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

[Hawk]

April Fool's Day!

[R A Jakobson]

Nice April Fools bit ... but I'm guessing that a lot of people who are unemployed here in the US will not take this in the spirit it was intended.

But my thanks for trying to make the day a bit nicer for us all.

[Morgan]

I am hoping that since this came to my inbox on April 1st it's Phil's version of an April Fools Day joke!

I have a sneaky suspicion that his British sense of humour is at work here.

[Mark Bradley]

Phil,

Sending you my doctor bill, as I'm pretty sure that I had multiple heart attacks while reading this. Along with a bill for a replacement laptop, since I spit my morning orange juice all over my current one. Especially pointed on the Lou Dobbs bit, since he has made it his part of his personal mission to target my organization.

Well done sir...

- Mark Bradley

[Richard Crespin]

If this is true -- and the Lou Dobbs panel makes me doubt it -- it will spark a trade war. Under what executive authority? Surely this needs legislation.

[Are you Kidding Me]

Lou Dobbs to head up the disciplinary panel? I guess its a nice way to pull an April Fool's Day joke IMHO;-)

[Jeff]

Happy April 1st to you as well!

[awallafashagba]

April fool right!

[Jonathan]

Good , Apil Lou Dobbs day joke ...........

[ajay]

Good One, Phil.

[dontbelievethis]

April 1st ?

[Foolhardy but not Foolish SSC Director, Europe.]

Is this right up there with the famous spaghetti trees on Panorama, and an early Aprils Fools?! But, yes, you almost had me there for a second! Ha!

[Oscar Houghtsource]

B*stard! April Fools to you, too! LOL.

[Robert Quinton]

Excellent April Fool's!! You had me going up until ... Lou Dobbs :)

[S. Kishore Kumar]

Nice one Phil. Until I saw Lob Dobbs in there, I thought you were serious!

If the US govt is willing to make up the cost difference, of course all jobs can be back-sourced. And in today's bailout economy, anything is possible!

I was watching the movie "Outsourced" recently and it brings out the cost difference neatly. There is a scene where an American buyers berates an Indian call center worker for selling him bald eagle replicas made in India. She offers to give him the phone number of an American company that make the replicas in the USA. The caller then asks the next logical question "Is their price point about the same as yours?". The answer? "$200 dollars higher"!

With unlimited trillions at his disposal, Obama could of course flirt with hyperinflation and subsidise just about anything, but I don't think he will. After eight years with The Big Mistake, you guys hit the jackpot with Obama.

[Nandu Muralidharan]

Some of the points you have stated above is not practical or feasible. Your first point is a distinct possibility rest doesn't make sense. If US does indeed go ahead(which i highly doubt) it will be the end of innovation in US and you might see lot of major companies moving out and setting up base elsewhere.

- Revoking licenses of non-US headquartered outsourcing companies - Most if not all Fortune 1000 companies will be impacted and practically there are not as many people in mkt to backfill these positions

- Moving backs jobs outsourced in last 8 yrs with 20% of first yr employee cost footed by US govt - who is going to pick the cost differential for year 1 and total cost for subsequent yrs? Last thing corporates want is increase in their costs in these tough mkt conditions. Also given the level of outsourcing and complexity of work done outside US. This is highly impossible. In addition back-filling those guys in US - no way!! There are way too many positions outsourced.

[dsinha]

Needs a Snark tag.

Would be interesting to watch the ensuing catastrophe, though.

By the way, based on our 8-month due diligence on US locations for a delivery center, I think Raliegh, Austin, Buffalo, and Huntsville, AL would make the cut as well.