Why do companies send jobs overseas?

Toyota, Mazda, Sony, and the list goes on. Many foreign countries build factories all over America, creating millions of jobs for Americans, what’s that about? They also invest billions of dollars in America. America invests billions of dollars in other countries, it’s a two way street and works well for everyone.

Why do we only hear about American companies building factories over seas, as if that is a bad thing? We sell our products overseas so why not build factories overseas. If we had to transport our finished products, the cost would be high and we could not compete. Coke sells coke all over the world, so does thousands of other companies. It’s a world economy, that’s the way things work.

The baloney that companies outsource for devious reason is pure left wing propaganda. All countries outsource because it’s a world wide economy, even Communist China and Vietnam have joined in the fun.

Leftist anarchist get pissed when things work well in democratic society, and disparage all that is good, and do their best to upset the apple cart.

Why do companies send jobs overseas?


Because they can hire a guy in India or Mexico to do the exact same job as an American worker, while paying them 1/10th of the money and no benefits. It is as simple as 1+1=2. Exploit the work force and create more capital and revenue for the greedy corporate ownership.

They could care less who does the work, as long as it gets done. If it means that American workers will starve, so what. This is the nature of big business.

Originally posted by gdeed
The baloney that companies outsource for devious reason is pure left wing propaganda. All countries outsource because it’s a world wide economy, even Communist China and Vietnam have joined in the fun.

How is it bologna? They outsource to save money, which isn't really 'devious'... but it's obvious when a company outsources to save a ton of money at the expense of American workers.

All countries do not outsource. They manufacture products and send them overseas, which is alot different then sending jobs overseas.

The American workforce is losing jobs to foreign outsourcing, and foreign countries are most definitely not hiring Americans in return. Why would they do that? As Americans in a stressed economy we need a lot of money just to scrape by... I'm not sure how other nations could expect to satisfy our paycheck needs. So they don't outsource any jobs to us.





Have you actually considered this topic or are you really convinced this is all 'leftwing propaganda'? Just because George W. doesn't give a sniff about Americans having jobs doesn't mean it's a conservative stance to screw the working population... that's New World Order stance.

It depends on the product and the market for that product. The bottom line is, of course, the bottom line.

BIC, for example, manufactures pens and lighters and shavers in America and sells them to Americans. BIC also has plants in France that sell to Europeans. It saves the company money on shipping costs.

Toyota will open plants in North America and sell those cars in North America because that way is cheaper than importing the raw materials from North America, assembling the cars in Japan and then shipping that tonnage back to North America.

Hewlett-Packard, on the other hand, finds it much more cost-effective to ship the raw materials from America and/or Europe to Taiwan, have them make little plastic parts and then ship them back to America at 1000 parts per pound. A penny saved is a penny earned, y'see.

The accelleration of the U.S. and other industrialized nations sending their jobs overseas has to do with the lowering and/or elimination of import tarriffs. When a company like, say, Remmington (are they still around?), can have their products manufactured in South Korea and sent back in bulk with less of a net outlay, they can lower their price and get a leg up on a competitor like, say, Gillette. Gillette will then follow suit to protect it's market share.

Companies are motivated to sell, sell and sell some more, and they will happily lower their price, per unit sold, if it will increase their market share and, thus, their overall receipts.

This public service announcement has been unpaid for by Tuning Spork Industries, LLC.



[edit on 31-3-2008 by Tuning Spork]

Speaking as someone who's affected by the jobs moving across the seas, it's because it's cheaper. That's mostly all there is to it. There are othe rreasons, a couple of companiews have tried to stay competitive and remain in the US, but weren't able to keep up, or had to many problems with their employess and had the choice of folding up or outsourcing. Now, at the same time, the price of exporting is slowly rising as well. Eventually it'll be cheaper to employ US citizens again and the cycle will reverse itself.

True. We just learned that a local company (in Connecticut) is in the process of recalling their outsourced manufacturing in Italy because the Euro is out-performing the dollar right now. Due to the low dollar, we may be about to get a whole lot busier. Go Euro!

It isn't that they don't care about their customers, or American's.

Remember one thing above all else: the corporation's primary purpose (and legal responsibility) is to ensure maximum profits for their investors. The bigger the dividend, the more successful they are deemed.

Loyalty to the American worker is a very romantic concept, but unreasonable.

Most companies don't offshore the entire operation. The laws of the United States are designed to attract business, at least from a corporate office standpoint. They will, however, offshore a piece of their business.

