Outsourcing US Jobs 2
In AFL-CIO (2007) our nation has lost more than 2.5 million manufacturing jobs and more than 850,000 other jobs pertaining to professional services and information technology jobs. Before it was mainly just manufacturing jobs that were being lost to outsourcing, but now, according to a Deloitte Research, one-third of all major financial institutions have already been sending work offshore (AFL-CIO, 2007). When outsourcing is brought up, people think that this is something that has to be completed over a period of time, but in reality, it is not. Studies have found that just in one month, between 25,000 and 30,000 new jobs were sent to India from the US (U.C. Berkley, 2007). Not only are private companies such as manufacturers outsourcing, but at least 40 states contract out administration of electronic benefit cards for the food stamp program. The state of Washington found that 36 out of 41 agencies were sending work overseas and research shows that the outsourcing of our state and local government technology contracts will grow from $10 billion last year to $23 billion in 2008 (AFL-CIO, 2007). So, just how many jobs are on the line now for being outsourced? An astounding 14 million jobs are at risk for being outsourced to other countries.
Outsourcing has captured our current attention, but this is nothing new. How does one define the term outsourcing? Outsourcing may be defined as jobs operated by U.S. companies in foreign countries (Walden, 2004). Actual numbers show that there are a total of 10 million positions, or 7% of U.S. domestic employment has been outsourced. There is also insourcing, which is where foreign countries bring jobs into the US. The numbers are not near as eye catching as what we, the US sends to them (foreign countrie ...