Outsourcing, Costly for US Workers, an Issue in Election Yea

 

Ted¹ Landphair

A tame-sounding term "outsourcing" has become a red-hot election-year buzzword. To outsource is to lay off American workers earning salaries and fringe benefits and hire different workers, usually in other countries, for a fraction of the pay and no extra benefits. Dozens of large U.S. corporations have cut their labor² costs by as much as half by moving functions like accounting³ and telephone customer service to low-cost centers overseas.
To slash⁵ labor costs, U.S. companies are moving not just assembly-line tasks but also, increasingly, service and back-office jobs like accounting, and high-tech⁶ functions like computer programming, to low-wage worker pools in places like China, India, and Indonesia. So long as the overseas staff speaks good English and does the job, the reasoning goes, U.S. customers don't much care whether the people who take their telephoned catalog orders are sitting in Boston or Bangkok or Bombay.
But the crushing effect of offshoring - as outsourcing is sometimes called - on those who've lost good-paying jobs is obvious. As The Economist⁷ magazine put it in an article last year: "America's pain, India's gain." Newsweek magazine asked, "Is Your Job Next?"
Little wonder offshoring has become a red-meat issue for angry trade unionists and their supporters. After his victory in the Iowa caucuses⁸ last month, Democratic presidential candidate John Kerry railed against federal tax incentives¹⁰ to companies that outsource jobs. "We are not going to give one benefit or one reward to any Benedict Arnold company or chief executive officer who take jobs and money overseas and stick you with the bill. That's over," he said. The name of Benedict Arnold, a general in the American war for independence who switched his allegiance to the British, is a common epithet¹¹ meaning traitor¹².
Addressing a crowd of industrial union members in Washington recently, Tom Daschle, the Democratic leader in the U.S. Senate, blamed outsourcing for what's been called the jobless recovery from a recession of two years ago. During that time the U.S. stock market has rebounded¹³, but two and one-half million manufacturing jobs have disappeared.
"George Bush says the economy is creating jobs. But let me tell ya," said Tom Daschle. "China is one long commute¹⁴. And let me tell ya, I'm tired of watching jobs shift overseas."
But it's not just disgruntled Democrats¹⁵ who are worked up. In the generally conservative Farm Belt state of Indiana, Republican senator Jeffrey Drozda championed a bill that passed, 39 to 10, recently, that would prohibit the outsourcing of state contracts to overseas firms. Instead, Senator Drozda says, unemployed¹⁶ or under-employed Indianans should get the jobs.
"It does state in the bill that all work under the contract must be performed in the United States," he said. "And at least eight other states are looking at doing the very same thing because this is what I deem a national crisis."
The offshoring issue smoldered¹⁸ without exploding for years, Senator Drozda says, because it was always assumed blue-collar workers thrown out of work could retrain for sophisticated, highly paid technical and service jobs. Now many of those jobs are moving to India and Pakistan and China as well.
Just ask Laird Carmichael. He's executive vice⁴ president of a company called International Outsourcing Services. It has headquarters in Indiana, runs a large assembly operation on the Mexican border in Texas, and spreads $250 million in manufacturing and data-processing work each year to centers in Mexico, China, France, and Slovakia. Mr. Carmichael describes himself as a red-blooded American whose customers are doing what comes naturally in a capitalist system - outsourcing in order to keep costs down - however and wherever they can.
"I've watched companies that I've done work for in contract manufacturing that, had they not done some portion of manufacturing outsourcing to a lower wage base, would have gone out of business, given their competitors," said Mr. Carmichael. "All of this is coming down to providing businesses and consumers with lower-priced products. And I'm an optimist¹⁹. I think people in the United States are continuing to change and evolve. Despite all the rhetoric²⁰ you hear, nothing's black and white, and people are evolving into higher-paid jobs."
Economist Marvin Kosters at the American Enterprise Institute think tank agrees. When a company like Delta²¹ Air Lines can save $15 million a year by moving its basic reservations operation to India and the Philippines, he says, the result is a more efficient U.S. economy with greater output, lower prices, and satisfied customers. He says resourceful Americans will develop new kinds of jobs to replace even high-skills positions that are moving overseas.
"Ten years ago, we would never have dreamed that we would have so many people working in information technology, right? Ten years from now, we don't exactly know where the job expansion is going to occur," said Mr. Kosters.
But Phillip Bond, the U.S. undersecretary of Commerce for technology, ventures a guess. He argues that innovation in emerging fields like biotech and nanotechnology, fueled by double-digit increases in spending on research and development, is what he calls the seed corn for the future that will more than offset²² the loss of jobs to offshoring.
"We just need to make sure we're ready to get the breakthroughs out of the university and federal labs as fast as possible, commercialize them, and put our people to work," said Mr. Bond. "The model for the United States is pretty simple: We want to be the headquarters of innovation for the world. And if you go to Armonk, New York, to the headquarters of IBM; or Redmond, Washington, to the headquarters of Microsoft; or down in Austin, Texas, at Dell Computer, those headquarters towns are doing pretty well because they are the focal point of innovation. We want to be the innovation headquarters for the world."
Mr. Bond and economist Kosters argue that strengthening the economies of less-developed nations is not only the American ideal; it also helps make those countries better customers for U.S. goods. As Mr. Kosters puts it: "The moral case for outsourcing in that sense is [that it is] good for everybody involved."
Sixty percent of America's 1,000 largest corporations do not outsource. Some cite the difficulty of managing far-flung resources, fear of negative publicity²³, and security concerns. In one infamous²⁴ incident, an overseas analyst²⁵ handling U.S. medical records threatened to display them on the worldwide web if his pay dispute was not resolved.
Still, the Forrester independent research firm estimates that more than three million U.S. service and high-tech jobs and $136 billion in wages will move to India, China, Russia, the Philippines, and other overseas centers over the next 15 years. The Forrester study predicts that by decade's end, executive stature²⁶ will be measured, not by the number of employees managed but by the number of contracts outsourced.

