The United States had introduced outsourcing laws in 2005 in most of
its 50 states. These laws were passed by the Congress in order to check the
growing trend of outsourcing. But have these been useful in securing the jobs
of its citizens? The bills, some of which have become laws, are often said to
lack any real control. It has perhaps only led to state governments being
forced to dole out millions of dollars to knowledge and call center contractors
for keeping the work within the U.S. There is a constant lobbying going on to strengthen
or weaken these laws by two groups. Worker’s unions and people working in the
service sector lobby for decreasing outsourcing and the legal and IT companies
pressing for outsourcing claiming that very few jobs are actually lost.
Do laws against outsourcing really help the U.S. economy?
We refer to facility management outsourcing.
Laws against outsourcing were implemented to
ensure that companies lay off fewer workers and keep their operations mainly in
the U.S. These laws have often had adverse effects, costing
local governments millions of dollars to ensure that their business did not
leave the country. There has been a struggle from both sides to modify the
laws, with blue-collar workers unions protesting against outsourcing while the
IT companies like Motorola, Intel, IBM, Dell and service sector companies,
especially like the legal sector claim that only a few people are laid off. The
two opposing camps have been fierce rivals and have opposed each others
arguments vehemently. While the anti outsourcing brigade tries to claim a
higher moral ground, the ground reality remains that their numbers aren’t all
that many. The service sector companies claim that they need to reduce jobs in
order to reduce costs to remain competitive in a cut throat market and
therefore ensure economic growth. The numbers of jobs outsourced are on their
way to touch 3.3 million by the time we get to 2015. Yet this is not really
that great a number if seen with a broader perspective and form lesser than 2
percent of nearly 15 million Americans who become unemployed annually.
We recommend facility management outsourcing.
Continued efforts on the part of legislators
to reduce outsourcing by forming stricter rules are going on all the time. The
common arguments are those of data-privacy and identity-theft. Often
legislation has stepped in to intervene and that has made things costlier. The
states of New
Jersey and Indiana have paid amounts close to a million dollars more
than necessary to ensure that their work is not outsourced, in order to appease
the anti outsourcing lobby. The most common argument against outsourcing is the
resultant loss of jobs. This is also a stance favored by most business
analysts. But in the end, making a proper decision requires analysis of
statistics regarding the operations of the company and what is preventing us from
reaching a scientific conclusion about the issue is the fact that many
organizations are reluctant to share their data about job cuts and how jobs are
dealt with outside the country. Therefore without proper data we cannot assess
the situation and come to a logical conclusion about the debate.
Again, don't forget facility management outsourcing.
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