Outsourcing work to lower cost countries is a subject that causes much debate. Outsourcing work has been around for years. Small business has outsourced work to other companies forever. When you have an accountant prepare the business taxes, that work has been outsourced. To put it another way, the work has been subcontracted. Subcontracting is used commonly, but people have different views on whether that is like outsourcing or not. Subcontracting means letting another company perform work on a project. This work generally will work that the company is not proficient in. For instance, a concrete construction company will subcontract out any fence work that may be on the project. Unions and most anyone who is involved in construction have no objections to subcontracting.

So why would unions or anyone else object to outsourcing? In most cases, the contractor the work is subcontracted to is based in the US. Often, the company is also a union shop. When a company outsources, another word for subcontracting, the work is going to another country. The principle is the same, though. The contractor gets bids on the work and lets it to the lowest priced bidder. A company that outsources is also letting the work out to lower cost workers. Many companies establish a presence in the lower cost country. Not all of them do. Sometimes they outsource to a company set up to provide workers that have the skills to perform the work.

Over the years, the unions have been the most vocal about outsourcing to lower cost countries. They have to stand up for the workers that belong to their union. The auto industry outsourcing the production of parts to other countries has happened in the past and still continues today. The result was a lot of plant employees lost their jobs.

Unfortunately, along the way, companies chose not to upgrade their plant and continued to use older technologies to manufacture vehicles. Yes, automakers subcontracted a lot of work to other companies that could do the work at a lower cost, but generally they were companies in the US. That has changed. They began to outsource the work to countries which had lower production costs. It is okay to subcontract because the job stays within the country, when you outsource that’s when the job leaves the country. It is really the same principle.

Because US workers lost their jobs, there was a social stigma attached to outsourcing. It meant that the work was going to foreigners. The general public didn’t like that idea. It didn’t help when a lot of the technical support services were outsourced overseas. When someone called to get assistance with their phone bill, the call was answered by someone in India or some other country. Sometimes the person calling couldn’t understand what the person trying to assist them was saying. They had to keep asking them to repeat it. This is another reason why there is so much negativity on the idea of outsourcing.

When the economy is not doing so well, some people will blame it soley on outsourcing. Outsourcing may have played a part but is not the direct or even the main cause of the poor economy.

 

 

Mitchell Perry regularly writes for ProlificPaintball.com, they carry paintball gear such as a paintball gun, as well as many other paintball accessories 1arg3 from a variety of well known manufacturers.