Offshoring. Outsourcing. Out Of Work

摘要

It's a crazy game of Catch-22. A loud call for more U.S. EEs comes from the likes of the IEEE-USA, the Semiconductor Industry Association, the American Electronics Association, and several other groups that want to maintain and promote the United States as the world center of technical innovation. Yet jobs are scarcer than ever, as they move offshore or get eliminated through industry downsizing and restructuring. Hewlett-Packard recently announced a massive restructuring with 14,500 job cuts, including about 10% of HP Labs' technical staff. Kyocera plans to hire contract manufacturer and designer Flextronics International to replace its cell-phone manufacturing operation in North America, resulting in 1700 job cuts. San Diego-based Kyocera was producing 10 million cell phones a year.