An honest look at outsourcing and the affects on the local small businesses.
I have heard many an analyst rave about the benefits of outsourcing overseas as a means for businesses to increase profits and lower costs. But I think what they all fail to mention is the impact that outsourcing overseas has on small businesses. Most small businesses serve a niche market and depend on the ability to offer their products and services to larger businesses and the general public in order to stay afloat and profitable.
Take my company for example, we are a small computer and network consulting firm serving the small to medium business arena in the Greater Portland/Vancouver Metro area. We provide network design, support, troubleshooting, and upgrade services to other businesses. We also offer workstation/server builds, repairs, and upgrade options to our clients. But with the effects of outsourcing our prospective client base is getting smaller and smaller. Not only is this having an impact on our ability to conduct business but it affects the local economy as well.
Case in point: jobs that were once held by local workers are now being moved offshore to other countries and the people that filled those jobs are left trying to find other positions which will provide them with the stability to support their families. Most of the positions that are being outsourced are technical support positions, clerical positions, data entry positions, and other non-customer facing positions. The problem is that there are not any new jobs being created to fill the void left by the positions that were moved offshore. So here we have companies moving positions to countries where the local labor force earns an average $250 per month and our own local labor force is left with greater competition for the remaining jobs.
I understand the economics of outsourcing, reducing your overall cost to conduct business makes your company more profitable and generates the revenue required to grow and expand. However, the trade off is our local labor force is left with greater competition for jobs, less of an income because the jobs that were paying a livable wage have been outsourced, and creating a substandard living for the majority of our population. This is not a solution, it is an epidemic!
We need to support our local businesses by purchasing products and services that will keep our local economy thriving. People can only spend money if they are making it to spend! Quit sending jobs that people depend on for their family’s survival overseas just to save a few bucks! I don’t have a easy solution to this problem. Maybe that’s because I’m one of the ones who is suffering from this.
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