U.S. Government Funding Program to Train Foreign Workers So American Firms Can Outsource Jobs
August 5th, 2010The number of Americans who are receiving food stamps rose to a record 40.8 million in May as the jobless rate hovered near a 27-year high, the government reported yesterday.
Via: Information Week:
Federally-backed program aims to help outsourcers in South Asia become more fluent in areas like Java programming—and the English language.
Despite President Obama’s pledge to retain more hi-tech jobs in the U.S., a federal agency run by a hand-picked Obama appointee has launched a $36 million program to train workers, including 3,000 specialists in IT and related functions, in South Asia.
Following their training, the tech workers will be placed with outsourcing vendors in the region that provide offshore IT and business services to American companies looking to take advantage of the Asian subcontinent’s low labor costs.
Under director Rajiv Shah, the United States Agency for International Development will partner with private outsourcers in Sri Lanka to teach workers there advanced IT skills like Enterprise Java (Java EE) programming, as well as skills in business process outsourcing and call center support. USAID will also help the trainees brush up on their English language proficiency.
USAID is contributing about $10 million to the effort, while its private partners are investing roughly $26 million.
“To help fill workforce gaps in BPO and IT, USAID is teaming up with leading BPO and IT/English language training companies to establish professional IT and English skills development training centers,” the U.S. Embassy in Colombo, Sri Lanka, said in a statement posted Friday on its Web site.
“Courses in Business Process Outsourcing, Enterprise Java, and English Language Skills will be offered at no charge to over 3,000 under- and unemployed students who will then participate in on-the-job training schemes with private firms,” the embassy said.
USAID is also partnering with Sri Lankan companies in other industries, including construction and garment manufacturing, to help create 10,000 new jobs in the country, which is still recovering from a 30-year civil war that ended in 2009.
But it’s the outsourcing program that’s sure to draw the most fire from critics. While Obama acknowledged that occupations such as garment making don’t add much value to the U.S. economy, he argued relentlessly during his presidential run that lawmakers needed to do more to keep hi-tech jobs in IT, biological sciences, and green energy in the country.
He also accused the Bush administration of creating tax loopholes that made it easier for U.S. companies to place work offshore in low-cost countries.
Someone get me a flucking bucket to puke in. Sorry I’m just down off the Solari report where I heard of Hilary getting U.S. money to outsource jobs.
I don’t think of myself as a one wearing a dunce cap, but what is wrong with this picture?
It chaps my ass to call Verizon, who has been flucking with me ever since I sined on with them for Internet. One day I get Mexico, the next India, and it enrages me that these jobs are not here in the U.S. But everytime I do get a U.S. agent, they insist on trying to sell me something.
Talk about annoying. Basically, the American reps are ##sholes. And not just with Verizon.
Anyways I rant.
Just wondering what is going to happen to the world in the damn in China breaks under the strain of all the rain and flotsam. Most of the manufacturing in the world will be wiped out, not to mention all of those poor souls.
Our corporate culture in this world sucks wind big time. We might as well be living in pre-Civil War times, where the slaves were imported here to fuel the elite machine. Now, we just make slaves of everyone else in the world. While I’m not wishing for a disaster to end this monster, I can’t think of what else will break the syndrome.