Submitted by Data, Jan 7, 2008 12:17

Kathy Robertson: "When there are millions of Americans out of work due to outsourcing, why do we need to bring in temporary work visas?"

Voter wrote: "Here is a report on how high-skill guest worker visas are currently hurting rather than helping keep jobs at home:
http://www.sharedprosperity.org/bp187/bp187.pdf

H-1B & L-1 visas become the outsourcing visas"

(1) All of foreign outsourcing is only responsible for about 2% of the jobs lost in the U.S.

-- Embrace China The burgeoning powerhouse often is painted as a threat to the U.S. It should be viewed more as a partner By Nina Hachigian and Mona Sutphen | LA Times, Dec 22, 2007
http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/la-oe-hachigian22dec22,0,5916759.story?coll=la-opinion-rightrail
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(2) For the United States, Kirkegaard examined a survey on "mass layoffs" from the Bureau of Labor Statistics to see how many stemmed from offshoring. The answer: 4 percent. That included both manufacturing and service jobs.

Kirkegaard located a similar survey for Europe. Although the cutoff for layoffs was higher (100 workers), the results were similar. About 5 percent of job losses resulted from offshoring.

-- The Once Great Offshoring Debate By Robert Samuelson | Washington Post, May 16, 2007 http://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2007/05/the_once_great_offshoring_deba.html

(3) the negative impact of trade on U.S. employment is often overstated. Daniel Griswold, a trade expert at the Cato Institute, reckons that "trade accounts for only about 3 percent of dislocated workers. Technology and other domestic factors displace far more workers than does trade." In a new study, Griswold estimates that "the net loss of 3.3 million manufacturing jobs in the past decade has been overwhelmed by a net gain of 11.6 million jobs in sectors where the average wage is higher than in manufacturing. Two-thirds of the net new jobs created since 1997 are in sectors where workers earn more than in manufacturing."

[1] Free Trade in the Dock By Duncan Currie | The American, Dec 28 2007
http://www.american.com/archive/2007/december-12-07/the-globalization-article

[2] Trading Up How Expanding Trade Has Delivered Better Jobs and Higher Living Standards for American Workers By Daniel Griswold | Cato Institute's Center for Trade Policy Studies, Oct 25 2007
http://www.freetrade.org/pubs/pas/tpa-036.pdf

(4) One of the most obvious falsehoods about job outsourcing is that it raises unemployment. Huh? Since 2001, during which criticism of outsourcing has hit a crescendo, U.S. businesses and entrepreneurs have created 9.9 million new jobs. The current jobless rate of 4.5% is below the average in any of the last four decades.

"Believing that offshore outsourcing causes unemployment," economist Daniel Drezner wrote, "is the economic equivalent of believing that the sun revolves around the earth: intuitively compelling but clearly wrong."

The U.S. from 1996 to the third quarter of 2006 lost on average 7.83 million jobs each quarter. But it gained on average 8.17 million new jobs.

Assuming that pace of job creation holds, some 302 million new jobs will be created between now and 2015. So Forrester Research's forecast of 3.3 million jobs lost is nothing — 1% of the total.

A study by two Princeton University economists last year found that productivity gains from outsourcing boosted the wages for the least-skilled workers by 1% a year from 1997 to 2004.

Another study, this by McKinsey & Co. in 2003, showed a return of $1.12 for every dollar of work sent offshore. That money doesn't sit idle; it's redeployed in the economy and reinvested, creating more and better jobs than existed before.

Outsourcing cuts both ways. The U.S. "insources" jobs from elsewhere, as a report by the Organization for International Investment found.

"Over the last 15 years," the 2004 report said, "manufacturing 'insourced' jobs grew by 82% . . . and manufacturing 'outsourced' jobs grew by 23%." That is, we had a net job gain even on outsourcing.

No question, globalization and outsourcing entail some pain. But they provide many more benefits, letting companies cut costs, boost investment, create jobs and pay better. That's bad?

-- Outsourcing Myths By INVESTOR'S BUSINESS DAILY, June 19, 2007
http://www.ibdeditorial.com/IBDArticles.aspx?id=267145498195664&kw=dobbs

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