Consider, say, Dell. Let's say they have a total of 8k agents to handle commercial accounts, and 4k agents to handle residential accounts. Obviously, your prize money is the commercial stuff. That is a guaranteed sale of however many computers they require (a call center could have between 150-5000 workstations) to run their business, and it will be done every 3-4 years (the Java applets that call centers use are processor heavy and require updated machines, in most cases).

So, a strong business model would be to off short half your residential customer service support to, say India. You can then pay the company running the site in India something along the lines of 33 cents for each minute they handle a call (or 80 cents for each minute that they have staffed....these are known as "Handle minute" and "Production Minute", in the call center outsource industry). If i am able to save 10% of my overall operating costs by doing this, then you have to consider that I am able to save a substantial amount of my revenue (which will yield greater dividends, or greater bonuses for executives). It is about saving money in increments.

Now, Toyota operates in the US for two reasons: people who will only buy Made in the USA, and it is cheaper to manufacture the cars here, as opposed to importing.

My company just outsourced. I can't speak for the entire Enterprise, but locally, it affected 12 people from my location (twelve taxpayers/consumers of goods). They lost their jobs. More will follow.

Their jobs are entirely electronic, so all it took was a new FTP server to exchange files. At present, we are farming out about 10 percent of this particular work to India. With more to follow.

I think the worst part of the whole thing thus far, is the fact that the work returned from our Indian counterparts is sub-par. Once returned to us, at least half has to be re-worked. Which keeps the remaining people extremely busy, correcting the mistakes. The mistakes are mostly due to language issues.

I found The World is Flat, Thomas Friedman's tome on globalization, to be pretty convincing. Too bad, however, that the MSM loves to talk about all the stuff in the book that is good for business, yet ignore Friedman's recommendations to offset its bad effects on Americans. Hmmmmmm...could it be that the recommendations come from a, horrors!, progressive entity, The Progressive Policy Institute
PPI

What could help Americans is ignored (government subsidized college education, much improved 401(k)s, government involvement in energy alternative and conservation, a health plan like Congress) Once again, privatize the profits, but this time don't even bother to socialize the costs. Just ignore them. Economic anarchists! Bah!

I like what a colleague at work said...Bush and Co just don't care. Now I know what God meant when he said, "So because you are lukewarm, and neither hot nor cold, I will spit you out of My mouth." They just don't care. And we suffer.

reply to post by spacedoubt


Language issues? I've dealt with Indians on the phone and they've been, by and large, pretty clear spoken. India is an English-speaking country, albiet probably the poorest English-speaking country per capita -- even moreso than Ireland.

It's more an "accent" issue. Still, I've dealt with Indians and have had to have them repeat things many times over just to be sure I heard them right. They talk as fast as we do and, with the accent, it can be a challenging listen sometimes.

Sorry if I'm nit-picking, spacedoubt. It's... y'know... what I do.

Originally posted by bigfatfurrytexan
Loyalty to the American worker is a very romantic concept, but unreasonable.

This is unfortunately true. It's also why we're going to have truckers going on strike and all hell breaking loose in this country. Just a matter of time before having a job itself is a romantic concept - and it will be thanks to corporations selling out the working American.

reply to post by gdeed


First, Toyota, mazda and sony are japanese based companies. They just run sub companies in america.
Second, What company wouldnt want to pay only 7 cents an hour to employees and overprice everything? Its money making heaven ! The bad way, of course. There are other ways of making money that also help the economy. Those way require a lot more effort than to just say "Make those Chinese work for 8 cents per hour." But, people these days are lazy.

If we are making our workers overseas, then we are seriously hurting ourselves. It is a bad thing we are making foregners make our product.
A, it hurts our economy. Money earned by those underpaid workers are being spent on other economies, not ours.

B, it raises unimployment in america. That means more people complaining about being workless. And who more to blame than the illegal immigrants than ourselves.

This new trend with companies has seriously lowered the value of the american dollar. It has fallen below 100 yen. The first time in history.

To help our economy, buy only american made products.

Prime example, my mother worked for Burlington Industries for twenty five years. They were a leader in textile manufacturing world wide. The company and their local plants were staples in communities here in the south much like the auto makers were to Detroit and other areas.

Her final work day there was in 2002 when they informed over 3,000 employees that due to cost cutting measures they were relocating their operations facilities to Mexico City. The straw that broke the camels back was when they actually had the audacity to ask her if she would mind going down to Mexico to help train the new employees, her replacements. Needless to say she told them where they could stick it.

