Zack Carpenter

Offshoring

The main argument against offshoring is that it takes jobs, mainly manufacturing jobs, away from American workers. In the year 2002, the number of manufacturing jobs decreased by 11%.  However manufacturing jobs decreased all over the world.  The main reason that so many people have lost manufacturing jobs is not offshoring but an increase in productivity.  Since the world is more productive not as many workers are needed to do the job.  A projection for the years 2004-2014 estimates 3-4 million jobs will be lost.  Yet they estimate that only 300,000 will be lost to offshoring.  Also, American workers who lost their jobs from 2001-2003 found a new one, 43% found one that was higher paying.  The other 57% still found jobs, although they paid less, they still found jobs to work at. 

            Now both political parties agreed that we need to do 4 things for offshoring. Enforce our existing trade agreement, provide assistance to displaced workers, spend more on education and infrastructure, and keep interest rates low so it is easier to for businesses to invest in new technology and machinery.  The facts of the matter are that offshoring does more good than harm.  Yes some people loose jobs but only a small fraction comes from offshoring.  Also the decrease in manufacturing jobs is because of innovations not offshoring.  Offshoring leads is just another way in which the US is following comparative advantage giving us lower prices for consumers and a higher GDP for the whole country.