Re: FW: MIDRANGE-JOBS Digest, Vol 5, Issue 187

The bigger and most undeniable fact is that outsourcing just transfers wealth out of the
American middle class to outsourcing companies (and to a small degree the
employees of those corporations) and to the primary shareholders of
multinational companies. It's a short term redistribution at best, since it
is the disposable income of the American middle class that has supported a
significant segment of the growth of the world's economy in the first place.


I have been looking at articles and statistics on the web this evening and can not find a source that would back this comment up. Can you point me to a source to back up your "undeniable fact".

It's simple math that redistributing the wealth of some 300 million people
to over six BILLION people while at the same time destroying the largest
consumer market in the world is going to do nothing except raise the number
of people in substandard living conditions.


The US Department of Labor Bureau of Labor Statistics has a very cool web site (www.bls.com). You can data mine all kinds of numbers out of it. I ran a query for All States for computer programmers. You can break these numbers down by state if you want or other industries.

Area Occupation Level DataSource Year Period Hourly Rate
All United States Computer programmers Overall Published 1997 Sep $20.43
All United States Computer programmers Overall Published 1998 Dec $22.06
All United States Computer programmers Overall Published 1999 Sep $22.29
All United States Computer programmers Overall Published 2000 Jul $23.33
All United States Computer programmers Overall Published 2001 Jan $24.31
All United States Computer programmers Overall Published 2002 Jul $24.84
All United States Computer programmers Overall Published 2003 Jul $28.90
All United States Computer programmers Overall Published 2004 Jul $28.98
All United States Computer programmers Overall Published 2005 Jun $30.89

I also ran the query for all states and all occupations

Area Occupation Level DataSource Year Period Hourly Rate
All United States All occupations Overall Published 1997 Sep $15.09
All United States All occupations Overall Published 1998 Dec $15.72
All United States All occupations Overall Published 1999 Sep $15.36
All United States All occupations Overall Published 2000 Jul $15.80
All United States All occupations Overall Published 2001 Jan $16.23
All United States All occupations Overall Published 2002 Jul $17.18
All United States All occupations Overall Published 2003 Jul $17.75
All United States All occupations Overall Published 2004 Jul $18.09
All United States All occupations Overall Published 2005 Jun $18.62

The unemployment rate was 4.7 in October. Economist say between 3 and 4 is full employment. A number of 4.7 is very healthy. Wages are overall increasing, Wages for programmers are overall increasing. I don't see numbers that support your claim that wages are being depressed. You keep making the statement that this is an RPG programmer issue. Why does it only affect RPG programmers? I have a hard time believing that India and China are targeting the iSeries only.

I am not finding the numbers that support your point. You claim it is "simple math" but I don't find any numbers that even start to support your claim.