The move devestated a small town with only a very few other sources of real employment that paid enough to live on and offered benefits. Many were forced into early retirement, losing most if not all of their pensions. Ever wonder what it would be like to be 50 years old, have a high school diploma, and have to re-enter a crowded work force? Some of those folks had been there their entire lives, it was pretty sad.

The company wasn't even in trouble financially, in fact their profits were through the roof due to new government uniform contracts. They just saw a way to make a lot more $$ and decided to bail, leaving the people who worked there hanging out to dry. No loyalty to the community that had supported them and helped to build the company for the last sixy years.

That is shrewd business for you .

Originally posted by NewWorldOver

Originally posted by bigfatfurrytexan
Loyalty to the American worker is a very romantic concept, but unreasonable.

This is unfortunately true. It's also why we're going to have truckers going on strike and all hell breaking loose in this country. Just a matter of time before having a job itself is a romantic concept - and it will be thanks to corporations selling out the working American.

I think it is more transitional. We have a current push to move low tech and manufacturing jobs overseas. At the same time we are seeing the actual call centers moving back to the US, or going to the Philipines/Central America. It is being replaced by the offshoring of data entry.

Listen, you cannot compete with a country that allows an employee to be docked a full days wage for a 2 minute tardy. There is no competing with a workforce that is disciplined through communism. And we benefit from improving the overall quality of life of all these undeveloped nations. Its that whole "a chain is only as strong as its weakest link" thing.

So what we now have in America is the offshoring of the low tech and manufacturing sectors. On shore we have moved increasingly to a financial and high tech workforce (and all the support sectors such as service, construction, etc). What does this do? Well, it increases the GDP of our nation. Yes, some individuals are hurt by it, but the nation on the whole benefits.

Do i agree with this concept? I don't know...it is logical. But being logical doesn't mean being right. Time will tell.

Regardless, it is currently transitional. The wildcard right now is energy costs and the US dollar.

Originally posted by NewWorldOver

Originally posted by bigfatfurrytexan
Loyalty to the American worker is a very romantic concept, but unreasonable.

... Just a matter of time before having a job itself is a romantic concept - and it will be thanks to corporations selling out the working American.

Ronald Reagan's campaign used their idea of "democracy is an illusion" to great effect, so proffering illusions goes a ways back. What is not an illusion is the effects of job loss to the American worker/voter, as illustrated in several posts.

Originally posted by bigfatfurrytexan
..On shore we have moved increasingly to a financial and high tech workforce (and all the support sectors such as service, construction, etc).

Financial indeed! Great shape America's financial sector!
Also, who and for what wages are doing the jobs in these support sectors?
Last time I checked, these "support jobs" are being put in the category of jobs Americans "won't do". No, Americans won't do them for no benefits and minimum/close to minimum wage.

The financial crisis had its beginning in asking American workers to take less pay, and assume more costs, and yet expect them to buy, buy, buy. How? By making them pay longer over time for such things as vehicles and other big ticket items, use home equity NOW, afford a home only with a 50yr interest-only mortgage. IOW go into further and further debt.

Hey, don't worry about American companies moving jobs overseas. We have this great strategy going on to make the dollar completely worthless in a global economy. Once it's worth less than the peso or dinar you'll see jobs moving to America at a fantastic rate.

America will be the new third world sweatshop for all the rich people in China.

Originally posted by thisguyrighthere
Hey, don't worry about American companies moving jobs overseas. We have this great strategy going on to make the dollar completely worthless in a global economy. Once it's worth less than the peso or dinar you'll see jobs moving to America at a fantastic rate.

America will be the new third world sweatshop for all the rich people in China.

That's because the Chinese appreciate Capitalism now, they have gotten sick of communism and the poverty it brings

Americans have been spoiled and now hate Capitalism and wish to be taken care of like the socialists and communists

When you run the Capitalist out of your country, you get third world sweatshops.

American workers will starve, so what. business.

The guy in India or Mexico will be starving if they don't get empoyed so either way, why should it matter what country they come from?

You have all mised the boat........Companies outsource to avoid pollution/EHS/health care/retirement/various laws/taxes to pad the pocket of the CEO pretending quality did not change.

reply to post by gdeed

Why do companies send jobs overseas?

Because American shoppers are always demanding falling prices . . . and rising wages . . . and more social benefits. It's the perfect mindset for staging your own economic demise and doom, don't you think?