Items A, B, C: experts project current and future figures
D. UC's co-op programs expand, making overseas assignments
E. Increasing marketability with overseas experience
F. Fewer rewards for future workers abroad
G/H. What it's like to work abroad from former and current UC students
I. A dissenter predicts the number of U.S. workers abroad will decline

Armageddon is a real place in Israel's Jezreel Valley, and UC adjunct professor and post-doctoral fellow in classics Eric Cline is writing a book on this fated site which has seen at least 35 battles. His upcoming book, The Battles of Armageddon, is under contract for a summer 2000 release through the University of Michigan Press.

"With more than 35 battles in 4,500 years, it's no wonder that the author of the Book of Revelation...concluded that the final battle between good and evil and evil would take place there," said Cline who serves as a senior staff archaeologist for an excavation project at Megiddo every other summer. (The excavation project's Web site is http://www.digmegiddo.com).

The earliest battle Cline uncovered pitted the Egyptian Pharaoh Pepi I against the "Asiatic Sand-Dwellers" in 2350 B.C. Other battes: Napoleon Bonaparte claimed victory over the Ottomans there in 1799, Saladin engaged Crusaders in at least four stand-offs from 1182-1187, and more recently, Israelis and Arabs clashed there in 1948, 1967 and 1973. contact: 513-556-3170


2. WORKING ABROAD...A BROADENING TREND?
More American than ever may be working abroad than ever before, but just how many remains an elusive statistic. According to July 1999 figures from the U.S. Department of State Bureau of Consular Affairs, 3.78 million U.S. private citizens live abroad, but these figures do not say how many of them work while abroad.

A. BUREAU OF ECONOMIC ANALYSIS ESTIMATES
In the Year 2000 census, the U.S. Census Bureau does not plan to count Americans residing overseas unless they are military or civilian government personnel. The U.S. Department of Commerce's Bureau of Economic Analysis did a survey that counted U.S. citizens on permanent payroll working overseas for U.S. multinational corporations. That number 21,500 (1994) does not include employees who go overseas for temporary assignments and represents just a small subset of the total overseas employment of Americans, according to Raymond Mataloni, economist with the U.S. Bureau of Economic Analysis. contact Mataloni at 202-606-9867

B. "JOBS WORLDWIDE" AND NATIONAL FOREIGN TRADE COUNCIL ESTIMATES
According to Benedict Leerburger, co-author of "Jobs Worldwide," an estimated 2 million U.S. citizens live and work abroad (1995). A solid figure on overseas employment simply does not yet exist, says Bill Sheridan, director of international compensation services at the National Foreign Trade Council. "But we think there is probably at least a half a million. We do a yearly survey of 300 companies who employ 100,000 U.S. citizens overseas," he said. Procter & Gamble alone has 1,000 U.S. expatriates overseas each year, according to Sheridan. contact Leerburger at 914-472-2470; contact Sheridan at 212-399-7128

C. NUMBERS TO KEEP RISING
Whatever the numbers, they are bound to keep rising steadily, although not necessarily explosively, predicts Riall Nolan, director of the Institute for Global Affairs and Studies at the University of Cincinnati. Nolan, the author of "Communicating and Adapting Across Cultures: Living and Working in the Global Village," adds that with those increasing numbers of Americans working abroad comes increased anxieties. "One way to reduce the anxieties, and enhance the experiences and effectiveness on the job, is to provide globally oriented education while folks are still in school."

That's part of the reason UC and higher education in general have stepped up efforts to give students global exposure. UC, for example, established a Globalization Initiative in 1994 that strives to have students "get outta town" and bolsters international "virtual" connections via interactive technology. contact Nolan at 513-556-4402

D. UC'S CO-OP PROGRAMS EXPAND, MAKING OVERSEAS ASSIGNMENTS
UC's co-operative education program, the first one founded in the nation in 1906, has also expanded overseas. Since the formation of UC's International Engineering Program in 1993, 111 UC students have co-oped for companies in Germany, France and Japan. Students receive intense cultural and language preparation before leaving on their assignments. The program is expanding into Spanish this spring. contacts are Nolan at 513-556-4402; Gayle Elliott of UC's International Cooperative Education Programs, 513-556-5433

