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TOPIC:ARGUMENT 143 - 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.
提纲:
1 新工作的增长可能赶不上待业人口的增加 imbalance,且过去的情况不代表现在。
2 失业的人中找到新工作的比例占多少?是很长时间找到的吗?新工作适合他们吗?新的工作环境,薪水,奖金比原来的如何?
3 三分之二的新工作超过平均工资不代表就业形势好,对于专业人才,高学历人才可能是effluence的但是对于普通大众呢?还有超过平均工作一定能满足经济需求吗?他们可是有过a long time economic hardship的,还有三分之一怎么办?政府补助?
4 full-time和 employment rate 之间没联系。
The argument above represents a sound case for arguing that the situation employment in the America seems good in consideration of a recent report on its economy. However, there are many intermediate steps should be taken before jumping to the conclusion.
We should carefully examine the author's evidence cited to support the allegation that the article in a national newspaper is misleading. The report on the United States economy, as the author's sole evidence, seems statistically unreasonable in several respects that I would refute.
First, as the report demonstrates, there are far more jobs have been created since 1992 than have been eliminated. However, we cannot help asking the question: is this fact a good indication of better employment condition during recent years? Certainly not. The author provides us no information about the concrete amount of the new jobs, and also the relevant increase of the unemployment population during recent years in America. Without these compelling statistics, we have sufficient reasons to believe that there is a supply and demand imbalance between the increased number of jobs and the increased jobless population and therefore there are probably many people cannot be employed due to the insufficient job provision. Moreover, the author unfairly assumes that the job-increased tendency upon which the argument relies would remain the same during current years. However, the assumption based on the rare condition that all the factors that would affect the United States economy have not been changed since 1992. It is highly possible that from 1998 the demand for new employments reached the most saturation.
Besides, we cannot make any inference about the bright future for the unemployed people according to the report's claim that many of people who lose jobs have found new employments. The author has not informed us what percentage of those people who have been employed again. The lower the percentage, the less reliable the report appears to us. The same is true of how long those persons found jobs again. If the job-hunting process is a long time for five or six years, then they have to experience an economic hardship at least during the years as the article on the national newspaper claims, let alone about the painstaking social problems. Even assuming that they can find new positions in a comparatively short period of time, it still begs the question: is the new employment suitable for them? Common sense tells us that many people cannot find a new job as comfortable as the former one. Unless the author can give us the information about the working environment, the salary and allowance of new employment I cannot accept the author's conclusion.
Third, the fact that two thirds of new jobs in industry offer above average salary seems sound superficially. But if we scrutinize it, we will find several logical fallacies within it. Can these employments satisfy the needs of majority of general unemployed persons? Do the new-created jobs have requirements that restrain common people except the few professional persons with high-tech skills and graduates who have high academic backgrounds or research abilities? If this is the case, then it would certainly undermine the author's conclusion that the structural transformation in industry would bring about adequate opportunities for jobs. In addition, can the above wages content with the employees who have experienced a long time economic hardship? What about the rest one third of wages which may below or next to the average salary? That means a grossly huge number of people under these employments should be financed by the government and that of course heavy the nation's economical burdens.
Finally, the evidence that the majority of those jobs are full-time has necessary relationship with the employment rate is open to doubt. To sum up, I have to say that the argument is not cogent because the report quoted by the author is quite unconvincing as it stands.
我对这篇文章仍然有一些不解的地方,我不清楚argument里提到的industry指的是工业领域还是泛指American的产业,如果是后者的话,那么工业领域的产业结构调整可能会使新增的工作只适合那些专业人才或高学历人才且effluence,而那些普通大众只能屈就于那些竞争激烈的服务业,而作者却没有给出其它产业的就业情况。还有,我不知道对于那些工作大部分是full-time jobs 应该怎么批判,如果大家有更好的驳斥点,不妨一起讨论一下^_^ |
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