India, Inc. Fights Back Against Anti-Outsourcing Rhetoric With Full Page Ad in Chicago Tribune
1. CHICAGO: India Inc., which is facing the heat from U.S. Presidential candidates who blamed 'shipping jobs' to China and India for rising U.S. unemployment, has launched a counter-offensive here telling Americans that the industry is creating new work opportunities for them and "gifting" thousands of jobs to Americans and not "stealing" them.
A full-page advertisement in the Chicago Tribune on Tuesday, by industry body FICCI (Federation of Indian Chambers of Commerce and Industry), gives an elaborate account of how the legendary Tata Group, along with several others like Ranbaxy, Mahindra USA, Bharat Forge, ITC Kitchens of India and HCL America have created thousands of jobs in America by investing in different sectors of the US economy. According to FICCI, Indian corporate investments in the U.S. were over $10.25 billion in 2007.
2. Watch a video here from India Reuters on India Inc.'s ad.
3. The Chicago Sun-Times and more than 70 sister newspaper titles throughout the metro area have entered into an agreement to outsource most of its print and online ad production. The outsourcing agreement with Elgin-based Affinity Express Inc. is expected to reduce operating costs by $3 million a year at The Sun-Times News Group. Affinity, with production offices in India and the Philippines, was chosen because of its “extensive infrastructure and expertise in the field of advertising production for news companies,” including the Charlotte Observer and the Columbus, Ohio Dispatch.
Comment: Wouldn't it have been ironic if the production of the FICCI's full-page ad in the Chicago Tribune had been outsourced to India?
It's possible the only way that the U.S. newspaper industry can remain profitable and survive in the future is with increased outsourcing to India? In other words, although some ad production might be outsourced to India, those outsourcing efficiencies and cost savings might end up helping to save thousands and thousands of U.S. newspaper jobs.
11 Comments:
February 19 - Bloomberg (Subramaniam Sharma): "Salaries in India are set to rise at the fastest pace in the world this year as a real-estate boom and the addition of capacities spur demand for skilled people, Hewitt Associates Inc. said. Wages in India will rise an average 15.2% this year, the sixth successive annual increase of more than 10%..."
February 22 - Bloomberg (Kartik Goyal): "India's inflation accelerated more than expected to a six-month high in the first week of February as prices of vegetables, fruits and lentils rose. Wholesale prices climbed 4.35%...from a year earlier..."
Maybe the Indians could offer cheaper health care to Americans since we can't do it on our own.
A California arbitrator ordered Health Net Inc to pay $9.4 million in damages and expenses for what he described as "reprehensible" conduct in canceling the policy of a cancer patient after she fell ill, according to documents made public on Friday.
One woman, Barbara Fowler of Healthnet received over $20,000 in bonuses for canceling policies of people that thought they were insured by Healthnet. In 2007 Ms. Fowler canceled over 300 policies.
Some world class healthcare system we have here in the US. We complain about Canadian waiting lists but don't look in our own backyard to see that even if you have health care insurance you may not be covered or your insurance company can cancel your coverage in the middle of life saving therapy.
The woman that won the 9 million against Healthnet was self employed and paid all her premiums on time. Except for contracting cancer she was a model citizen and model health care insurance consumer.
We could reduce healthcare expenses in the US by transporting eligible patients for treatment in other countries where the costs of healthcare procedures are much lower than in the US.
India has a good start in the healthcare tourism industry for private patients from the US, isn't it about time that US insurance companies join them in saving money by outsourcing medical care?
professor perry, as a tenured professor at a public university, you're a government employee that can't be fired. no wonder you think globalization is such a great deal for america.
to you, those workers that lose their jobs to offshoring, H1B visa, and illegal immigration must be just so much collateral damage. you'll still have your job, and government paid health insurance.
do you ever wonder what happens to those laid off workers? one supposes that, in your mind, they end up running a hedge fund.
Anon 12:10, good job; probably unknowingly, you've pointed out the incentive that insurance providers have to not cancel insurance in the middle of an illness: the threat of a $9.4 million judgement.
What incentives do Canadian health care providers have to reduce those pesky waiting lists that you admit occour? Can a Canadian receive a multi-million dollar judgement if they are forced to wait on treatment?
Bobble, do YOU ever wonder what happens to workers who are laid off due to outsourcing? Given our still low unemployment rate...it seems that they are getting jobs elsewhere.
Further, do YOU have numbers on those who have lost their jobs due to "offshoring, HB1 visas and illegal immigration?"
alex said...
