An op-ed piece in the NY Times (registration required) provides another data point to show that outsourcing jobs to other countries is not the national crisis the mainstream media has tried to make it.
The author provides data that shows the U.S., as other studies have suggested, is actually showing net gains from outsourcing. That is, outsourcing low pay, low skills jobs creates other business opportunities that more than offset the direct job loss.
As the author notes, this data is not a great comfort to a region that has lost those jobs. Factory floor workers who have had their jobs outsourced need training and help to be able to compete for the higher wage, higher skill jobs that are being created.
For rural communities, it's another indicator that business as usual just won't work. The Old Economy jobs being lost cannot be replaced by more aggressive industrial recruitment, better brochures, or a new logo--all things I've seen promoted as "proof" of a revitalized local economic development program.
What does work? Here are some things that are important in the Knowledge Economy:
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Recognition and acceptance that most new jobs are likely to be created by businesses already in your community. Action step: Diversify your economic development program into three parts: continue industrial recruitment (30% of resources), but add education, training, and support of existing local businesses (40% of resources), and create an entrepreneurship development program to create new, local businesses (30% of resources).
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Tightly couple technology council, chamber of commerce, and economic development efforts. In some communities, all three entities are working in stovepipe efforts with little or no cooperation and are often competing with each other for the same community support and resources. Local leaders should withold funds if these groups do not work together on substantive projects.
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Make your community Web portal, your economic development Web portal, and your local government portals as good as they can be. Companies and entrepreneurs looking for a place to relocate use the Web heavily to make early relocation decisions. Without a strong, well-funded, and well-staffed Web effort, you are crippling your recruitment program.
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Make sure you have a regional technology master plan. This is a vital tool for recruiting companies and entrepreneurs into the area. Even if you don't have affordable broadband in some places in your region, having a plan to get it there puts you well ahead of communities that are not doing the planning. Master planning also can save tax dollars and lower the cost of doing business in your region--another recruitment tool.