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Jones demands an end to federal program training foreign workers to take American jobs
Story Date: 4/23/2012
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Source: PRESS RELEASE, 4/20/12
This week U.S. Congressman Walter B. Jones (NC-3) demanded that the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) immediately suspend a program to train workers in the Philippines for jobs in English-speaking call centers, as reported this week in Information Week. In recent years, the Philippines has become a magnet for customer service call centers outsourced by companies in the United States and other English-speaking countries to reduce operating costs. In a letter sent to USAID Administrator Rajiv Shah, Congressman Jones and his colleague Congressman Tim Bishop (NY-1) pledged to “use every legislative option available to permanently prohibit USAID from engaging in such practices in the future.”
“Using Americans’ hard-earned taxpayer dollars to fund the training of foreign nationals to take our jobs is absolutely crazy and totally unacceptable,” said Congressman Jones. “Uncle Sam is over $15 trillion in debt and unemployment is still elevated because of policies like this, and it’s got to stop.”
In 2010, Jones and Bishop compelled USAID to abandon a similar high-tech training program for outsourcing industry workers in Sri Lanka, with the agency committing to "conduct a review to ensure the project will not take any jobs away from Americans."
Congressman Jones is a long-time opponent of foreign aid spending. He has voted against every foreign aid appropriations bill in the last 17 years.
A copy of Congressman Jones’ letter to the USAID Administrator can be viewed here
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