argument143 [REBORN FROM THE ASHES] TASK ONE by ieyangj08

ieyangj08UID: 2743219

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.

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

提纲：
1、未提及92年后就业岗位需求的情况，工作岗位未必真的增加了。
2、2/3的高薪新工作可能由其他就业群体瓜分。
3、未提及企业裁员后失业的工人们多久才能找到新工作，即使新工作报酬高，也可能之前经历一段较长的无收入期。

Merely based on the unfounded assumption and suspicious evidence, the statement draws the conclusion that the recent article on company downsizing in the United States is misleading. To substantiate this conclusion, the arguer cites a recent report on the United States economy. At first glance, this argument appears to be somewhat convicting, but further reflection reveals that it omits some substantial concerns that should be addressed in the argument. From the logical perspective, this argument suffers from three logical flaws.

The threshold problem with this argument is that job opportunities are probably not increased since 1992, for the report hadn’t mentioned the trend in the number of the job seekers. It is probably that new job seekers are far more than the new job opportunities. Even if there are actually more jobs since 1992, we couldn’t conclude the article is misleading, because the new job opportunities offered are not only shared by the unemployed competent workers caused by the corporate downsizing. Other skilled workers or new graduates may share great part of these opportunities. Thus, just from the report that far more jobs have been created than eliminated we couldn’t conclude the article is misleading.

Another problem that weakens the logic of this argument is that two-thirds of the newly created high-wage jobs are probably mainly shared by other job-hunting groups, such as skilled workers or new graduates. The corporate downsizing unemployed men might only find the rest one-third of the newly-created jobs which are lower paid than the average level. For example, as the development of Internet, more jobs require skilled use of a computer. However, a great many of the unemployed competent workers are unfamiliar with the computer, so they couldn’t apply such high wage work. Thus, only with the evidence of more high-wage jobs, we can hardly say the article is objective.

Before I come to my conclusion, it is necessary to point out the last flaw involved in this argument that the report didn’t refer to the time period of re-finding work for the competent unemployed workers caused by corporate downsizing. They are likely to experience a long time of jobless and having no finance incomes, such as many years. Even though they got high payments when re-hired, before these they would suffer serious economic hardship. Without the enough relevant information, we hardly can declare the report is unjust.  

To sum up, this arguer fails to substantiate his claim that the recent article on corporate downsizing in the United States is misleading, because the evidence cited in the analysis does not lend strong support to what the arguer maintains. To make the argument more convincing, the author would have to provide more information with regard to the trend in the number of the job seekers and the time period of finding new work for these workers. Additionally, he would have to demonstrate that the two-thirds of newly created good jobs are mainly shared by the competent unemployed workers caused by corporate downsizing. Therefore, if the argument had included given factors discussed above, it would have been more thorough and logically acceptable.

ieyangj08UID: 2743219

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