Employment crisis due to outsourcing? |
The service sector encompasses about 70-80% of the US economy, which leaves little room for outsourcing. The US Bureau of Labor Statistics even announced that there were 3.7 million job openings at the end of January 2013 and the unemployment rate dropped to 7.7, its best ranking since the recession began, even while in the midst of a massive outsourcing surge into the developing world.
Furthermore, most of these government statistics only measure dominant and large companies or those with a minimum of 50 employees on the payroll. These surveys frequently overlook the fact that most of job growth comes from the small employers. Even if these small players have work that they can save money on by outsourcing, they are unlikely to turn in that direction as the expenses would eclipse the savings.
At the end of the day, the United States has an improved unemployment rate, an increase in the available jobs and an evident fact that outsourcing only affects a small part of the US economy. After all, one of the largest effects of outsourcing on US companies is their ability to survive in a massive recession and often debilitating taxes, enabling them to focus on distribution and other growth oriented operations that cannot be outsourced.
[Photo credit: Herkie on Flickr.]