User:CRose24/Effects of American Outsourcing

Outsourcing has becoming a critical part of product production in the United States. The Effects of American Outsourcing has caused a deliberate and substantial reduction of permanent employees in an effort to cut down costs here in the states. The American Middle Class has been effected more than anyone else, and large firms like AT&T, IBM, and GM are reducing their middle class workforce by 10 to 20 percent. According to Christopher B. Doob, between 2005 and 2007, 3.6 million workers with three or more years on the job lost their positions because of company closings, moves, insufficient work, or the elimination of their positions

However, reliable outsourcing statistics have been extremely had to come by even though outsourcing has been steadily increasing since the early 1990's. The government supplies some information on downsizing but the decision not to publish outsourcing statistics seems consistent with the bourgeoisie’s preference. What outsourcing has been caught doing is a steady increase in American workers struggle to find a permanent job, instead they're forced to apply for temporary jobs so they can make do. About 4 percent of the workforce, 11.4 million individuals a year are temp workers.

Outsourcing Companies
Some companies that have been confirmed outsourcing are Nike, AT&T, Apple, Microsoft, Coca-Cola, Pepsi, and hundres of others. Companies like Caterpillar for example experienced a 39 percent increase in overseas workforce, while only a 7.8 increase in U.S. workforce. A report from 2011 says that an estimated third of the 31 million of U.S. employees of multinational firms work abroad, and that is steadily growing. Plus, with only around 4 percent of the world's population and a dwindling middle class in several heavily populated countries (such as Brazil, Russia, India and China), the plethora of the fastest growing markets reside outside the U.S.

According to a poll, close to seven out of 10 Americans claim that outsourcing hurts the American economy. Reasoning for U.S. companies going abroad and producing their products overseas is so they can take advantage of lower labor costs. But that also means U.S. consumers will receive a cheaper cost for those products. Issues however, do come up with companies going abroad, primarily work conditions, that need to maintain constant contact with their abroad facilities.

Downsizing
Doob states, that between 2005 and 2007, close to 3.6 million works with at least three years on the job lost their positions because of companies closing facilities or elimination of their positions, due to outsourcing. Companies like Alcoa, eliminated close to 330,000 jobs during the most recent recession. Outsourcing is also a reason companies eliminated jobs here at home during the recent recession, because of cheaper labor overseas, companies like Nike are closing facilities in the U.S. and opening facilities in countries like China or Taiwan.

In 2008, layoffs due to downsizing rose to 181,671, which is the highest since January of 2002 (248,475) compared to the numbers from November of 2007 (73,140). These layoffs are causing the U.S. middle class to shrink, because once a middle-class worker loses their job, if they manage to get rehired, close to 60% of the time it's at a significantly less rate of pay.