Horses Exclusive: Obama to ban offshore outsourcing

Folks - I can exclusively reveal  - and you heard it here first - that President Obama will shortly be announcing a blanket ban on the offshoring of US jobs.  My government insider tells me that he will take the following measures:

• Any employer seeking to replace US staff with an overseas employee will have to prove it was unable to source a US employee for the role for a period of 90 days, where the position was widely advertised on national media;

• A task-force of leading US-headquartered outsourcing service providers, including IBM, ACS, CSC and HP, will be tasked with assisting US firms with their backsourcing initiatives, their fees being footed by a proposed budget ammendment that is likely to total as much as $50 billion;

• Leading outsourcing service providers which are not US-headquartered, and have more than 50% of their employees based outside of the US, will have their US trading licenses revoked and will have 30 days to wind down their US operations;

• All jobs that have moved offshore within the last 8 years, that are currently being performed for any US-domiciled organization, are to be replicated back to a US location within the next six months.  The US government will reimburse 20% of the reinstated onshore employee's salary to their employer upon completion of their first year of employment;

• CEOs who fail comply with the ruling will face a disciplinary panel headed by Lou Dobbs. 

So the battle is on between the USA's onshore locations.  Who will win out?  Albuquerque, Detroit, Nashville, Jacksonville, El Pazo?  Love to hear your thoughts...

 

You're good sports!  And my sincere apologies to the service provider which called an emergency meeting with the CEO and executive team this morning as an result.  You will never live that one down...

In all seriousness, while this was intended as April 1st humor, the fact that so many people fell for this does get you thinking about how close to reality this wave of protectionism could get.  C'mon - I thought the Lou Dobbs reference would be the big give away :)

Comments

[Gary]

I sincerely hope that Obama does ban offshoring and our congress passes very tough laws and evokes penalties for moving USA jobs overseas. There are other cost effective alternatives right here in the USA. Protectioniism is a term used by those that can't see the benefits of a strong America and live in the past. I for one will be making every effort to make sure America is first.

[Rosemary Coates]

Phil...this is just too funny! You had me going for a while!

Rosemary Coates

[Bill Huber]

I propose Blacksburg, VA. We have a major university with an excellent engineering program, fresh air, great pickers and fiddlers and folks already know how to talk Southern for every satisfactory call center experience.

[Rejo]

Mann.. I alomost had a heart attack..before I read Lou Dobbs

[Matt Perez]

Actually, I thought it was an April Fool's thing until you mentioned Lou Dobbs. That's when I started thinking it was serious...

[Andy Spence]

Funny! I can still hear the sounds of nervous laughter ripple round the globe from Bangalore to Albuquerque....

[Chris Sciacca]

Well played.

[Amit Sharma]

My Dear friend...this would be termed as protectionis and Obama is fiercely against it...please stop make uneducated guesses and write to spread positive energy...there is enough speculations because of some idiots shooting from their hip.

[Jim]

I believed everything up to Lou Dobbs.

[Bill Budde]

Heavy handed ...

Enforcement of existing labor laws (with real penalties) would be chilling enough; the first bullet point.

The tax code could be revised to force capitalization of IT expenses from offshore sources to (effectively) increase taxes on operating income.

The penalties are just not meaningful enough to curb the appetitite that labor arbitrage satisfies today.

[Charles Clark]

Is this an April Fools joke?

[Tony]

My recent government conversations hinted that back-sourced employees must join the UAW or similar union.

[John]

Nice try. With all the government intervention I almost believed it. Happy April Fools....

[sgupta]

Phil, you never know. There might actually be more truth to this that we think right now. We'll definitely see increased scrutiny and some policy changes. The lowest cost US cities with some Federal 'relief' support can become reasonably cost competitive and it's definitely a good talking point for CEOs during these times.

[Ravi Ramanathan]

Nice Try Phil!

Especially since it is an all fools day today (April 1st) that you have posted this fantasy.

You know that those points that you mentioned will never sell with businesses that depend on IT for enhancement especially a 90 day window to advertise, wait and then source! Who has the luxury of waiting that long for core IT projects to be staffed!

Ha ha, good one though, I nearly fell for this gag.

Ravi Ramanathan

[JT Pedersen]

You Win! You're the first April Fools posting I've read today.

:)
JT...

[Doug Brown, Co-Author THE BLACK BOOK OF OUTSOURCING (Wiley Publishers 2005 2008)]

Hi Phil - Is it April's Fools Day or Analyst's Fools Day???
Enjoyed the humor. Doug Brown

[Doug Gattuso]

Phil, how do you think this will apply to nearshore/NAFTA countries? Do you think the administration using "offshore" as a collective term, including all outsourcing from the US? Or, will they exclude Mexico & Canada as nearshore NAFTA trading pertners?

Protectionism defined.....

Regards,
Doug

FYI - I had a PeopleSoft delivery center years ago (100+ FTE's) in Huntsville/Athens AL...worked out very well...great source of technical resources...favorable economics...

[Jon Simon]

Phil: Thanks for the breaking news, as always. The Lou Dobbs portion of this sounds odd...almost comical. One would assume that the low-cost "On-Shore" locations with the best scalability and logistics capability will capture the moajority of the spoils...that tends to favor the southern-most cities (weather and travel logistics). Although, the political nature of the initiative (if you can call it that) will send favor and influence to cities like Buffalo and certian Midwest locales.

-Jon Simon

[Ray Siebert]

April Fools?
Ray