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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.


The letter uses a recent report on the United States economy to refute the corporate downsizing asserted by the editor. But close scrutiny of the report might show us some flaws undermining the speaker's deduction.

First of all, the speaker bases his refutation on the report; but the figures in the report are not mentioned in his letter. The letter only mentions that many people who lost jobs have found new positions, but it does not offer further figures to show us how many persons have found new jobs recently; let alone to know the figure of how many people lost their job originally. Having no idea of the figures, we could not rule out the possibility that the total number of individuals without job may be so large that only a fraction of it is considerable.

Moreover, the material concerns the increase of post, but it does not mean that the pace of increase would catch up with that of unemployment. Here the letter loses the number of new positions again. Generally, to consider the instance of employment nowadays, the speaker should also put forwards the number of new possible workers graduated from colleges besides the number of new jobs available. However, we cannot find related information in this letter. Thus, we cannot make sure whether the new positions could offset the growing number of unemployment. If too many workers are dismissed from companies or the number of graduates of these years is considerable, we cannot promise that the increase of posts would lead to decrease of unemployment.

Finally, the report mentions that many jobs are paid above-average wages; but it does not tell us that the recent joblesses are able to take the jobs. Perhaps the speciality of these joblesses is some fields of redundant labor. If that is the case, we cannot expect that the companies with post of high wages would hire most of the people who lost their job, since the speciality of these individuals may be not the skills those companies concern. So, the speaker should provide us more information about the speciality of the joblesses and what kind of skills the companies most needs in the future. Thus, we could judge whether the unemployment would be consumed by the new positions available and make the case better.

In sum, the refutation of the speaker is unconvincing and faint, for that we cannot obtain more concrete figures to overcome our suspicion to the report and substantiate that increase of new jobs is enough and sure to consume the unemployment.