Resolved: The political, social and economic benefits of outsourcing outweigh the damages.

Affirmative Action should be Modified (Negative)

Jessica Cahill
March 5, 2015
INTB 251
Professor Ferris

Outsourcing is the growing practice used by different companies to reduce costs by transferring portions of work to outside suppliers rather than completing it internally. Offshoring is a word often used synonymously, which is simply defined as the practice of basing some of a company’s processes overseas to take advantage of lower costs (Investopedia). The practice of outsourcing originates back to the industrial revolution with company’s searching for a competitive advantage. Throughout history companies have taken part in outsourcing functions for which they had no ability to complete internally. Eventually companies began focusing on profit margins, and began to outsource functions necessary to run a company, but not necessary to run the core of the business. Profits begin to increase for those working at the core of the company, as labor costs begin to decrease for the company. Multinational corporations embrace outsourcing with open arms due to the advantages, without taking into consideration the enormous damages that accompany this process. To convince America that outsourcing is beneficial, corporate outsourcers will even sponsor misleading “one sided studies to make outsourcing look positive,” (Roberts). Although outsourcing does provide a few advantages to the workers at the core of a multinational enterprise, the debate has continued for years that the damages including unemployment, slave/child labor, loss of company control and potential low quality products outweigh the benefits of high profit margins.
Nine percent of Americans who are laid off are as a result of outsourcing (LaborDept.), and in addition over 14 million white collar jobs are at risk of being lost in addition to the 3.3 million already lost as