AT&T CEO says hard to find skilled U.S. workers

[Shogun]

SAN ANTONIO, Texas (Reuters) - The head of the top U.S. phone company AT&T Inc (T.N) said on Wednesday it was having trouble finding enough skilled workers to fill all the 5,000 customer service jobs it promised to return to the United States from India

"We're having trouble finding the numbers that we need with the skills that are required to do these jobs," AT&T Chief Executive Randall Stephenson told a business group in San Antonio, where the company's headquarters is located.

So far, only around 1,400 jobs have been returned to the United States of 5,000, a target it set in 2006, the company said, adding that it maintains the target.

Stephenson said he is especially distressed that in some U.S. communities and among certain groups, the high school dropout rate is as high as 50 percent.

"If I had a business that half the product we turned out was defective or you couldn't put into the marketplace, I would shut that business down," he said.

Gone are the days when AT&T and other U.S. companies had to hire locally, he said.

"We're able to do new product engineering in Bangalore as easily as we're able to do it in Austin, Texas," he said, referring to the Indian city where many international companies have "outsourced" technical and customer support workers.

"I know you don't like hearing that, but that's the way it is," he said.

Stephenson said neither he nor most Americans liked the situation, and the solution was a stronger U.S. focus on education and keeping jobs. Business needed to help, such as AT&T's repatriation of service positions and education grants, he added.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20080327/tc_nm/att_workforce_dc


*cough* bullshit *cough*


a Ceo cant find technical employees in the most educated nation on the face of the planet probably isn't making lame assed excuses for outsourcing jobs in order to maximize profit by pinking his staff... from India. A nation who still venerates cows.

 

[Ravi]

That guy's lying. One of my brothers worked for a huge credit company that employed thousands of people in just those jobs all around the country. A couple of years ago they moved their operations to India and all those people lost their jobs.

ATT just isn't looking very hard.

 

[manifold]

Maybe he's not lying. Maybe their offering $7.50/hour.

 

[midcan5]

I agree that is BS, especially since most of those jobs follow scripts. Call India sometime and you know the person is simply following some scripted expert system, two minutes into a unresolved call they are tapping their neighbor on the shoulder for help.

 

[Shogun]

whats more.. some conservative will take this as an indication that TAXES on the wealthy caused this apparent vacuum of American employees who can manage to work the headset and telephone.

 

[nibor]

Tell the same lies long enough and people believe them..................we've been living it since that asshole Reagan started spinning it.................and now the lie is universal..................some of these beaurocratic basTARDS oughta be clubbed like seals for creating the scenario...........

 

[Shogun]

the same people who wrap themselves up in a flag shaped lapel pin as if they give a damn about the American people the day after an election.

 

[nibor]

I think............let all the rats jump off the ship................THEN LOCK the ship, kick all the corporations that jumped, OUT, DISALLOW THEM FROM DUMPING THEIR JUNK ON US ANYMORE................... RETOOL AND START AGAIN without all these fucking traitors, who care nothing of the strength and welfare of this nation.....................and only our money which isn't worth dick anymore, just like the garbage they're feeding us...............

 

[Shogun]

I say offer a scale of complete tax write off depending on the percentage of job created in the US. multinational conglomerates can have a tariff imposed on all imported goods. We are, by default, facilitating China's communism by not making them create markets in their own nation while using the US as a primer to start their adventure in capitolism. The same with India. Why should they create a middle class in their own society when ours is disposable?

 

[nibor]

I say offer a scale of complete tax write off depending on the percentage of job created in the US. multinational conglomerates can have a tariff imposed on all imported goods. We are, by default, facilitating China's communism by not making them create markets in their own nation while using the US as a primer to start their adventure in capitolism. The same with India. Why should they create a middle class in their own society when ours is disposable?

WHAT jobs, useless service jobs plugged in on a customer service telephone>>>>>>>?

we are headed in completely the wrong direction!!!!!!!!!!

 

[Shogun]

the value of a job is not inherent. even wal mart jobs could support a middle class if it werent hellbent on maximizing profit for investors. the lowered VALUE of work in America is exactly why corporate America doesnt side with it's usual right wing on immigration and is exactly why the "free traders" scream to high heaven regardless of the aftermath of their quest for profit.

 

[nibor]

We need NEW industry.....................new products, and new technologies that are here but being squeltched by these price gouging traitors........WE CAN COMPETE and have in all product areas existing.....................but we have traitors running us into the ground and discounting our society for pennies on the dollar..............

 

[Shogun]

id agree with that... I made my suggestion to the problem of fossil fuel consuming vehicles not too long ago.

but, I also think we need to crack down on businesses that use America like a Tumbu Fly uses an incubator.

 

[Kid Pickle]

Why give tax breaks only if a company creates jobs in the U.S.? Where is the incentive? Business owners aren't stupid. They know bait-and-switch when they see it. We have one of the highest corporate tax rates in the world. Combine that with stifling regulations and there is no incentive to operate in the U.S. when you can do it cheaper and easier somewhere else.

