Lite green cards
: The assumed take on Bush’s worker immigration reform program — the take I heard on NPR tonight — is that it affects farm workers and maids and their employers and, along with them, it assumes political impact from the Hispanic demographic.
But John Robb has it right, I think: This is really the answer to outsourcing. Rather than sending jobs to India, we can now keep the jobs and bring the workers here. We can reduce the risk of sending too much employment overseas. That’s the essence of it. So instead of “oursourcing,” the buzzphrase will be “guest worker.”
“Guest worker” became a very problematic phrase in Germany after its boom busted, after the Turks wouldn’t go home and Germany suddenly had a new minority in a country that doesn’t deal with minorities well (understatement). America is, of course, different. We grow with immigration. We are immigration. So this gives us growth with a return policy. And the political impact may be from where you least expect it: From the working middle class, afraid all their jobs were going to be exported. Winners all around, for now.
: See this [via the Boston.com job blog]:
Worried about possible government reaction to the movement of U.S. technology jobs overseas, leading American computer companies are defending recent shifts in employment to Asia and elsewhere as necessary for future profits and warning policy makers against restrictions.
In a report released Wednesday, the companies said government efforts to preserve American jobs through limits on overseas trade would backfire and “could lead to retaliation from our trading partners and even an all-out trade war.”
The effort by the technology industry represents an early response to their growing concerns that U.S. lawmakers may clamp down on the practice, known as “offshoring,” especially during an election year.
See, that’s the hot button.
