I read a similar rationalization of offshore tech jobs (programming, specifically) a couple of weeks ago (I don't remember where or who wrote it). The jist of it was that prgramming is menial and such jobs are more efficently done elsewhere. In the meantime, all those newly unemployed programmers are supposed to "trickle up" to project management and higher engineering jobs.

Um. No. That's a pretty broad assumption. How many million project managers do we need, anyway? And what if those programmers LIKE programming and don't want to be program managers? What about all the side-effect jobs that are lost when the office closes because the handful of project managers left behind can all work from home?

...and as for the extra $8 mil for the employment claims contract, that sounds to me like an investment in the state economy, not an expense. Sheesh!

Call me unreconstructed, but doesn't work for American workers mean FEWER calls for the police, uninsured medical bills, etc.? And we know the schools are just the frosting on the cake that is served at home, so having at least one employed parent should be a GOOD thing. Who knows, maybe they could even pay their school levy, something a foreign company is never going to do.