All you have to do is read Arianna Huffington's article. Companies with revenues of $5 billion and over are expected to take an estimated 350,000 jobs offshore in the next two years alone -- nearly half in IT, and the rest in finance, procurement and human resources. Since offshoring of jobs has become institutionalized, it is sheer folly to believe that jobs are simply coming back after the recession is over. This could be one of the biggest miscalculations in human history resulting in not only Obama's loss of the 2012 election but in the cementing of the US' status as a Third World nation.
The labor market has become globalized. What this means is that corporations seek employees on the world market for labor which magnifies by orders of magnitude the competition for jobs by American citizens because right now all potential American employees are competing with East Indians, Chinese, Latin Americans and Asians. Since the labor pool is essentially infinite, wages for these jobs will approach zero unless minimum wage laws are in effect. And it's not only menial low tech jobs we're talking about. India's colleges and technical schools are turning out graduates in every sense the equivalent of US college graduates. The folly of this scenario for corporations is that they think they will sell products created by minimum wage jobs back into affluent US consumer markets. However, consumers without good paying jobs will be reduced to consuming only the basics and so consumption and GDP will actually decrease. There will be a surfeit of products which no one can afford. Most of these products are unnecessary for a full and healthy life anyway, but the spectacle of American citizens, used to consuming the majority of the world's resources, reduced to Third World consumers will not be pleasant.
The solution to this problem on an individual level is to not become an employee. The college degree mill is in the business of certifying employees for large corporations. But if those corporations are not offering highly paid jobs, does it make any sense to spend $100,000. getting a college degree only to be rejected by corporate employers in favor of somebody offshore who will work for wages that would not be sufficient to pay off your student loan? And most other countries subsidize their students instead of charging them exhorbitant interest rates for student loans which then go to pay for inflated tuitions. Obama's taking the previously privatized student loan industry back under the government's wings is a step in the right direction but it is not enough.
If Republicans take power again after 2012, do you think they will even be concerned about these issues? They will be happy to see historically high levels of economic inequality get even higher. They will be happy to see the continued deterioration and erosion of the middle class. They will be happy to see the rich (their class) get richer. They will be happy to see the diminution of social services. They will be happy to see the creation of a class of working poor or neo-serfs. Democratic policies will tend to counteract these trends but it is a case of too little too late. An industrial strategy with public-private partnerships at the very least would be necessary to create sufficient numbers of good paying jobs. In addition the "free trade" policies enacted during the Clinton administration, which have encouraged the outsourcing of jobs, would have to be reversed. The deglobalization of the labor market would have to occur. As Arianna said, the great sucking sound of US jobs foretold by Ross Perot has become a deafening roar.
In the meantime the social contract between students, colleges and corporations has totally broken down. In self defense it makes the most sense to become self-employed in a profession or service or business that serves the local economy in a job that can't be outsourced. Instead of preparing one's self to work for a corporation and compete in the global labor economy, it makes more sense to forego college with the concomitant expense of student loans, and start a business right out of high school, one for which a minimum of credentialization is necessary. But speaking of credentialization, doesn't it make more sense to become credentialized in some field which gives one the right to make a living in that field rather than to get an uncredentialized college degree which gives one neither the knowledge nor the wherewithal to make a living in that field unless some corporation hires you based on the college degree alone?
In short until there are plentiful jobs available and as long as corporate jobs continue to be outsourced, the social contract between college students and corporations has totally broken down. Expensive investments of time and money in obtaining a college degree no longer make sense. Instead, invest in a local business, be self-employed and build something that can't be taken away from you with a pink slip.
