Whose Job is it Anyway? [Part 1]

I appreciate the comments left on the last post. I will continue the story of our undergrad as and when new developments take place. Based on feedback received, this is part one of a two part series regarding my friend Spikey Nsoft and his quest to make sure that *he* doesn't inadvertently "steal" a job.

Spikey Nsoft is a recent computer science graduate, currently seeking a job. He lives in Pinchunia - a third world country (TWC). He’s decided that he will never stoop so low as to steal anything – whether its movies from bit torrent or American Jobs. The trouble is, he needs a little help identifying an ‘American’ job.

Is working at Microsoft in Redmond stealing an American Job? What if the job was created to specifically service customers in Japan? Is that stealing a Japanese job then?

What about working for Microsoft in Pinchunia? What about working for CyberMagic – that Pinchunian company that does outsourcing work for Microsoft? How about working for Bits n’ Bytes , the restaurant that has sprouted up just to feed those hungry techies at CyberMagic?

Spikey’s mind wanders to his cousin - Pointy, who joined IBM in the US on an H1B visa (thief!) but has since then become an American citizen ... so is he still an American job thief despite being an American citizen himself?

After thinking about it for a while Spikey Nsoft figures that the nationality of a job, could possibly be determined by asking:

• What is the nationality of the Majority shareholders/Owners?

• Where is the company registered, has its headquarters and which government gets to buy $1000 toilet seats with tax money paid by the company ?

• What is the nationality of the people due to whom the job exists in the first place – the Customers being screwed served by the firm?

Spikey proceeds to apply this test to the classic “stolen American job” – Big US corporation outsourcing work to firm in third-world country. He looks at a job at CyberMagic - the outsourcing company based in Pinchunia:
Owners: Pinchunian
Based in: Pinchunia
Customers: American

Bad bad CyberMagic! Clearly if they weren’t in the picture some US company could swoop in and provide Americans employment.

Same test applied to a job at Apple Inc, based in the US:
Owners: American
Based in: America
Customers: Pinchunian (and worldwide)

Huh … So what’s going on here?

Companies like Microsoft, Google, Apple etc have their employees concentrated primarily in the US -yet sell their products globally. Are these American companies stealing jobs from the rest of the world? What about the thousands of Americans working for foreign firms like Toyota?

To be continued ...

[No, I am not Anti American or anti-anything. The US makes for an easy example - the above holds true for a number of other countries]