Why The U.S. Might be Losing Technology Jobs to Asia

So, I am reading the paper this morning and an article in the Chicago Tribune catches my eye, one on how the U.S. has lost 30% of its technology jobs.  Being an election year, which now means every year is an election year, the blame will quickly be cast to our gridlocked political environment.  Or the European banking crisis, or the deficit, or the Fed, or whatever reason de jour one can come up with.

I suggest there is a more fundamental problem to this job loss, which I will demonstrate with a couple of stories.

I spent a good deal of time working in Silicon Valley.  I managed both technical and manufacturing groups.  I was lucky enough to work with a very diverse work force.  This was a heady time in Silicon Valley.  Apple was just starting up.  Microsoft had not been heard of yet.  Intel still had not made the CPU for PC’s.  Milpitas, CA (where I lived) had only one Headquarters of note – Chucky Cheese (it later went on to house many technology companies).

In the San Jose Mercury News, every year they would publish a two page spread of valedictorians from the area High Schools.  In the early 80’s most of the kids featured were “white”.  That is middle class, white, and often male.  By the end of the 80’s the two page spread did not have one native born American.  Not be discriminatory, but they were all Asian, 100%.  Asians put a high value on education, very high.  This continues on to secondary education as well.  When I attended classes at a local Community College, I noticed that the math and science classes were also dominated by Asians.

The focus on education and making it a high priority is just one reason that jobs are moving overseas.  We can blame low labor cost.  But if education is as important as we say it is (and it is), companies will go to where education is valued.  Right now, it is highly valued in the Far East (India, China, Korea, Japan).  In my view, we here in the U.S. give lip service to education.  Don’t believe me. Just ask a teacher.  Parents don’t seem to care much anymore, don’t come to meetings, heck some won’t even feed their kids or get them to school on time (or there at all).

Another story involves a “buffalo”.  One time we had an assembly department working every minute of overtime we could get.  One guy, Frank, worked every minute he could.  He worked 7 days a week, 12 hour days.  Frank was a native of the Philippines.  I could not get the native born Americans to work, not like he did.

One day I mentioned to Frank that he might take a day off as he had worked every day for three months.  He laughed at that comment off and told me a story.  He said that every day back home in the Philippines, he got up before dawn, ate, and then went to work.  He spent the day plowing fields, behind a buffalo.  He quit when he sun went down, came home ate, went to sleep, repeated the next day – every day.

“Here I work in air conditioning, I operate this machine and I wear a white coat.  There’s  no buffalo to walk behind.  No heat, no sweat.   I get water when I want and eat when I want.  This?  This is not work?”  We are spoiled….

So, a company wants to build a factory.  They value hard work and need an educated workforce.  Where do you think they are going to go?  (Note: They usually won't go where the dropout rate is close to 50%, which is what it is in our major Cities around the country.)