ARGUMENT143 [REBORN FROM THE ASHES] TASK ONE by QuincySM

QuincySMUID: 2162088

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 since 1992 far more jobs have been created than have been eliminated. The report also demonstrates that many of those who lost their jobs have found new employment. 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.

Grounding on the recent report on the US economy, supposing that above-average wages and full-time job are attractive for those who lost their jobs, and then synthesizing this hypothesis with the fact that more jobs have been created than have been eliminated, the author accordingly disproof the statement that workers who lost jobs face serious economic hardship. However, the reasons are ill-conceived, as addressed below.

In the first place, the arguer assumes that the unemployed people prefer full-time jobs. Although this is entirely possible, the arguer offers no evidence to prove this key assumption. It is very likely that the downsizing process eliminated more part-time workers. In fact, companies may tends to keep the full-time workers, who are often more professional and stable for the industries. The duties of part-time workers in some fields are relatively easy, and thus can be redistributed to the full-time ones. After they lost their jobs, they still need part-time jobs, which is not so abundant as described in the paragraph. Thus, the arguer's reasoning is definitely flawed unless the arguer can show the statistics indicating the preference of full-time jobs by the unemployed.

In the second place, the arguer assumes that jobs with salaries above average are welcomed by people who lost their jobs. Nevertheless, there is no guarantee that the choices of jobs is only dependent with this factor, and in such a comparison with average wages. One possible case is that people are tend to choose the jobs they are interested in, or they only major in one field without new jobs avaliable. This is very likely since his major field was involved with the downsizing process. Another possibility could be that these jobs pay lower than taht of the original jobs of the unemployed, which make them refuse the new positions. Without accounting for these two and other alternative explanations, the arguer cannot use such an assumption.

Last but not least, even if the evidence turns out to support the foregoing assumptions, the arguer simply assumes that more jobs created than eliminated guarantees enough potential jobs for people suffering from the downsizing. No evidence is provided to affirm this assumption. It is reasonable to doubt that what the arguer assumes will not happen in reality, for there are young people graduated from high schools or universities seeking for new jobs. These newcomers take up a considerable number of positions in the job market and may be a threat to the unemployed in finding new jobs. To reach the cited conclusion, the arguer must show the number of jobs created can satisfy the need for both the unemployed and the incoming job seekers.

To sum up, this argument mentioned above is without valid evidence or decent reasoning, neither of which is dispensable for a conclusive argument. In order to draw a better conclusion, the arguer should provide an analysis based on some data about the number of newly created positions and unemployed in each field, together with the materials of newcomers of the job market.