<IMHO> I would be in trouble if I lost another 10%. I can't afford to do it and keep a roof over my head, food in my cupboard, and medications to keep me alive. As long as the cost of living is what it is, cutting wages is not going to help. Your assumption that US corporations would hire more people may be a little off. Taxes WERE reduced, and corporations DID hire more people. They were in Bangalore, Beijing, or Taipei. The bottom line is all that counts, and if a corporation can hire people to do something cheaper elsewhere, they will. If they don't, their Boards will find people that will. If they spend less money on taxes, they will still hire from the cheaper workforce. Gross margins at my company are better than they have been in 20 years, we are hiring. We hired four new people in the department my group is part of. Three were in India, one was an existing employee from another department. Loyalty is out of style. Loyalty to employees, country, founding principles, whatever. This is why (no matter WHO gets elected) nothing will be done about it. Expecting the gubment to help you is a waste of time, the only person who will go out of his way to help you is YOU :) </IMHO> -- George Patrick Tektronix, Inc. Central Engineering, PCB Design Group P.O. Box 500, M/S 39-512 Beaverton, OR 97077-0001 Phone: 503-627-5272 Fax: 503-627-5587 http://www.tektronix.com http://www.pcb-designer.com It's my opinion, not Tektronix' -----Original Message----- From: Ray Dwyer [mailto:[log in to unmask]] Sent: Wednesday, March 31, 2004 14:28 To: [log in to unmask] Subject: Re: [DC] tech jobs overseas... Greetings, This chain of notes mostly focuses on adapting to the situation. What would it take to change the environment? What I am referring to is lowering the cost of doing business in the U.S.. One way that my company changed in this direction is that a year ago the entire corporation took about a 10% pay reduction, this did vary from position to position where the higher managers did take significant larger drops in compensations. Another way seems taboo or something because I have not heard any one speaking about it, and that is through politics. I am not referring to tariffs or embargoes or any other artificial market tweaking, what I am referring to is lowering corporate taxes. That would, across the board, lower the cost of doing business in the U.S., which would produce more jobs which pay taxes. Whether that would be a break even on taxes who knows but it surely would help. Or is a U.S. corporation making a profit not politically correct in todays society? Ray -----Original Message----- From: DesignerCouncil [mailto:[log in to unmask]]On Behalf Of Brooks,Bill Sent: Wednesday, March 31, 2004 11:01 AM To: [log in to unmask] Subject: [DC] tech jobs overseas... http://moneycentral.msn.com/content/invest/extra/P79592.asp Interesting article on tech jobs being sent overseas... Looks like, after wading through the editorial 'spin', they may find it's not such a great money saver for companies as they might have thought... good old financial types just can't get over chasing the bottom line, until they reach the bottom. Great at math... but no vision. Dell has already pulled back some of their call center activity from India to Texas and Tenn. in response to customer complaints.... Looks like what customers think actually has an influence on their business strategy after all. I expect that PCB design jobs will do something similar... most of my experiences with purchasing products or services overseas has suffered from some quality degradation or been downright difficult or un-useable. I would expect to see a reduction in exporting of jobs here and even maybe an increase in domestic tech jobs over the next year...or two. It's not likely to see a wholesale exodus of American jobs to foreign countries once the 'fad' dies down and reality sets in... Bill Brooks PCB Design Engineer , C.I.D., C.I.I. Tel: (760)597-1500 Ext 3772 Fax: (760)597-1510 ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- ----- DesignerCouncil Mail List provided as a free service by IPC using LISTSERV 1.8d To unsubscribe, send a message to [log in to unmask] with following text in the BODY (NOT the subject field): SIGNOFF DesignerCouncil. To set a vacation stop for delivery of DesignerCouncil send: SET DesignerCouncil NOMAIL Search previous postings at: www.ipc.org > On-Line Resources & Databases > E-mail Archives Please visit IPC web site http://www.ipc.org/contentpage.asp?Pageid=4.3.16 for additional information, or contact Keach Sasamori at [log in to unmask] or 847-509-9700 ext.5315 ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- ----- ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- ----- DesignerCouncil Mail List provided as a free service by IPC using LISTSERV 1.8d To unsubscribe, send a message to [log in to unmask] with following text in the BODY (NOT the subject field): SIGNOFF DesignerCouncil. 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