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W.Va. Can Compete With India For Jobs
Corporations can outsource to rural states
December 27 2004 Download PDF
We outsource lots of jobs to India these days. Why not outsource them to West Virginia?
Kathy Brittain White of Rural Sourcing says virtually the same thing. In fact, the former
chief information officer for Cardinal Health, the big drug distributor, is currently
outsourcing jobs to Arkansas and will soon be outsourcing them to New Mexico and
North Carolina.
I heard about White and her new company on NBC News about a week ago. I learned
much more about her business and her philosophy at her company's Web site --
http://www.ruralsource.com.
Her reasoning is impeccable. The cost of living in Arkansas is about half of what it is in
the big cities. That means that those with high-tech job skills similar to those Indians to
which jobs are being outsourced will work for less money than those who live in New
York City, Arlington, Va., or the Silicon Valley in California.
White says on her company's Web site that when you add factors such as the cost of
travel and communication and cultural differences, U.S. companies can find it
economically feasible to hire contract workers in rural areas of the U.S. instead of India
and other developing nations.
"It really does come very close," White told NBC.
Her first Rural Sourcing center with 15 employees is on the campus of Arkansas State
University in Jonesboro, her alma mater. She'll open two more in 2005 -- one in New
Mexico and one in North Carolina.
Why not West Virginia?
West Virginia is painfully aware of the downside to outsourcing.
State officials continue to look for high-tech jobs to compensate for all the tech and
manufacturing jobs that have left to go overseas. Thousands of mountaineers have trained
for various levels of technical jobs only to find that many of the jobs have been sent
overseas.
White is a missionary who is spreading the word that rural folks will often settle for less
money if they can remain in the rural areas where they were born, where their kin live,
and where they feel comfortable. Besides all that, housing is cheaper in rural America and life in general is less expensive.
My son was paying $1,500 monthly rental for a townhouse in Arlington, Va., before he
was able to land a high-tech job that allowed him to come home to West Virginia.
Now he pays about $850 monthly rental for a house three times the size of his Arlington,
Va., digs. And his Huntington home comes with a private in-ground swimming pool and
friendly neighbors.
So the bottom line is this: Why don't folks from state government contact White to see if
she'd consider locating one of her centers in West Virginia, one of the most rural of rural
states? Wouldn't this fit in with the plans of Gov.-elect Joe Manchin?
And for starters, why not consider WVU Tech at Montgomery as the first location for a
Rural Sourcing Center in West Virginia?
I don't know if White is interested in expanding to West Virginia. But it never hurts to
ask.
Is there anyone in state government interested in asking? |
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