Argument143 [mettle小组]第五次作业by yaoqian0424

yaoqian0424UID: 2323517

------题目------
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.
------正文------
The author contradicts the misleading impression, say many competent workers dismissed by corporations have leaded difficult lives for years before finding other suitable employment , which was indicated from a national newspaper, entirely on the basis of a recent report on the United States economy. It seems tempting at the first glance. However, after detailed analysis, his contradiction is proved to be unwarranted since the report he cited is unconvincing.

The report asserts that far more jobs have been created than have been eliminated since 1992, nevertheless, this situation along can not necessarily resolve the economic hardship of people who lost jobs as a result of downsizing. The possible case might be that the population of people searching for jobs has expanded dramatically which would probably lead to the decrease in job opportunity per capita. In addition, the report also fails to provide compelling evidence to support whether the jobs for unemployed workers are actually more than before since not every created job is suitable for them. Hence we can not access to the confirmative assertion that unemployed workers would get the job opportunities with the ever increased number of new job.

Another flaw that weakens the logic of this argument is that the report provides no statistical data to convince us people out of work have already found new jobs.  The mere vague word "many" suggests no sufficient information on how many people who lost jobs haven reemployed on earth, and what proportion they composed of the whole group of out-work people. On the other hand, we have no idea on whether the new employment found by workers was fit for them. If the result was negative, then we are incline to believe that the workers would face downsizing for a second time in a short period of time, which still leave the economical challenge for them.

Before I come to my conclusion, it is necessary to point out another fallacy of this argument. The tow-thirds of the newly created jobs with high pay and full-time occupation promoted by industries would not surely apply to lay off workers in practice for the reason that high pay was always followed by exact demand. These new jobs might require high technical skills, restrained age range, specific kind of work, even the gender discrimination, which needs may not met by lay-off workers. Therefore, no matter how many jobs like these kinds are created, the problems of unemployed workers still can not be completely solved.

in final analysis, the author's argument for the false conception provided by the national article relies on a series unproven data of the report and thus is unconvincing as it stands. To evaluate the argument more efficiently, the author should engage in more thorough investigation to prove the job opportunity for people out of work are indeed increasing paralleling the wages of work by which the economic difficulties of those workers would truly be settled.

这个题目不是太难，在五十分钟内写完，当然大家不要劈我，水平暂时只到这份上，求拍

[ 本帖最后由 yaoqian0424 于 2007-6-30 19:54 编辑 ]