[a习作temp] ARGUMENT143 [REBORN FROM THE ASHES] TASK ONE by豆腐店的86 [复制链接]

豆腐店的86
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发表于 2009-12-14 22:19:24 |只看该作者 |倒序浏览

本帖最后由豆腐店的86 于 2009-12-16 23:48 编辑

【ARGUMENT143】
Your recent article on corporate downsizing* in the United States is misleading. The article gives the mistaken impression that many competent workers who lost jobs as a result of downsizing face serious economic hardship, often for years, before finding other suitable employment. But this impression is contradicted by a recent report on the United States economy, which found that （1）since 1992 far more jobs have been created than have been eliminated. The report also demonstrates that （2）many of those who lost their jobs have found new employment. （3）Two-thirds of the newly created jobs have been in industries that tend to pay above-average wages, and the vast majority of these jobs are full-time.
*Downsizing is the process in which corporations deliberately（on purpose） reduce the number of their employees.
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The editorial goes against with a certain article's claim that deliberately downsizing in corporations ends up with many competent unemployed workers who are facing serious economic hardship before having another job. Citing a recent report, the editorial holds his disagreement for the following reasons: first of all, far more positions have been created than have been eliminated since the year 1992 as recorded; secondly, many workers who lost their jobs have found another one; thirdly, two-thirds of the newly created jobs have an above-average wages and most of them are full-time. At first glance, what listed above seems negate the article's claim. However, fallacies lying in those arguments make the editorial's rebuttal ungrounded.
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Starting with the first finding, the impression given by a recent submitted article cannot be simply judged by a data pool beginning in 1992, which apparently cannot be regarded as a recent data base. That is to say, it is true that "far more" jobs have been created in total than have been eliminated during the time from 1992 till now, but in recent years, does this trend go consistently the same? We have to doubt that. May be more jobs have been eliminated than have been created recently, but the change is not severe enough to effect the total figures which have been collected during such a long time. Addition to that, the phrase "far more" is too vague to determine whether the number of increasing positions is ample enough for the unemployed or not. Thus, this point is not credit enough as a rebuttal.
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Coming to the second finding, as the phrase "far more" mentioned above, the word "many" raises a similar doubt that is to what percentage among the whole unemployed workers have found a new job. For instance, we call 1000 people as "many", but if there are 1 million unemployed workers, the "many" will only refer to 0.1% of the whole. What's more, downsizing is not the only reason for people to lost their jobs. In the second finding, the report does not separate the unemployed workers according to their reasons for being fired, instead, it state the point an ambiguous way by not even classified them, so that we cannot tell how many workers lose their jobs because of corporate downsizing. Therefore, such a vague statement, as a whole, cannot offense the article's claim from the core.
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In the last finding, the editorial cites the report's statement to defend his disagreement that two-thirds of the newly created jobs provide an over-average salary. What underlying is that those who lost jobs can overcome their economic hardship by taking these over-average salary jobs. However, on one hand, people who had a high paid positions do not want to take the mid-salary job or even if they take the job, the mid-level income can still not satisfied his normal expend, on the other hand, those who received a lower salary are not competent enough for the mid-level positions or there is not sufficient positions for them, since we know that most unemployed workers are lower-income people and there are no more than one-thirds of the newly created jobs fit them. Needless to say, this very point is also unstable for defending the disagreement.
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In sum, the editorial provides some vague statements to support his disagreement, which are absolutely ungrounded as being analyzed above. To make the isagreement more concrete, the editorial should find figures that indicates working positions has been increasing in recent years and pick out workers who lost their job because of downsizing to see whether they have find a new job to make their balance meet or not.