E. INCREASING MARKETABILITY WITH OVERSEAS EXPERIENCE
Clay Hubbs, editor and publisher of "Transitions Abroad," a magazine catering to people seeking and adjusting to overseas educational opportunities and employment, and editor of "Work Abroad: The Complete Guide to Finding a Job Overseas" and the "Alternative Travel Directory: The Complete Guide to Traveling, Studying & Living Overseas," also expects the globalization of employment to expand. "Those with international experience will be in greater and greater demand. Incidentally, increasing numbers of undergraduate students are getting this message and acting on it -- by searching for internship opportunities abroad. With the phenomenal increase in the use of the Internet in commerce and communication, there's every reason to think that there will be a similar increase in international careers." contact: 413-256-3414

F. FEWER REWARDS FOR FUTURE WORKERS ABROAD
UC's Riall Nolan, director of the Institute for Global Affairs and Studies at UC, states that within the next 10-15 years, companies will stop "over-rewarding" workers for accepting assignments abroad. "It's going to become more of an expectation that you will work overseas." He also foresees that more and more, American workers' overseas destinations will be in Third World nations. contact: 513-556-4402

G. WHAT'S IT LIKE TO WORK ABROAD?
Among the current ranks of Americans working abroad is Benjamin Lang, UC graduate and native of Swanton, Ohio (near Toledo), who got his first experience working abroad in 1998 as a UC co-op student. His first overseas experience was with Toyobo, Co. Ltd. in Japan as a researcher in company's polymer division. Lang came back to graduate from UC but deferred his entry into law school to take another overseas position, this time working as a coordinator of international relations for the City of Iwamizawa in Japan. "Every once in a while, I get a minor case of culture shock, but on the whole, things are going very smoothly. It's not the things that everyone frets about that really get you (like power toilets, eating pseudo-live fish), it's the subtle things...Everyone smoking in the office. Sometimes, by the end of the day, it's hard to see through the fog. ATMs that close at 6 p.m....Japanese drivers...What's recycling?" contact: langbo@email.uc.edu; Home: 81-1-126-22-3220; Work: 81-1-126-23-4111 ext. 315 (Time difference: 14 hours ahead of Eastern time in the United States.)

H. WORKING ABROAD, ANOTHER PERSPECTIVE
Another American working abroad is Martin Wilhelmy, 1996 UC graduate and a 29-year-old consultant at Andersen Consulting, who recently accepted an overseas transfer to the company's Austria-Switzerland-Germany practice and will be based in Vienna. He has worked abroad before, including as a UC co-op student in 1995 in Japan. He says that working overseas presents a challenge in re-learning all the laws and rules of a new country. "One can always make friends in new places. The important point is to go outside of oneself in showing interest in other people." He added that foreign experience is an important part of a career "but it can never be the main emphasis. If a person's resume speaks more of the places one has been rather than what one has accomplished, a potential employer may get turned off rather than excited." contact: martin.e.wilhelmy@ac.com; 011-43-1-799-1508, Vienna office, (six hours ahead of Eastern Standard time)

I. A DISSENTING VOICE
Bill Nolting, director of international opportunities, University of Michigan International Center, and work abroad editor for "Transitions Abroad" magazine, believes that the number of U.S. expatriates working in overseas assignments may either decline or be a relatively short-term trend.

He says that more and more corporations are now hiring host-country nationals. "One exception to this trend is the work of nongovernmental organizations in fields from relief and development to human rights monitoring, which is expanding in response to recent crises all too familiar through the media." Another big exception, he said: work abroad programs for students will continue to expand radidly, driven by the strong interest of students worldwide.

He adds: "In my experience, overseas experience is almost always beneficial in a job search -- if the job seeker knows how to sell the value of an overseas experience to an interviewer who may never have been outside the U.S. For example, work abroad experience arguably demonstrates skills in working with people different from one's self, an essential skill in today's multicultural workplace." contact: 734-647-2299

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