Sen. Lieberman (D-CT)

Washington :Instead of lamenting that American jobs are being hijacked to India and China, the United States has to first stop blaming others and “face some hard facts to set its own house in order,” says Senator Joe Lieberman (D-CT). He was speaking at a discussion on ‘Offshore Outsourcing and America’s Competitive Edge: Losing Out In High Technology R & D Services Sectors,’ organized by the New America Foundation, a Washington, D.C.-based think tank, on May 11.

The American economy, Lieberman said, has failed to adapt to fundamental changes and to growing competition in the global economy. If this trend continued, the U.S. will not only lose jobs but also its innovation infrastructure and along with it, its competitive edge in the global market.

“To meet the challenge of outsourcing of American jobs the United States has to first stop blaming others and face some hard facts. The is just the tip of an economic iceberg that America is sailing towards,” he said.

Lieberman, who was the vice presidential candidate in 2000, said he would soon introduce a legislation to analyze the outsourcing problem in services and manufacturing and offer bipartisan solutions to preserve innovation infrastructure and create high wage jobs.

Lieberman made a presentation without bashing or blaming India and China, where most of the American high-tech jobs are headed due to outsourcing. His remarks were confined to the U.S. and its lack of, what he called, “vision, strategy and political will” to face the challenges of outsourcing.

He said outsourcing is not new. It is really just a variation of the division of labor, a defining feature of capitalism. But what is new is its global reach and technical reach. Earlier, it was in the manufacturing sector, now it has affected the services sector, which offers almost 83 percent of all jobs, employing nearly 86 million people. “The services sector dominates our economy. Besides customer call centers and data entry facilities higher skilled professional jobs like computer chip design, information technology services, programming, architecture, engineering, consulting, automotive design and pharmaceutical research are beginning to go overseas,” he noted.

But what is really alarming, Lieberman said, was the outsourcing of the research and development sector. American companies now invest $17 billion in R&D abroad every year. Information technology multinationals have now established 223 R&D centers in China alone, he said.

“Protectionist measures, spelt out in several state legislations, will only keep other jobs out and invite retaliation that will cost us many of the millions of American jobs that are based on exports,” said Lieberman.

The only way to stop outsourcing and preserve American jobs, he said, was for “America to rise to the international competition and grow again through innovation, education, investment, trade, training and hard work. This is the only way we can achieve growth and the jobs we want and need.”