Banning outsourcing

Friedman considers the idea of banning outsourcing in The World is Flat, but dismisses the idea, believing that it would be detrimental to the goals America is trying to achieve (globalization). While this might be true, perhaps the goal we are trying to achieve is not the most beneficial goal for our country.

Outsourcing has many benefits for companies, the main one being cost reductions. On the other hand, outsourcing removes thousands of jobs from America each year. It's estimated that we could be losing up to 200,000 jobs a year to outsourcing. The unemployment rate in the USA is currently 9.7% (as of february 2010), which equates to approximately 15 million people that are unemployed. After 10 years of losing jobs at a rate of 200,000 per year, we will have lost 2 million jobs. Assuming this has already been happening, how many jobs have we lost to other countries, when we have plenty of people in our own country in need of work? If we continue with this trend, unemployment rates will continue to rise. The countries that we outsource to have practically no limit to the human resources they have available, the population of China and India are the largest in the world, it is entirely possible to give almost every job we have in the US to those countries and still have more people available to work. Unemployment would be up to 70-80% in the US, but we would have managed to globalize businesses and trade and these other countries we have been outsourcing to would be thriving. Finally! We will have achieved our goal and the world will be a better place. . .

So, where will this end? Should we continue to outsource jobs in order to save some money? If we banned outsourcing, the price of products would rise in the US. Maybe, we should just make the sacrifice for the better of our own country, or maybe there is another way? Prices would rise because we have a minimum wage set by the government, that prevents companies from paying American employees as little as they pay those in other countries. With all the unemployed people we have here, wouldn't $2 an hour be better than $0 an hour? Surely, the government could put something in place to allow companies to hire those without jobs, that desperately need money, for an amount smaller than minimum wage. If it was closely monitored, so that companies can't abuse the idea of outsourcing to pay their employees less, we could employ struggling Americans and still keep costs down.

Globalization in my opinion can never fully work, unless all countries unite as one. This seems a highly improbably event and thus integrating economies is not helping our country. We enjoy some benefits, which cannot be ignored, but is it really worth ignoring those struggling in our country to help those elsewhere? Let's sort out our own problems before looking to others.

BLS news release
Outsourcing's long-term effects on U.S.jobs