"What incentives do Canadian health care providers have to reduce those pesky waiting lists that you admit occur? Can a Canadian receive a multi-million dollar judgment if they are forced to wait on treatment?"
You raise good points as always Alex.
Canada's healthcare costs are about half those in the US and while some (not all) Canadians are quick to complain about waiting lists you won't see people taking to the streets demanding that the Provincial Governments raise tax rates or increase the small health care insurance premiums that most Canadians pay.
If the Canadians want to have shorter waiting lists then they have to pay more. It is that simple.
In Canada, unlike the US, it doesn't matter what your income is, you still get 100% healthcare coverage with no exclusions for existing conditions, etc.
If you are disabled in Canada (for any reason) they have a disability pension that allows people to live a decent life.
Because Canadians aren't "damaged" to the extent that an American would be in similar circumstances any judgments for malpractice, negligence and etc. are considerably lower. All of the costs of living (including medical care) for a disabled person are provided by the Provinces or Canada.
I'm sure some "Canadians" would disagree with me but I have the benefit of having lived for many years off and on in both countries, so I speak from personal experience as well as the shared experiences of my friends and colleagues.
Anon. 4:19
I guess I must fall under the heading of "some Canadians". The one element that is missing from this discussion of healthcare is any examination of care as it relates to one's geographic location.
If one lives in a large urban metropolis like Toronto, one has access to very high quality care and many specialties. If one lives in a rural area and depends upon regional hospitals with travel to a large city for any complex issues, the level and quality of coverage varies considerably. "Some Canadians" even lack a family doctor.
http://www.ctv.ca/servlet/ArticleNews/story/CTVNews/20030319/doctor_shortage030319?s_name=&no_ads=
I believe the subject of this post was outsourcing to India. There are few elements of health care that can be delivered from an offshore destination apart from 1-800 health information lines. How does one deliver surgical care, or a CT scan from India? Unless one is discussing medical tourism, it would appear that this discussion is not germain to the topic of outsourcing.
@bobble
This is an ad personam attack, not an argument. If you want to examine the effects of foreign trade, you should take following factors into account:
* the number of jobs lost due to foreign trade
* the number of jobs created due to foreign trade
* lower prices on foreign goods
* foreign direct investment in the US (investment is what rises wages in general)
You can also try to answer this question: is it bad that some Californians may loose their jobs by trading with, say, Oregon? In the end, political borders have no economic meaning. They aren't more important than borders between states or regions.
Anon 5:04 PM...
If some Canadians want "better" health care they can protest to have their taxes increased to pay for it. It is that simple.
One only has to Google "outsourcing medical care" to get an idea of the direction that medical care is going in the US. Other articles like this one talk about the benefit to the patient and the insurance company or the patients employer when certain medical procedures are outsourced to say India for example indicating that that this discussion is germain to the topic of outsourcing.
As remote controlled robots are utilized more and more to do operations it is conceivable that one day a surgeon in Bangalore, India will perform operations on patients located in a Walmart surgical clinic in Mobile, Alabama. The technology has been here for a relatively long time. Surgeons in U.S. Perform Operation in France Via Robot.
anon @ 4:19 PM says: "In Canada, unlike the US, it doesn't matter what your income is, you still get 100% healthcare coverage with no exclusions for existing conditions, etc."
Ahem! Who pays for all this largesse?
The Ugly Truth About Canadian Health Care
"But if Canadians are looking to the United States for the care they need, Americans, ironically, are increasingly looking north for a viable health-care model. There’s no question that American health care, a mixture of private insurance and public programs, is a mess. Over the last five years, health-insurance premiums have more than doubled, leaving firms like General Motors on the brink of bankruptcy"...
juandos, you make a valid point when you ask "who pays for this largesse?"
I would imagine that the Canadian tax payer pays for the "largesse" as you call it.
In your question and the answer lies the solution to the Canadian health care challenge.
Quite simply, the US partially insures 83% of its citizens while spending twice as much as Canada that covers 100% of its citizens completely. In Canada people apparently wait longer for treatment than in the US. Canadians have have almost exactly the same healthcare outcome as their US neighbors.
Some Canadians don't want to wait as long as they do for health care. The answer is simple--raise taxes.
Let Canadians pay 75% of what the US spends on health care instead of the 50% they currently spend and lets see what happens to waiting lists in Canada.
In fact if Canada would expand its use of telesurgery to include the use of surgeons from India or other cheaper locations they could reduce their expenses AND reduce waiting lists.
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