I happened across this encouraging tidbit while reading an accounting of 10 lesser-noted trends of 2003:
2. The U.S. began to massively export white-collar jobs. Despite the high productivity of America’s 130 million employed workers, companies of all kinds discovered that they could get many jobs done for less money overseas. This was particularly true of service jobs, where one of the main requirements is mastery of English. The U.S. has no monopoly on Shakespeare’s tongue, so American managers — in fields as varied as computer programming, insurance and management consulting — shifted millions of jobs to English-speaking but lower paying India, Ireland, and various countries of the Caribbean, among others.
Emphasis mine. We need to start thinking of reasons why people in India and Ireland can’t do our jobs, and to get really noisy about what we find out (or stay really quiet, depending on our conclusions).