crisis-globalBy Dustin Ensinger

While some in congress and the White House are feverishly trying to stem the tide of job loss by imposing H-1B visa hiring restrictions, forcing “buy American” clauses on government contractors and moving America’s economy into the 21st Century with a whole host of newly created “green jobs,” American companies have thwarted those efforts.

According to the Brown-Wilson Group’s 2009 Green Outsourcing Report, since the beginning of the year 22,000 green technology jobs have been outsourced to India.

Perhaps the most disturbing aspect of the report was the fact that not only are thousands of jobs – jobs which are supposed to be the wave of the future – being outsourced to India, but that the “green collar jobs” left in America are not high quality.

“In the U.S., green stimulus plan is creating low-wage installation and construction jobs,” the report found.  India, on the other hand, which is well known for its low wages and lack of skill generally found in its workforce, is the beneficiary of the higher paying, highly skilled jobs.

In India “…New green jobs include higher dollar engineers, strategic business management and support technicians charged with designing innovative environmental friendly solutions,”

Leading the list of outsourcers were well-known American companies, including the Xerox Corporation, the Oracle Corporation, The Hewlett-Packard Company, Accenture Limited, International Business Machines Corporation and Perot Systems.

Unfortunately the report found that the outsourcing of green jobs is a trend that is likely to continue.

“We see the (green job offshoring) trend increasing as the U.S. and the UK outsourcing buyers are seeking lower cost in labor and energy consumption. There are few suppliers who match credentials and outcomes of Indian firms,” it said.

The Obama administration had vowed to create a new economy based on green technology.  To affirm that commitment it even invested $150 billion over the next ten years to create five million green collar jobs.

“It is critical that we understand this is not just a challenge, it’s an opportunity, because if we create a new energy economy, we can create five million new jobs, easily,” he has said.  “It can be an engine that drives us into the future the same way the computer was the engine for economic growth over the last couple of decades.  We can do it, but we’re going to have to make an investment.”

That opportunity is rapidly slipping away.  At the current rate, by the time five million green collar jobs are created, roughly one-fifth of those will be outsourced to India alone.  It is likely to be even more before that time, as the report found, the trend of outsourcing green jobs is likely to continue.

Source: www.economyincrisis.org/www.expressbuzz.com