The economist Alan Blinder has said that Americans should choose careers
that cannot be moved offshore, concentrating on jobs that require one to be in the same city as one's work. There are many that believe America's growing inequality will create service jobs to serve the growing ranks of the rich in America -- high-end closet designers, personal trainers, hairdressers and florists or even doctors who will make house calls for an
additional fee, one of which are likely to be moved offshore.
Nandan Nilekani, the Infosys (co-chairman, board of directors), who has persuaded many American companies to move thousands of jobs to India, agrees with Blinder. He says that Americans should look at careers that cannot be delivered over a wire, that if someone is a cardiac surgeon, he is going not to be displaced. But an American radiologist could be replaced by somebody from Bangalore who will check x-rays over a wire.
Nilekani also rightly says that Americans will have to focus on education and that will help the American workforce meet the challenge (of losing jobs) with customary American ingenuity. The education investment is a must for Americans to
prosper in the newly internationalized economy, he argues. He points out that the capacity of the US to constantly reinvent itself is really extraordinary.
America is the world's largest, strongest, most resilient economy by a good measure. Americans must embrace that and walk tall into the ways of a new world shaped by the rise of India and China. They should look at this unprecedented rise and use it a catalyst to reestablish American competitiveness.
Let it be this generation's space race, a competition that inspires Americans to work harder.
You have written that if inward-facing India and Communist China can transform themselves and face the world, so can the United States of America. America has thousands of the brightest Indians from some of India's most elite schools. How can they continue to use their expertise better to transform America?
America will be lucky if Indians stay in the US. At the moment, the US has not been welcoming immigrants. That is America's loss. There are so many opportunities now in India that many non-resident Indians are moving back from the US and Europe to India -- sometimes after decades abroad!
Salaries in India can be higher for professionals than they are in the US, and the quality of life is often much better in India now. Today, well-educated Indians have so many choices. Indians can finally find prosperity and opportunity both at home and abroad.
Photograph: Indian Americans celebrate India's Independence Day. Photograph: Paresh Gandhi/Rediff India Abroad
Also read: Graphic: 20 Power Players With Ties To Beijing
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