Outsourcing a job means the job is no longer here. How hard is it to understand? Outsourcing and

[grahamhgreen]

'free' trade means fewer jobs for Americans.

I don't get it.

[dmallind]

1. Outsourcing some jobs can mean others stay, and others outsource TO here too

If your market is in Europe, manufacturing and shipping in Europe makes sense - doesn't mean you cannot keep your admin, engineering, finance etc in the US.

Similarly if the only alternatives are to meet Asian labor costs, and become bankrupt competing against those who have them, then choosing the latter option renders all other employees redundant, not just direct labor.

If Ford did not build and sell in China, would it employ those in Michigan who support China business efforts?

Similarly outsourcing is a two-edged sword. US companies own a staggering $3.6T of factories and production overseas - the most in the world - employing hundreds of thousands of US natives and foreigners abroad.

But foreign companies own a staggering $2.6T of factories and production here - the most in the world (yes more than China) - employing hundreds of thousands of people in the US.

[MadHound]

2. Yet on the whole, we have lost more jobs due to outsourcing.

Not to mention the fact that since we outsourced our manufacturing sector, and turned into a service sector economy, wages have gone down as well, especially for those without a college degree.

[dmallind]

3. undoubtedly true.

That however does not mean we would gain jobs by refusing to outsource or engage in free trade now. The customers of the jobs now overseas would not pay for US labor rates so those jobs would stay in LCCs regardless of ownership, and the foreign investors here would pull out as the dollars they seek by building here now would be useless to them if they were the currency of an isolationist nation - no more valuable than 1980s rubles.

[grahamhgreen]

4. Then were are the jobs? When you send a job overseas - IT GOES OVERSEAS.

[dmallind]

5. How do you point to a what if?

J. Hinrichs has a lot of people working for him. What if Ford didn't build cars in China? Would they all have jobs? Who knows?

The jobs Mercedes and Subaru and Toyota and Bayer and Nestle sent overseas went overseas too - to here.

35% of the output at my last company went to China, servicing both offshored production (from several countries including the US) and a small amount of native Chinese production that piggybacks on the shipments to them. Would the jobs for the people producing those goods exist without offshoring? I guess it depends how good our international sales would have been in this alternate universe, but if offshoring were rendered illegal today, about that percentage of the manufacturing folks at least, and some admin too no doubt, would be laid off.

[grahamhgreen]

8. It's not a what if, it is a historical fact that before "free"-trade, we had more jobs and

a stronger economy.

We need to return to the policies that brought us that.

I work in the media industry, the type of product we produce can't be made anywhere else in the world, thus my wages remain high and my job secure.

I can not compete with a worker in China who can buy a house for $5,000, no American can, or should continue to be forced to.

The simple fact is that outsourcing jobs has meant a net job loss and declining wages for America.

Foreign companies have no need to hire workers here either, if it's cheaper for them to build the product in China and ship it here.

With trade barriers and tariffs, we can rebuild American manufacturing and bring the jobs back home.

[Yavin4]

6. The Problem Is Not Outsourcing Per Se. The Problem Is Currency Differences.

Labor in China is always going to be cheaper no matter what labor in the U.S. does. Why? China's currency is far cheaper than ours which makes their labor force cheaper.

You don't read stories about American companies outsourcing to Northern Europe who have some of the smartest workers in the world. Why? Because the Euro trades higher than the dollar so their labor is more expensive.

Globalization is nothing more than labor arbitrage.

[hootinholler]

7. I think you have outsourcing and offshoring confused

Easy to do.

Outsourcing means that you have hired someone else to do something you need for your business to run. Happens all the time with small to medium businesses with their payroll. That someone could be anywhere. If it is a function you used to do here, and the people you hired to do it are overseas, it is both outsourcing and offshoring.

If you move a factory to another country but it is still yours, it is not outsourcing, but it is offshoring.

-Hoot

[grahamhgreen]

9. In this context, outsourcing and offshoring have come to mean the same thing.