Outsourcing in Today's World
Outsourcing has become an increasingly popular alternative to today’s high costs in business and manufacturing. It largely affects today’s market from a buyer’s perspective, as well as employee perspective. Manufacturers have turned to outsourcing to be more competitive by lowering overall costs. This may include turning over a segment of your business to another company, or by simply duplicating your operations of manufacturing in a different country. Regardless of how it’s done, outsourcing is an ongoing debate between American workers, and bloodthirsty businesses in a ferociously competitive world.
Outsourcing is the process of subcontracting operations and support to an organization outside
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Another reason for outsourcing has to do with cost of health care and benefits for workers. Overseas, there is no OSHA, no health care, and no child labor laws. Finally, with the building of more factories worldwide, a company increases it’s market globally and therefore can increase its market. (www.wistechnology.com)
Outsourcing affects everyone worldwide. Currently, its main effects occur in the United States. However, as this phenomenon continues, companies will be forced to follow the leaders, or they will be forced out of business. As it affects our world, the negative aspects directly include the American labor force. It continues to cut jobs in the U.S., as many jobs are sent overseas for cheaper labor. More negative effects include company morale and customer satisfaction of consumers. As people become more aware of outsourcing in the U.S. consumers are becoming more aware of what they purchase. In today’s world, there are many people who will pay a “little extra,” if they know that the products they are purchasing have been made, or at least assembled by American manufacturers. These are people who are proud of where they live and support their fellow workers. However, it is almost impossible to completely ignore the massive companies who dominate the business world.
In order to avoid having to turn to outsourcing, many companies and employees have changed their business strategies to help reduce costs, and still remain competitive.
The threat of outsourcing makes it increasingly difficult for unions to organize workers. Two million jobs in the more heavily unionized manufacturing jobs have been lost to China. Outsourcing causes unions to not only lose members, but makes it tougher for unions to organize new members. In 57% of all union drives, employers threaten to move factories if workers unionize, a threat that is very real (Elk, 2010). Corporations have done more to hurt labor than labor has done to hurt itself. The most obvious threat that comes from outsourcing is the diminishing of jobs overall by transferring jobs from the U.S. to overseas.
In my point of view, it is a misconception when claim that outsourcing is bad to the US. The following reason can show how the outsourcing positively affect to the US. Superficially, the GDP of USA increases every year from 2006 to 2015 except 2009 when the economic recession takes effect on the US economy. The US is structuring its economy and got positive benefit that reflects on its GDP. Moreover, the booming global economy changes the global value chain. It enables the emerging and
* Labor outsourcing is a good strategy to decrease the labor cost. But it associates with many issues. Once outsourcing is done, the MNC cannot just stay behind. The MNC should carefully supervise on the working conditions, safety, wages, working hours, gender discrimination and human rights violations. If any of these factors going wrong and leads to sweatshop conditions, it directly affect on the reputation of the MNC. If once the name or the brand is blacklisted, it is very hard to repair the damage. Therefore, the risk of outsourcing is high.
Supporters argue that outsourcing has a minimal effect on job losses, and has increased economic growth in some cases. In actuality, outsourcing has decreased the domestic economy by decimating job opportunities and lowering wages. Steven Pearlstein, economics columnist for the Washington post reaffirmed arguments that outsourcing has decreased employment availability and stability of the economy by saying “There are growing numbers of people who think that what started as a sensible, globalized extension of sending some work outside a firm to specialized companies may in fact be creating long-term structural unemployment in the United States, hollowing out entire industries”. (Pearlstein 3) The IT industry has been especially affected by outsourcing, with many jobs moving overseas to India and Bangladesh, leaving employees in the United States without a job, unable to compete with lower wage offerings. Supporters of outsourcing argue that this business strategy increases everyone’s productivity, raising everyone’s income, and boosting economic growth. Many such studies tend to focus on large multinational corporations, for which the data and anecdotes are more readily available. And indeed, during the 1990s, the data seemed to show that for every one job added abroad, companies added almost two new
Many businesses in United States manufacture their product overseas. This involves manufacturing products outside United States where the labor cost is cheaper. Because of cheap labor, it is often more economical for a U.S. company to manufacture overseas and pay the shipping costs than to manufacture in the United States. For a company, the savings may be substantial. However, there are negative impacts on U.S. employment, as many jobs in the United States are being outsourced and replaced by overseas positions. The manufacturers outsource production projects to save time, money or resources. The manufacturing is outsourced so as to remain competitive and maintain a steady work flow. Without outsourcing, manufacturing costs could escalate to the point at which no product would sell and all employees would have no work. Outsourcing comes
Outsourcing emerged on the financial arena during the 1980s and has since then been spreading. Outsourcing production was furthered with the process of globalization which provided a new component leading to the strengthening of resources, skill and labor specializations across the world. The process of outsourcing is using the skill and abilities of a third-party to accommodate society on the foundation of labor. As stated earlier, it was during the 1980s that the process kicked off mainly due to the efforts of corporations when they began to hire labor forces across the world. Even though outsourcing has come out from its developing stages, there are still following effects on the US economy.
There are many things that would prevent an American company to outsource to these countries but one of the main ones is that it would simply be cheaper to produce it in America. There are many products that are just easier and more cost efficient to produce here instead of in a foreign nation. Another reason that could prevent an American company from outsourcing with a foreign country are tariffs and taxes.
As the world has gotten “smaller” in terms of trade, outsourcing has become a hot topic in much political and economic debate in the United States.
While outsourcing may be beneficial to some of the companies partaking in it, the general consensus is that it ultimately proves to be harmful to the American workforce. The act of outsourcing and shifting many company call centers and technical support teams, or “low skill service jobs,” to foreign countries reduces jobs for those that could truly benefit from them within our own country. The unemployment rate has dramatically increased, and continues to rise, compared to what it has been in years past; yet there are numerous companies which still insist on handing over these “low skill service jobs” to people in other countries such as India. The most obvious and logical reason for outsourcing is reducing costs; people are working for
The U.S. economy has seen many hardships within the last decade. The economy has suffered from a recession that is still threatening to cripple some Americans and unemployment has been at an all time high. People have lost homes and jobs and many businesses have gone bankrupt simply trying to survive. However, in the midst of this economic crisis some companies have managed to survive. Many companies, approximately 36% of them, have found a way to avoid economic collapse by cutting costs (Job Outsourcing Statistics, 2014). One of the most popular cost reducing strategies of our time is called outsourcing.
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 overseas. 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.
Not only is this outsourcing causing companies to lose their best employees, but also the consumers that buy their products. "Employees displaced by foreigners and left unemployed or in lower paid work have
Outsourcing is a method used by many corporations in which their products are manufactured in foreign countries often for cheaper labor.This method method of productions has it’s pros and cons.
In the past decade the topic of outsourcing has become a heavily debated subject on if it is ethically correct to outsourcing jobs to foreign countries. Outsourcing has become more and more an option for many companies and not just an economic fad. The decision to outsource is a difficult one for any company to make because there are many advantages and disadvantages to consider. The decision to outsource affects many people, communities, and industries so if a corporation decides to outsource they must consider how it will affect human dignity, the common good of the economy, and subsidiary.
Outsourcing refers to hiring an outside, independent firm to perform a business function that internal employees might otherwise perform. Many organizations outsource jobs to specialized service companies, which frequently operate abroad. The outsourcing trend stands to continue; the latest wave of outsourcing impacts the information technology field. IT outsourcing includes data center operations, desktop and help desk support, software development, e-commerce outsourcing, software applications services, network operations and disaster recovery.2