With the Democrats seizing control of the US Congress and Senate everyone involved in global outsourcing as suppliers or providers would wonder how things are going to be – going forward. To investigate this – I started looking up what folks are saying ….
For those of you watching campaign ads – you would remember that outsourcing was practically a non-issue this time unlike the 2004 Presidential election. As the shopfloor.org blog reports manufacturing in the US needs a different kind of help including lowering legal,tax, energy and I’ll add healthcare costs. Information week echoes this from Michigan auto industry where outlawing outsourcing is probably going to loose Michigan the new South Korean Kia Factory and its potential new jobs.
Continuing on the jobs situation is research by Vivek Wadhwa of Duke University who suggests that there are enough undergrad engineers in the US and yet companies are going overseas for the lower cost. In the same story from Duke and reporting a different study Arie Lewin (a highly respected organization and international business scholar ) suggests that the engineering talent is simply not growing for R&D and companies are going overseas for the talent . This is spurred by declining enrollment in Graduate Engineering and Science programs among US students.
While it is to early to predict decisively what Dems will do with outsourcing – I’d guess that they will focus on innovation being the next stage of outsourcing on one hand, and revamping American High School and Undergrad Science and Engineering Curriculum on the other. With all this has to come more funding for research in this area , irrespective of whether Republicans or Democrats are in power.