Actually, speaking of sharing ...

[Niall Douglas]

I feel the below is a bad idea. Not because I've been unemployed for 
more than a year now and more competition means that getting worse, 
but because the rich west brain draining the third world of their 
best and brightest is a particularly nasty form of exploitation.

They should be able to stay in their own countries who paid for their 
education and develop a competing industry and thus wealth generation 
at home. Of course, world trade rules are heavily biased against them 
doing that which is why illegal immigrants are flooding western 
borders. Many thanks globalisation! :(

Thoughts?

Cheers,
Niall

http://www.contractoruk.com/cgi-
bin/item.cgi?id=9213&d=193&h=220&f=223

70 countries sign up for completely free EU IT jobs market offer


Yes Please

Last week we reported that in the latest GATS negotiations under the 
auspices of the World Trade organisation, that the EU had made an 
offer to the other WTO members (here) to open its door to skilled IT 
people from other countries, provided those countries opened up their 
doors to our multi-national companies.  

We referred to is as giving away the contents of the sweetie shop, 
whilst noting that this was just the EU’s opening offer.  

Well surprise, surprise. There’s been a huge uptake of this offer. 
Already over 70 of the 130 WTO member states have signed up for it.  

Hello Boys  

The offer was:-  

“In computer services, a sector that is key to the development of the 
Information Society in Europe, the Commission proposes to offer full 
market access to foreign service providers.  

This should enable the EU to benefit from the best performing 
computer services at the lowest cost, with a view to fulfil our 
"Lisbon objectives" and have Europe become the most competitive 
society in the world.  

The Commission's proposal addresses the interests of both developing 
countries that are seeking better access to our market and of EU 
countries that are in need for state-of-the-art computer services and 
IT infrastructure.  

Foreign computer experts will for instance be allowed to provide 
maintenance and repair services for computer systems and networks in 
the EU”.  

Very Good Response  

According to the EU:-  

“Out of the more than 130 WTO members, more than 70 have committed 
the sub-sectors "Computer and related" and "Other business", but only 
46 have committed "Research & Development" and "Rental & Leasing", 
and only 28 WTO Members have entered commitments for "Real Estate 
services".  

It’s not surprising that so many countries have signed up to what 
seems a very generous offer, i.e. to open the EU market up completely 
to non-EU skilled IT workers.  

Our industry appears to have been used as the bait to extract 
concessions from developing countries for our big companies.  

According to the EU documents, the USA, Japan and Canada have made 
similar offers, so it looks as if it is globally coordinated.  

India, for one, has said that the offer does not go far enough.  

Still Time  

The current GATS negotiations are not due to complete until early in 
2005, and I presume they will be implemented soon after that.  

However, between now and then there will have been an election in the 
US in November 2004, and there will have been elections in many of 
the EU states too.  

These negotiations have not hit the headlines yet, but there is a 
growing reportage of the leak of skilled jobs offshore and of the 
numbers of people who are coming to the UK to replace UK workers.  

This is not a done deal.  

However it is a deal that the major countries, the developing 
countries, the major multi-nationals and the major IT consultancies 
want.  

It remains to be seen what the people of the western countries think 
about it once it has been brought to their attention.  

Gerry McLaughlin