Blackbirding: yesterday's offshoring model today and tomorrow

FINANCE professionals face a nervous end to the financial year as employers eye offshoring roles and greater use of technology to boost productivity, as a raft of major companies step up their focus on costs amid soft activity Offshoring Watch

I am one of the nearly one in five people under the age of 25 who are unemployed in Australia. I'm 24 years old, have two university degrees and have been on Centrelink payments for six months. I am classed as a job-seeker and having just reached my six-month threshold, I have to undertake a skills test that Centrelink believes will help me gain employment Pass it on: give Gen Y more than a foot in the door

Telstra axes jobs in offshoring drive We’re expecting to move those 170 roles across [to India)
IBM Australia is in the midst of axing up to 1500 Australian staff in a reshuffle that will send many jobs offshore to Asia and New Zealand, according to sources IBM

ANOTHER day, another how many hundred jobs to go?
IBM is reportedly letting go 1500 or so people from its Australian operation, shifting jobs to cheaper offshore locations. Rio Tinto is shedding hundreds of jobs from its Western Australian iron ore mines. The ANZ bank says about 600 jobs are going offshore to help it keep its profits up. We already knew that General Motors was cutting more than 1000 jobs, and now it's started leaning on its remaining staff to take a pay cut and on the government to pay more protection money. Falling into the unknown abyss

Australian economist Martin Feil was most damning when he said offshoring was “just another form of blackbirding”, placing foreign workers into a form of slavery. By off shoring, Australian bosses don’t have to worry about foreign workers’ “holidays, sick leave, occupational health and safety, overtime rates ... or superannuation”. Offshoring is a hermaphroditic word. It doesn't really describe one thing or another. What it means is transferring jobs from Australia to countries that have lower labour costs than Australian wage rates. This is regarded as a big productivity gain for firms as it reduces their costs and increases their profits. blackbirding

As recently reported, the Royal Bank of Canada has brought in 20 workers from India to learn part of the bank’s information-technology system. Once trained, these workers will help relocate 45 current positions to an “RBC offshore development centre” in Bangalore The biggest downside to sending jobs offshore is the loss of opportunities for unemployed Canadians