GE is moving 500 jobs overseas, citing lapse of U.S. Export-Import Bank

(Image credit: Mike Simons/Getty Images)

last updated 16 September 2015

On Tuesday, GE announced that it is shipping 500 jobs from Texas, South Carolina, New York, and Maine to factories in France, China, and Hungary because House Republicans won't reauthorize the U.S. Export-Import Bank (Ex-Im), whose authorization expired in July after 81 years. "The U.S. remains the only major economy in the world without an Export Bank," GE said. "This is a choice that was forced on us," added GE Vice Chairman John Rice.

The Senate reauthorized the Ex-Im Bank in July, and a majority of the House backs reauthorization, too. But "House Republicans backers, including Speaker John Boehner, aren't willing to defend a small, esoteric agency against passionate conservatives," Politico notes. Those conservatives called GE's outsourcing of jobs a political stunt to put pressure on Congress to revive the bank, which mostly guarantees loans for foreign customers buying U.S. goods. They noted that 500 jobs is just a sliver of GE's U.S. workforce of 136,000.

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Peter has worked as a news and culture writer and editor at The Week since the site's launch in 2008. He covers politics, world affairs, religion and cultural currents. His journalism career began as a copy editor at a financial newswire and has included editorial positions at The New York Times Magazine, Facts on File, and Oregon State University.

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