Outsourcing Jobs

One can't wave a magic wand and make outsourcing go away. Also one should not put the blame on other Countries for taking American jobs, but one should not sit by passively either.

In order to have a global economy, and the need to use market forces, that will ensure that the workers in our country win. In order to boost the economy it is essential that one see the significance of bringing jobs back to the United States.

The unemployment rate is constantly on the rise since many companies have pulled out and moved overseas, and many American families have been forced into unemployment. In the first three-month's of this year, 4,633 U.S. workers received lay offs because their jobs moved out of the country. According to recent statistics mass layoffs caused by permanent closure of the work place were at 51 %, compared to the seventeen percent of total layoffs. Where is the unemployed American worker to go for help? The unemployment department has The Trade Adjustment that was established to help the American workers who lost their job as a result of increased imports. Eligible workers receive trade readjustments and allowances during their unemployment. This is a fixed dollar amount payable within a one hundred and four week period. This program assists workers to find suitable employment and proper training. This program will also assist with relocation if necessary. Workers that are approved for training may receive up to twenty-six weeks of additional allowances to complete training. There are excessive amounts of people on this program. The question arises, "Where is this program saving any money?" Somebody has to pay for all this training. What happens to the unemployed who do not qualify for these programs?

While personal losses are staggering, the effects of outsourcing spill over into society. To a frustrated worker, outsourcing can become a personal disaster. Even more upsetting is the fact that many are unable to quickly retrain for a new job. In some cases, workers are forced to train their replacements. However, the grim fact is that workers realize that their jobs are not safe anymore. The most controversial impact of outsourcing is the loss of American jobs. Many of these workers, depressed, aging and unable to retrain are forced to live off of government assistances. "Doug Hill, after losing his job as an automobile designer, I'm done. Who's going to hire me? I' 60 years old. I'm just living one day at a time, and I do a lot of praying."(Qtd, in Reingold). What are these older workers to do? Most of them have worked one job their

entire life, even though the average person now only stays in one job less than five years. So that leaves these older workers in limbo because they are too old to be trained for a new job and too young for social security benefits.

It's not just the older people outsourcing is effecting the younger generation also. Our children are struggling to find permanent fulltime employment. Many of the factories that provided benefits and a decent pay wage have left the country. Also many children that would like to attend college may not have that opportunity since their parents have lost their jobs.

In some cases Americans are forced to move to more industrialized areas, or commute to find work. Many of these workers had to take a wage decrease while they have to spend more money traveling to their jobs. Many American families have left their families and hometowns to find work. In turn, this is causing a massive decline of small family oriented communities.

If the customer is always right, then why is customer service through foreign countries still happening? There is nothing worse than calling for technical help and not being able to decipher what the non-English speaking representative is saying on the other end. This is due to many call centers being taken abroad. Should this force companies to move operations support centers back to the United States? Dell was forced to move its support centers from Banglore, India back to Texas, Idaho and Tennessee. Customers complained about the difficulty understanding foreign accent problems not on a script. " Corporate customers were telling us they didn't like the level of support they were getting, and in a normal course of business, we made some adjustments." a Dell spokesman commented(qtd,in Patrick). The lesson to be learned from Dell should be taken into consideration when evaluating the feasibility of outsourcing, since mistakes can erase any cost savings obtained from lower salaries.

Outsourcing could cause a serious problem for the privacy and security of Americans. When transcriptions of confidential records are outsourced to company's in foreign countries the original American company losses direct control of the data, which is a threat to the security and privacy of records. For example a Radiologist in India is reading many U.S. hospital ex-rays. Laws in other countries do not have the same rigorous protection for data as in the United States