How Many People In The Us Have Lost Jobs Due To Outsourcing?
Posted by China Sourcing CommentatorAug 30
The issue of outsourcing has come up frequently. I am just curious if there is any statistical data on the number of jobs have been lost due to outsourcing. 1992 was the year that the NAFTA agreement was signed. It was also shortly after that the textile mills of North Carolina started having difficulties staying competative with fabrication costs…and then many people were layed off. This was the beginning of outsourcing. So imagine, if you will, how many people in the US have lost jobs because of this?
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This is a good source for data.http://www.ncto.org/
Good question; it is one worth pondering. I hope my answer will help you understand how the economy is changing. If you plan to go to college then think of the future and how your degree will fit in with the new economy.
For the last two hundred years, neo-classical economics has recognized only two factors of production: labor and capital. This is now changing. Information and knowledge are replacing capital and energy as the primary wealth-creating assets, just as the latter two replaced land and labor 200 years ago. In addition, technological developments in the 20th century have transformed the majority of wealth-creating work from physically-based to “knowledge-based.”. Technology and knowledge are now the key factors of production. With increased mobility of information and the global work force, knowledge and expertise can be transported instantaneously around the world, and any advantage gained by one company can be eliminated by competitive improvements overnight. The only comparative advantage a company will enjoy will be its process of innovation–combining market and technology know-how with the creative talents of knowledge workers to solve a constant stream of competitive problems–and its ability to derive value from information. We are now an information society in a knowledge economy where knowledge management is essential. This page lists and rates Internet resources related to the field of knowledge based economy and knowledge management in the new information society. U.S. is slowly becoming a “Knowledge-based” economy; driven by ideas and innovation. Tangible investments appear to be quantitatively important.
The exact number is not calculated reliably, politicians play so many games with the statistics it is hard to tell, they basically say whatver they need to to make people think the economy is going well.
Wages are actually falling, in spite of booming productivity growth.
President Bush said that he would provide more funds for job training…. However, over the past three years, he has proposed at least $1 billion in cuts to job training and vocational programs.
In truth, the outsourcing of American jobs is one relatively small facet of the larger problem — the steady erosion of jobs that pay middle-class wages.
Most of the solution to the outsourcing problem, however, is domestic. In recent decades, institutions that once produced a more equal society have been dismantled or weakened. These included government regulation of wages and working conditions, of industry practices, of a worker’s right to choose a union (or not), as well as various social investments that once contributed good jobs. If we can rebuild these, the loss of some jobs overseas will continue to be a problem, but a manageable one.
The majority of jobs in the economy today are in the service sector, and many of these need to be close to the customer. A job in a hotel, a nursing home, a restaurant, a university, or a public school cannot easily be outsourced overseas.
So the first remedy is to make these good jobs. We can do this with higher minimum wages, local living wage ordinances, by enforcing the right of workers to join unions, and structuring these jobs to encourage and reward higher skills and career paths.
Repealing tax incentives to outsource jobs would also help.
One approach to creating good jobs, however, is a proven failure: George Bush’s strategy of cutting taxes, gutting regulation, and trusting private industry to do the rest. This path has led to a few astronomically compensated executive jobs, a bonanza for a few fortunate investors, and a slow slide for the working middle class. Ultimately, many roads are available in the new economy. How to reconcile globalism with good American jobs remains a political choice.
NAFTA is nothing, it’s the outsourcing to Asia over the last 5 years that’s killing us. Millions already have lost jobs, and there’s no end in sight.
Our government has sold us out to the big corporations. I hope people remember this come voting time.
I don’t actually know how many people lost jobs due to outsourcing, but I know that can be counted as one of them.