注释：
outsourcing [5aut7sR:siN] n. 业务外包
buzzword [5bQzwd] n. 时髦词语
fraction [5frAkFEn] n. 部分，零头
slash [slAF] v. 大量削减
pool [pu:l] vt. 集中
catalog [5kAtElC^] n. 名单册子
Bangkok [bAN5kCk] n.（泰国首都）曼谷
Bombay [bCm5bei] n. 孟买
offshore²⁷ [5C(:)fFC:] n. 近海岸
unionist [5ju:njEnist] n. 工会联盟的会员
incentive⁹ [in5sentiv] n. 刺激
allegiance [E5li:dVEns] n. 效忠
recession [ri5seFEn] n. 不景气，工商业衰退期
commute [kE5mju:t] n. 通勤路程
disgruntled [dis5^rQnt(E)ld] adj. 不满的，不高兴的
conservative [kEn5sE:vEtiv] adj. 守旧的
contract [5kCntrAkt] n. 合同
deem [di:m] v. 看法，认为
smolder¹⁷ [5smEuldE] vi. 郁积
sophisticated [sE5fistikeitid] adj. 采用先进技术的，需要专门操作技能的
evolve [i5vClv] v. 发展
Philippines [5filipi:nz] n. 菲律宾共和国
biotech [7baiou5tek] n. 生物工艺学
nanotechnology [5nAnEutek5nClEdVi] n. 纳米技术
innovation [7inEu5veiFEn] n. 创新，革新

1 ted   

vt.翻晒，撒，撒开

参考例句：

• The invaders gut ted the village.侵略者把村中财物洗劫一空。
• She often teds the corn when it's sunny.天好的时候她就翻晒玉米。

2 labor   

n.劳动，努力，工作，劳工；分娩；vi.劳动，努力，苦干；vt.详细分析；麻烦

参考例句：

• We are never late in satisfying him for his labor.我们从不延误付给他劳动报酬。
• He was completely spent after two weeks of hard labor.艰苦劳动两周后，他已经疲惫不堪了。

3 accounting   

n.会计，会计学，借贷对照表

参考例句：

• A job fell vacant in the accounting department.财会部出现了一个空缺。
• There's an accounting error in this entry.这笔账目里有差错。

4 vice   

n.坏事；恶习；[pl.]台钳，老虎钳；adj.副的

参考例句：

• He guarded himself against vice.他避免染上坏习惯。
• They are sunk in the depth of vice.他们堕入了罪恶的深渊。

5 slash   

vi.大幅度削减；vt.猛砍，尖锐抨击，大幅减少；n.猛砍，斜线，长切口，衣衩

参考例句：

• The shop plans to slash fur prices after Spring Festival.该店计划在春节之后把皮货降价。
• Don't slash your horse in that cruel way.不要那样残忍地鞭打你的马。

6 high-tech   

adj.高科技的

参考例句：

• The economy is in the upswing which makes high-tech services in more demand too.经济在蓬勃发展，这就使对高科技服务的需求量也在加大。
• The quest of a cure for disease with high-tech has never ceased. 人们希望运用高科技治疗疾病的追求从未停止过。

7 economist   

n.经济学家，经济专家，节俭的人

参考例句：

• He cast a professional economist's eyes on the problem.他以经济学行家的眼光审视这个问题。
• He's an economist who thinks he knows all the answers.他是个经济学家，自以为什么都懂。

8 caucuses   

n.（政党决定政策或推举竞选人的）核心成员( caucus的名词复数 )；决策干部；决策委员会；秘密会议

参考例句：

• Republican caucuses will happen in about 410 towns across Maine. 共和党团会议选举将在缅因州的约410个城镇进行。 来自互联网

9 incentive   

n.刺激；动力；鼓励；诱因；动机

参考例句：

• Money is still a major incentive in most occupations.在许多职业中，钱仍是主要的鼓励因素。
• He hasn't much incentive to work hard.他没有努力工作的动机。

