ARGUMENT143 [REBORN FROM THE ASHES] TASK ONE by 海王泪

海王泪UID: 2673613

TOPIC: ARGUMENT143 - The following appeared as a letter to the editor of a national newspaper.

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.
*Downsizing is the process in which corporations deliberately reduce the number of their employees.

My plan:
1 劳动力的增长速度比工作岗位的增长速度快（Young Workfoce, Foreign Labor）
2 Report中失业者找到工作不明显与Article中的论断冲突（需提供失业者找工作的时间和期间财务状况）
3 工资不错的工作未必是针对失业者所设（设计者、宣传者、管理者；就工人而言也有可能需要的是有特殊技能的人）
Report中三条线索所说的是宏观就业环境，比Article中针对的Downsizing people范围要大，未必适用。


My argument:
According to three clues of the report on the United States economy, the author blamed the recent article for its misleading impression on serious economic hardship unemployment faced for years before finding a new job. It seems reasonable at first. However, the author fails to convince me when he or she has not accurately talk about

First of all, the author quoted “more jobs created than eliminated” and assumed that increasing jobs can solve the unemployment problem. But what if the number of workers increased faster than new jobs created?

A possible reason is that the outbreak of young workforce overloads the job market, which is under the pressure of high birthrate in the past. An amount of people was suddenly born about 18 years ago and now they create a competitive environment in finding job. That possibly means many downsizing workers cannot easily find jobs.

Foreign labor, like Mexican, can serve as another reason. “Higher” salary (though local may not pleased with it) attracts immigrant from Mexico to United States. They are more diligent than locals. They are willing to accept worse working condition and well-being which American workers cannot bear. Industries certainly favor these workers. That means, even though “more jobs have been created than have been eliminated”, the local workers may still suffer for economic hardship when they could not compete well with more and more foreign labor.

Secondly, the recent report demonstrates that “many” people who lost their jobs have found new employment. Ignoring the absence of accurate statistics about re-employed, the conclusion does not apparently conflict with the article on the national newspaper, which manifests that people out of work suffered for “years” of “serious” economic hardship before finding suitable jobs. In the article, they finally found new jobs too. The author must talk about how long the unemployed found their new jobs and how about their financial condition. If those people are quickly employed less than one year and they live without financial problem, the author’s condemnation of the mistaken impression would be compelling.

Lastly, so-called two-thirds of the jobs may not be created for competent workers mentioned in the article. Such jobs with good wages perhaps are mainly for people who design or publicize the products, or for managers. In other words, payroll costs of industries are not limited only to workers. Moreover, suppose that the created jobs are for workers, the willing to pay above-average wages perhaps suggest that these industries want specific workers for maintenance, quality control, special handicraft or so on. For example, sport cars like Ferrari, Lamborghini or top grade cars like Rose-Royce in car industry are in need of workers with special skill, which are not always equal to competent (experienced, effective, exciting) workers.

All in all, the author offered little available information from the report to disprove the article of the national newspaper. Worse, he or she focus on jobs situation from the report on the United States economy which is much broader than what the original article discussed—people out of work because of corporate downsizing. The whole condition of employment has been probably stable as what the author said but “competent” victim of downsizing were looking for true “suitable” job even when they face serious economic hardship.