skills that the firms perhaps expect to hire from the external sector?
Oh, that's right I forgot, "we're out of money!", which I'm sure the morons at the Examiner staff remind their readers of everyday elsewhere in their publication.
5 comments:
Poaching talent from other countries makes economic sense for these businesses, especially if their competitors are doing it.
And doesn't a free market imply that private businesses have to train (or obtain) their workforce on their own?
Bob,
Dont these other countries need workers?
Why dont we counsel these people to stay put and improve their own nations? Rather than come over here in a race to the bottom....
And its not a "free market" the whole thing is a big subsidy system when we operate under state currency like we are... its an arbitrary "favor" system as we have govt believing they can "run out of money" so they think it is scarce and they dole it out and let it be kept by those entities who obtain favored position with them...
These people should stay put in their own countries to work in increasing the real standards of living in those nations... and we should be counseling the leadership of those nations to do this... we have enough people already in our workforce who have the basic KSAs to do everything we need and then some... other parts of the world not so much...
rsp,
It would be a free market if all workers were allowed to immigrate and emigrate freely to compete for work. Free markets, free trade and free capital flows are distorting without free flow of labor also. Economic liberals need to be consistent instead of just manipulating factors to the favor of the rich and powerful. Neoliberalism is the name of economic freedom is just BS. The only "freedom" there involved is freedom of the privileged to enclose and pillage.
Contrary to what employers claim, it's not about skills -- there is a surplus of skilled American workers. Instead it is about wage suppression, working conditions, and age discrimination.
There are plenty of skilled Americans looking for work. However, many of them are 50-somethings that employers don't like to hire. They expect a living wage and reasonable hours. Young foreign workers will work longer hours, do it for less money, miss less work due to illness, and incur fewer health care expenses.
My suggestion is to outlaw salaried positions and put everyone on an hourly wage with overtime pay. Shorten the work week to 30 hours. Replace employer provided health care with national public health care. Eliminate FICA and roll private pensions into SS and make the SS benefit $2500/month regardless how much the individual paid in.
We also need constructive (as opposed to non-constructive military-spying) make-work projects to utilize our surplus of skilled workers, something that is not addressed by the JG. My suggestion is to nationalize clean energy production, putting Americans to work building clean energy which would then be sold at regulated prices.
Like Tom points out, I have no right to immigrate to Canada or Iceland or Finland. It takes an act of God for an American to be allowed to work in Canada.
An income protection quote can also protect employees in case of an uncertain layoff.
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