Answer:
Traditionally, economists and politicians all have argued that globalization led to outsourcing blue collar jobs or manufacturing jobs. But high skilled jobs, were still being carried out in the US, which meant that the good salaries and the highly trained employees remained.
In the recent years this assumption is falling apart. Many high skilled jobs, specially in the technology sector, have been outsourced to poor countries, specially India. The reasons why this happens are basically 3:
- The demand for highly trained employees increased and exceeds the supply (which is not bad).
- Formerly, highly trained employees from developing nations could enter the US labor force more easily. Changes in immigration laws have made it harder for high skilled immigrants to be able to work in the US (politicians are to blame).
- Corporations make a larger profit by hiring high skilled labor from poor countries, e.g. a n Indian engineer earns 20 times less than an American engineer (corporate greed is the culprit).
The US and other developed countries can really hurt from the outsourcing of highly skilled workers. It is simply unrealistic to believe that just because an engineer is American, he/she will be better than someone from other place. There is no biologic or cultural basis for believing that, all you need to do is look at where Steve Jobs, Elon Musk, Serguei Brin, Sundar Pichai and many others were born.
The basic reason why America became the world's most powerful country is that immigrants that searched for a better life were able to develop and carry out ideas here. Many of these immigrants would have never been able to do something great if they hadn't come to America. E.g. Apple wouldn't exist if Steve Jobs had remained in Syria, Google, Tesla wouldn't either: if you go back 60 years in time, FB wouldn't exist if Mark Zuckerberg's had gone somewhere else. The list goes on and on, and many American corporations were formed by immigrants.
America grew because it attracted talent, but now it is repelling it. When corporations hire foreign talent they are not just saving money, they are killing American jobs that are not easily replaceable. It is not the same to fire someone that flips hamburgers, than to fire someone that develops software.
The government should stop this, since it is fairly simple to do it. Many developed countries like Canada or Australia base their immigration policies on merit and qualifications. If a person is highly trained and is able to perform specialized jobs, then they are allowed to immigrate. If they are not highly skilled, then, bye bye. E.g. there are millions of highly trained people from Latin-america and Asia that could serve the US economy and help it grow. Instead there are millions of very low skilled immigrant workers that add very little to the US economy. The government can also impose a special tax on highly skilled outsourced jobs. That tax would be legal, unlike import tariffs that violate the rules of the WTO.
