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It sounds really cool – outsource a job that you have to pay $20 an hour for here to another country where they’re willing to work for $3. I mean, it makes perfect sense, doesn’t it? What business person wouldn’t jump at that?
OK, so there’s a bit of a language barrier. Maybe they won’t understand your customer. Your customer may get mad and call corporate headquarters. Or maybe they’ll just quietly disappear…
And maybe training will take a long time. In some cases after years, the staff still doesn’t quite grasp it. In the meantime, the people who know what they’re doing have such low moral they would rather drive you out of business altogether. They will not be your customer. Nor will their families of friends. People will hear about how horribly you’ve treated other people and take their business elsewhere.
Not to mention the millions you’ve lost in the training sinkhole.
And what about the millions of jobs that have been moved overseas? What do you care?
Well, for every person out of a job, you have removed them as a potential customer, along with their families.
No one can afford to buy your stuff. What will you do now?
Maybe they’ll buy your stuff in Panama, and India, and all those other places where you are taking care of people and giving them jobs that are better than what they had. You’d better hope so. The people here won’t be able to buy squat.
And, if the people here are ever able to spend freely again, they have really long memories. We remember people who have treated us badly very vividly for a very long time.
The smart companies who are taking advantage of the availability of millions of experienced workers who are willing to work for a little less are going to have a tremendous advantage – not only in people, but in loyal customers..
If you are one of those companies who are hiring American workers and helping get not only the economy, but people and families back on their feet – you should be tooting your horn very loudly.
If you are one of the greedy corporations looking only at the hourly cost – you’re really stupid and you deserve to be out of business.
Hi Carol! Interesting article and I especially like the last line! I couldn’t agree more and feel that there are plenty of Americans who would gladly work for a little bit less here than what they would usually go for or had worked for in the past given the chance. It’ very hard to find work even at McDonalds unless you are foreign. No offense to anyone but it’s rather disheartening when you hear “you are overqualified” so you get looked over instead of given the opportunity to work in this great country of ours and the job goes to someone who has zero qualifications but a green card perhaps.. just sayin…
I agree with the premise of your article that Corporations outsource for cheaper labor but that doesn’t account for corporations who have totally moved out of this country due to taxes and federal regulations and mandates. We are the worse country in the world when it comes to taxing businesses and then regulating them to death.