Job-Loss Bill Proposed

Over the next few years, financial services companies have the potential to save close to $30 billion by migrating approximately 500,000 jobs offshore, says Andrea H. Bierce, vice president and managing director, A.T. Kearney (Chicago). With the goal of getting the government to recognize the implications for IT workers, Congressman Adam Smith (D-Wash.) is proposing a bill to provide government-funded training and cash assistance to IT workers whose jobs are sent offshore.

Smith plans to propose an expansion to the Trade Adjustment Assistance program, developed about 40 years ago to assist U.S. manufacturing workers who had lost their jobs due to global trade expansion. Smith decided to draft the proposal after learning that technology workers who had lost their jobs and applied for assistance were denied by the U.S. Department of Labor. "If people are out of work, we ought to have job training available to them," Smith says.

The federal program provides laid-off workers with vouchers to pay for job training classes for up to two years, and with weekly cash payments that average $200 once regular unemployment compensation expires. n

This article originally appeared in InformationWeek, a sister publication of I&T.