Outsourcing

Outsourcing has had a substantially detrimental affect on America's economy while serving to nurture and aid developing countrys' economies like India and China. Outsourcing is when an American company hires thousands to millions of workers in said countries for cheaper than what the average worker would earn here--much cheaper. An article from businessweek.com says that hired employees in outsourced nations might earn 1/5 th of the wage an American would. What does that mean for the company? Profit, of course. Cheap labor can slash production costs and save a company millions of dollars. However, while the company benefits from this movement, America's economy suffers. All the jobs given to developing nations is the kind of unspecialized labor that the 8.5% of Americans would kill to have. On the flip side, bringing all these jobs back to America--the call centers, the factories, the production lines--would cost a fortune for these companies and for the consumer. Consumers benefit from outsourcing in that they enjoy the deflated prices of the products they spend money on. By the time the company brings all the outsourced jobs back to America, hires Americans, builds new factories and provides them all with healthcare and minimal benefits, the American consumer would have already stopped pouring his/her money into that company.