Outsourcing of Jobs to Foreign Countries

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Outsourcing of Jobs to Foreign Countries

Axia College, COM120, Effective Persuasive Writing

Professor Andrea O'Rourke

February 25, 2007

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Outsourcing of Jobs to Foreign Countries

Over the last decade or so, outsourcing of jobs to foreign countries has quickly risen as the most controversial issue here in America. Initially, manufacturing jobs were outsourced because other countries were able to manufacture goods cheaper than their domestic counterparts. Recently, companies have started outsourcing white collar jobs like computer programming, accounting and customer service to foreign countries. Foreign countries like India, China and the Philippines are able to do these jobs because they have plenty of well educated english speaking workforce, lower living standards and their laws typically are not restrictive.

Outsourcing of jobs to foreign countries is beneficial to the United States because it helps American corporations compete globally, and it improves the efficiency of the economy. How is the economy been performing? Well, with all the news about American jobs moving to other countries, the Iraq war, hurricanes Katrina and Rita, and the surge of fuel price in the last several years, the U.S. economy has been very resilient, and, in fact, is doing quite well. According to the latest data from the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis, the Gross Domestic Product (GDP), which is the total annual value of goods and services produced by a country, and it is a commonly used measure of the economy's performance, grew at an average of 3.2% every year since 2004 (Figure 1), while the unemployment rate dropped from a high of 5.75% in 2004 to about 4.5% in 2006 (Figure 2).

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Figure 1: GDP Annual rate for the last four years.

Note. From