10 incentives   

激励某人做某事的事物( incentive的名词复数 )； 刺激； 诱因； 动机

参考例句：

• tax incentives to encourage savings 鼓励储蓄的税收措施
• Furthermore, subsidies provide incentives only for investments in equipment. 更有甚者，提供津贴仅是为鼓励增添设备的投资。 来自英汉非文学 - 环境法 - 环境法

11 epithet   

n.（用于褒贬人物等的）表述形容词，修饰语

参考例句：

• In "Alfred the Great","the Great"is an epithet.“阿尔弗雷德大帝”中的“大帝”是个称号。
• It is an epithet that sums up my feelings.这是一个简洁地表达了我思想感情的形容词。

12 traitor   

n.叛徒，卖国贼

参考例句：

• The traitor was finally found out and put in prison.那个卖国贼终于被人发现并被监禁了起来。
• He was sold out by a traitor and arrested.他被叛徒出卖而被捕了。

13 rebounded   

弹回( rebound的过去式和过去分词 )； 反弹； 产生反作用； 未能奏效

参考例句：

• The ball rebounded from the goalpost and Owen headed it in. 球从门柱弹回，欧文头球将球攻进。
• The ball rebounded from his racket into the net. 球从他的球拍上弹回网中。

14 commute   

vi.乘车上下班；vt.减(刑)；折合；n.上下班交通

参考例句：

• I spend much less time on my commute to work now.我现在工作的往返时间要节省好多。
• Most office workers commute from the suburbs.很多公司的职员都是从郊外来上班的。

15 democrats   

n.民主主义者，民主人士( democrat的名词复数 )

参考例句：

• The Democrats held a pep rally on Capitol Hill yesterday. 民主党昨天在国会山召开了竞选誓师大会。
• The democrats organize a filibuster in the senate. 民主党党员组织了阻挠议事。 来自《简明英汉词典》

16 unemployed   

adj.失业的，没有工作的；未动用的，闲置的

参考例句：

• There are now over four million unemployed workers in this country.这个国家现有四百万失业人员。
• The unemployed hunger for jobs.失业者渴望得到工作。

17 smolder   

v.无火焰地闷烧；n.焖烧，文火

参考例句：

• The smolder will soon be a flame.闷火很快变为烈焰。
• It can smolder undetected for hours,then suddenly explode in fiery destruction.也有可能好几小时内不被发觉，突然激烈的爆炸。

18 smoldered   

v.用文火焖烧，熏烧，慢燃( smolder的过去式 )

参考例句：

• The conflict that smoldered between Aunt Addie and me flared openly. 艾迪小姨和我之间闷在心里的冲突突然公开化了。 来自辞典例句
• After the surrender, an ever-present feud over the horse smoldered between Scarlett and Suellen. 投降以后，思嘉和苏伦之间一直存在的关于那骑马的急论眼看就要爆发了。 来自飘（部分）

19 optimist   

n.乐观的人，乐观主义者

参考例句：

• We are optimist and realist.我们是乐观主义者，又是现实主义者。
• Peter,ever the optimist,said things were bound to improve.一向乐观的皮特说，事情必定是会好转的。

20 rhetoric   

n.修辞学，浮夸之言语

参考例句：

• Do you know something about rhetoric?你懂点修辞学吗？
• Behind all the rhetoric,his relations with the army are dangerously poised.在冠冕堂皇的言辞背后，他和军队的关系岌岌可危。

21 delta   

n.（流的）角洲

参考例句：

• He has been to the delta of the Nile.他曾去过尼罗河三角洲。
• The Nile divides at its mouth and forms a delta.尼罗河在河口分岔，形成了一个三角洲。

22 offset   

n.分支，补偿；v.抵消，补偿

参考例句：

• Their wage increases would be offset by higher prices.他们增加的工资会被物价上涨所抵消。
• He put up his prices to offset the increased cost of materials.他提高了售价以补偿材料成本的增加。

23 publicity   

n.众所周知，闻名；宣传，广告

参考例句：

• The singer star's marriage got a lot of publicity.这位歌星的婚事引起了公众的关注。
• He dismissed the event as just a publicity gimmick.他不理会这件事，只当它是一种宣传手法。

24 infamous   

adj.声名狼藉的，臭名昭著的，邪恶的

参考例句：

• He was infamous for his anti-feminist attitudes.他因反对女性主义而声名狼藉。
• I was shocked by her infamous behaviour.她的无耻行径令我震惊。

25 analyst   

n.分析家，化验员；心理分析学家

参考例句：

• What can you contribute to the position of a market analyst?你有什么技能可有助于市场分析员的职务？
• The analyst is required to interpolate values between standards.分析人员需要在这些标准中插入一些值。

26 stature   

n.（高度）水平，（高度）境界，身高，身材

参考例句：

• He is five feet five inches in stature.他身高5英尺5英寸。
• The dress models are tall of stature.时装模特儿的身材都较高。

27 offshore   

adj.海面的，吹向海面的；adv.向海面

参考例句：

• A big program of oil exploration has begun offshore.一个大规模的石油勘探计划正在近海展开。
• A gentle current carried them slowly offshore.和缓的潮流慢慢地把他们带离了海岸。