In addition, there is something to the fact that we are pathetic when it comes to general technical and people skills. The education system is a failure. Our society rewards crass and crude behavior. Nobody knows how to communicate in a pleasant and considerate manner. It is damn hard to get decent employees anywhere these days, especially if they have to think and deal with frustrated, confused people. The average twenty-something today is likely to give a snide answer and hang up on the first pissed person they talk to.

 

[nibor]

Uh yeah and then to be reconditioned over the last 25 years to believe that they're just out there to git paaaaaiduh without getting their hands dirty, duh yeah that works just axe the welfare dept.

 

[Shogun]

Why give tax breaks only if a company creates jobs in the U.S.? Where is the incentive? Business owners aren't stupid. They know bait-and-switch when they see it. We have one of the highest corporate tax rates in the world. Combine that with stifling regulations and there is no incentive to operate in the U.S. when you can do it cheaper and easier somewhere else.

In addition, there is something to the fact that we are pathetic when it comes to general technical and people skills. The education system is a failure. Our society rewards crass and crude behavior. Nobody knows how to communicate in a pleasant and considerate manner. It is damn hard to get decent employees anywhere these days, especially if they have to think and deal with frustrated, confused people. The average twenty-something today is likely to give a snide answer and hang up on the first pissed person they talk to.

where is the incentive? Being able to hock their goods to a nation that it clearly has no regard for? I hate to break it to ya but this nation didn't occur just so some corporate non-entitity can avoid taxes by way of a tropical island and a mile of excuses regarding outsourcing.

yea.. blame education fest 2008 DESPITE having a general population that is LIGHT YEARS ahead of... fucking INDIA?

yes.. INDIA.. . the apparent education capital of the world.




indeed.. this has nothing at ALL to do with the minimizing of labor costs.. nope.. it's always the consumers fault for not wanting to pay more for the cost of our modern version of child labor... pooooor poor non-entity corporate conglomerate.. Gosh.. my nuts ACHE that no one believes such obivous bullshit coming from a ceo of AT&T..


bottom line.. if AT&T wants to put profit above the nation they leach off of then let them take their shit to India and market their wares there. America could use some wealth shakeup anyway.

 

[AllieBaba]

the value of a job is not inherent. even wal mart jobs could support a middle class if it werent hellbent on maximizing profit for investors. the lowered VALUE of work in America is exactly why corporate America doesnt side with it's usual right wing on immigration and is exactly why the "free traders" scream to high heaven regardless of the aftermath of their quest for profit.

Walmart jobs do support a middle class. Lower middle class, but middle class all the same.
And you've got it backwards. Walmart jobs could support an upper middle class if we weren't hell-bent on depleting profits for mid-level businesses, and making it impossible for entrepreneurs to grow their businesses, and taxing the crap out of single, ambitious people who are trying to get ahead.

I think it's pathetic that small business owners bring home less money than Taco Time employees, because of all the taxes they have to pay. They make less than their employees, and I know this because I did the books for an attorney. Every month...pay the employees, pay the taxes, pay the bills...and pay the attorney. There were months when she brought home $700 and less.

 

[Shogun]

id say that wal mart doesn't do to the middle class what was done with the middle class during our manufacturing boom. Back when working auto lines guaranteed a solid income AND, consequently, a solid platform by which to raise a family. Sure, it undermines mom and pop stores... but mom and pop stores are not the excuse that an AT&T exec used to justify sending jobs to India.


Further, without some sort of stop loss policy on American jobs we are looking at becoming a society with a higher rate of consumption than employment. In fact, I find it irrevocably sad that the "economic stimulus" package will end up going strait into the gas tank and then strait out of America.


I'd reward American companies for investing in Americans. If at all possible I'd do so with cutting taxes according to jobs created in America. If some capitolist cocksucker can't handle that then he is free to sell his citizenship to an Indian while he is giving orientation in New Dehli

 

[nibor]

where is the incentive? Being able to hock their goods to a nation that it clearly has no regard for? I hate to break it to ya but this nation didn't occur just so some corporate non-entitity can avoid taxes by way of a tropical island and a mile of excuses regarding outsourcing.

yea.. blame education fest 2008 DESPITE having a general population that is LIGHT YEARS ahead of... fucking INDIA?

yes.. INDIA.. . the apparent education capital of the world.




indeed.. this has nothing at ALL to do with the minimizing of labor costs.. nope.. it's always the consumers fault for not wanting to pay more for the cost of our modern version of child labor... pooooor poor non-entity corporate conglomerate.. Gosh.. my nuts ACHE that no one believes such obivous bullshit coming from a ceo of AT&T..


bottom line.. if AT&T wants to put profit above the nation they leach off of then let them take their shit to India and market their wares there. America could use some wealth shakeup anyway.

Here here dump them as they're trying to dump us...................


I've not heard enough about how SLAVERY RULES THE COUNTRIES IN QUESTION however..................Christ the next thing you know the whole damned world will think they're due reparations..................

 

[Toro]

I don't know about this specific case, but given that the majority of doctoral students in the sciences are foreign born, and wages have risen fairly significantly for highly technical staff, its fairly reasonable to assume that there is a shortage of specific workers in this country.