Policy Paper: Outsourcing of American Jobs

Policy Paper

11/4/04

The exporting of American jobs is an issue that is important and will become increasingly so as more and more white collar jobs are shipped over seas. American companies in the past few decades have been sending American jobs overseas paying residents of other countries pennies on the dollar what they had paid American workers to do. This saves the companies millions of dollars on labor costs but costs Americans precious jobs.

As the problem of job outsourcing becomes more of an issue in politics, elected officials like the President and Congress will no longer be able to ignore the dilemma. The war in Iraq has been at the forefront of the presidential race but the importance of outsourcing American jobs seems to have been slightly overshadowed. If the issue of outsourcing is not watched carefully and a definitive plan hammered out, a trickling down of negative effects may occur within the U.S. economy. However, there is a polarized opinion on the effects of this “phenomenon”.

In recessions of the past the American worker was laid off with the impression they would be rehired as soon as demand for goods and services were presented again. Now people in jobs from computer programmers to telephone operators are losing their jobs and never returning to the same field again. The big issue here is that if we continue outsourcing specific jobs overseas we could erase a whole industry of job opportunity from the American people. Economists say the framework of the U.S. labor force has been changed due to past outsourcing of jobs by this country. The more outsourcing that continues the more our job force’s structure will change. As a result, the American worker can no longer wait to be rehired into the same job or profession. Using their time while unemployed, Americans are retraining themselves and attempt to step into an entirely different career.

There are many key people that factor in on this issue of job outsourcing. First is the American worker. When most people think of jobs being sent overseas they think of factory workers or telephone operators, but the recent trend in the outsourcing of jobs has been higher paying jobs like accountants, computer programmers, or financial analysts. These jobs are considered white-collar jobs. In this election candidates will try to appeal to everyone who votes. Blue-collar workers typically vote Democratic where as white-collar workers generally vote Republican. The significance of this is that as the issue is more widely recognized by the public, the more pull a politician’s stance on outsourcing will be on the outcome of the votes he or she gets. Since outsourcing has begun effecting both party lines, Republican and Democrat officials will be interested because members of congress are self-interested. Congressmen who continue to evade the issue and avoid taking a strong stance on this issue will lose votes when it comes to election time and that doesn’t serve in the best interest for any politician. The other big player in this issue is big business. As labor is offered at cheaper rates overseas, it is very tempting for businesses to take advantage of that resource. Saving money is a great way to raise profits and stock values of companies. This brings up the hardest part of this issue. Americans own stock in the big companies that outsource jobs, if the company does well then the stock does well and it helps the investor. The average family makes between 33 to 45 thousand dollars a year. People in this bracket generally rely on their job to provide