Monday, February 11, 2008

Selfish Confession


It is but natural for man to be selfish. I read in Time Online before that people in general feel better when others are in worse conditions than they are. That way, they are in relatively better situation.

With the US "recession", I am sure a lot of us on this side of the world are glad because the currency exchange rate is becoming more in favor of us-travel and imported goods are cheaper, etc. May I remind that this is not totally attributed to the Philippine economy doing better than US, but mostly because the US dollar is weakening.

I mentioned sometime ago here in my blog that I work in a middle office for what I strongly believe to be the best financial company in the world. We do work for them and it creates huge savings like call centers do for their counterparts.

The sad reality is that while we gain jobs from the outsourcing industry, others lose theirs. And as much as we are happy that higher minimum wages, overhead costs, and shrinking profits outside are encouraging companies to hire someplace else where labor is cheap like India and the Philippines thus creating job opportunities, when you think of it, you are part of the reason why people in the US for instance are losing their jobs (equivalently, losing their homes and sticking to a tighter budget) and or finding it hard to get a job.

Speaking on their behalf, it is unfair competition because they have not way in beating the low wages we offer.

What is ideal is that each country rely on their own economy in terms of job generation. That each country become self sustaining, creating jobs because of high internal demand. Income generated from the outsourcing industry is "superficial". It makes you think that the low unemployment rate is due to better economic activity (true, better investments). The fact is, this makes us more dependent to other countries. In short, we are nothing if other countries cease to exist. If we were doing really well, how come other people continue to leave the country for work?

Thus, as much as I am more than happy to invite in job opportunities, I wish that this outsourcing dependency is temporary, that jobs be created for the local industry, and that in the near future, Filipinos do not have to look someplace else to earn money.

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