Keep jobs here or send them overseas?

i don't know if this belongs in globilization forum, but it's the one that made sense.

i was wondering, do you think we should keep jobs in America or send them overseas for cheaper labor and a higher profit?

i myself think we should keep jobs in america. it keeps americans working and families are better off and not more likely to murder for money.

also, when you look at the countries we have sent our jobs to, they are working at dirt prices and practically slave labor.

and if you held a job, just ask yourself:"do i want my job to be sent overseas so my corporation can make more money and i get stuck in burger king flipping patties in bush's economic plan?"

 

Obviously jobs need to be kept in America, but that isn't happening, and things are only going to get progressively worse for the working people of this country. Most people cannot comprehend where this country is headed. They just cannot picture things totally out of control.

 

Corporations are in business to make as much money as possible (and there's nothing wrong with that). If that means sending jobs overseas, so be it. That frees up a large amount of capital that can be used to increase productivity, to be paid out as a dividend to investors (thus increasing the standard of living), or to hire more workers (both American and foreign).

America has been outsourcing jobs to other countries since Christopher Columbus. Yet America does not have a serious unemployment problem, and our standard of living is among the highest in the world. Outsourcing does cost some Americans there jobs, but it also creates new jobs in other sectors of the economy.

 

Tell that to people who have lost jobs due to outsourcing. My dad was laid off almost 3 years ago when his branch of his company got outsourced to India. His entire field is being outsourced and he's been unable to get a job since. What's someone in that position to do when they're 50 years old and what they spent their life doing is gone? And I'm not talking about manufacturing or anything, but skilled management jobs. Many of his friends are in the same position.

I don't see how this could be good for the economy when hundreds, if not thousands, of people are in the same position as my dad.

 

Because even MORE people get new jobs that are created by outsourcing. Your dad's story is unfortunate, but are you really suggesting that we should make the entire American economy grind to a halt to accomodate him? People get laid off if the work can be done more efficiently elsewhere, and that's the way it should be. Sorry if that seems callous, but the new jobs created from outsourcing, the rising standards of living caused by outsourcing, the cheaper products made available by outsourcing, all add up to one conclusion: Overall, outsourcing is great for the American economy as well as foreign economies.

 

So, a whole generation of workers should get screwed? Once workers hit about 45, companies are reluctant to want to hire them. These are the people who are being affected by the outsourcing and these same people also fuel alot of the consumerism. Unemployed workers are definitely a problem because it reduces productivity and cash flow with consumers. Only when every American (or any other country that practices outsourcing) who is willing and able to work is employed should we go to outsourcing.

 

It's not an issue of wanting people to "get screwed." It's unfortunate when ANYONE gets laid off, but overall it's good for the economy. Should companies be forced to keep relatively inefficient workers on the payroll? (And by inefficient, I don't mean lazy.) That's what would happen if outsourcing were stopped.

This is true...but you haven't demonstrated that outsourcing causes an overall increase in unemployment. If that were true, why does America have a relatively low unemployment rate even after centuries of outsourcing jobs and a rising population?

This is not realistic. A low unemployment rate (as opposed to no unemployment at all) is beneficial for the economy because it gives potential employers the ability to choose the best worker for a particular job. America will NEVER have a zero unemployment rate, no matter how much the economy booms, unless it turns into an unproductive communist police state.

 

The real problem with outsourcing is it makes hard work and loyalty irrelevant, and that is a very sad commentary on our society.

 

I think Jobs need to be kept here...but with so many corporations only being concerened about making the most profit, of course they won't be.

 

It actually makes hard work MORE relevant. If I'm running a company and I have $10,000 per year to pay an employee, I can hire full-time a brilliant Indian with an advanced degree, or I can hire a part-time American kid who isn't even out of high school. Which do you think I'd prefer, from a managerial perspective?

National origin becomes less relevant, not hard work. As for loyalty, well, that's never been rewarded as much as you might like to believe.

 

Their entire reason for existing is to make a profit. They aren't doing anything unethical by outsourcing to save money on labor.

 

The entire anti-outsourcing movement seems to be based on a few very flimsy arguments. Namely:

1. A sense that Americans are somehow more entitled to jobs than foreigners, if the CEO happens to have been born in America.

2. A misguided belief that Americans can perform the job better than their foreign counterparts.

3. A misguided belief that third-world workers are being "exploited" by these new jobs in their country, even though the economic statistics overwhelmingly point to the opposite conclusion.

4. Good old fashioned resentment of success. If a business is interested in making money by cutting its costs, it must be because they're evil and/or immoral.

 

Okay, so what is this Indians incentive to work hard ? Isn't he in competition with workers in eastern europe or south america who will do the job for $6000 a year ? If he will never have the chance to advance within the company, his pay is effectively stagnant and he will never be rewarded beyond his basic pay, where is his incentive to work hard and share ideas.

 

The same as everyone else's: To keep his job, to get a good recommendation for a future job, and/or to be promoted.

Absolutely. The marketplace rewards efficiency, as well it should. Your article almost proves this point; the reason the article gives that India might be slipping as the world's "outsourcing king" (which I'm not sure it is), is because of improving wages. In other words, after only ~15 years of pro-business government, India has already supposedly improved its wages to near the global equilibrium. If this makes India a less attractive prospect for outsourcing, it makes other countries (which are still living in absolutely grinding poverty, as opposed to India's relative poverty) MORE attractive.

Outsourcing is the fastest way out of poverty for almost any third-world nation that opens its doors to foreign investment. It happened in Japan, Korea, Hong Kong, and Taiwan after WWII. It's happening in China and India today. Perhaps even poorer regions of the world will be next.

Who says he'll never have a chance to advance and that his pay will remain stagnant? The statistics would disagree with you, showing a steep rise in income in India, every single year since India opened its doors to more foreign investment in the early 1990s.

 

Wouldn't you rather pay a brilliiant Hungarian with an advanced degree $6000 per year rather than a brilliiant Indian with an advanced degree $10,000 per year ? Doesn't it make sense to get rid of the Indian before he asks for a raise or decides to better himself and replace him with a more effecient worker ?

 

The thing with outsourcing is that it creates jobs here. We are moving more to a consumer society and consuming alone creates jobs. Ie sales, marketing. Also you get those jobs out of the states it costs less for workers meaning it frees company's recources to hire more people and pay them more as well. Also oversees company's have their HQ here so we are outsourcing the shitty jobs and insourcing the good ones.

 

I think we should outsource jobs. If those people in other countries are stupid enough to work for pennies so be it.