Argument143 【0706G－LOVEAW小组】第十五次作业

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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.
WORDS: 500         

This letter disagrees with a certain article’s claim that many competent workers downsized by corporate may face long-time economic hardship due to their inability to find other suitable employment. To support his claim the author cites a recent report on the United States economy. Close scrutiny to this report, however, reveals that it accomplishes little toward contradicting the article’s claim.

To begin with, the author unfairly assumes that workers who lost jobs as a result of downsizing are capable to attain jobs created since 1992. Though there have been far more jobs created than eliminated, there have been also increased graduate students and undergraduate students who competed with downsized workers to attain these jobs. And compared to downsized workers who have been considered as low ability, students graduating from universities, due to that they have been equipped with new technology, advanced research abilities in that universities are the research basis and technology cradle which always keep ahead before industry, are considered more excellent. Therefore, it is entirely possible that downsized workers can not beat constantly increased high-educated students from universities to get a position in newly created jobs.

Moreover, the author tells that “many” unemployed people have found new employment, but it contributes little to the assumption that downsized workers have been in job. Obviously, the word many is too vague to definite and, perhaps, the author deems that more than half of the overall unemployed people amounts to “many”. But, possibly, nearly half of the unemployed people can still negatively influence the economic and the stability of society. Further, it is also possible that workers who lost job resulting from corporate downsizing are mainly contained in the rest of jobless other than in the “many”. Without eliminating these scenarios, the author can not rest on the report to assume that downsized workers have found new suitable employment to escape from tough condition.

Even assuming that downsized workers have been employed once again, the author fails to provide credible evidence to support the assumption that they are in high-paid jobs. Though two-thirds of the newly created jobs have been in industries that tend to pay above-average wages, downsized employees can only find jobs in the other one-thirds which provide Low-average wages due to inferior position compared with high-educated students. Furthermore, it is equally possible that, although these jobs have been in industries with high salary, positions unemployed workers have attained are not paid with sufficient salary. For instance, hardly is it to imagine that dustmen in IBM enterprise get above-average wages. So it is entirely possible that downsized workers are still in economic hardship to meet their lives without sufficient revenues.

To sum up, the author has not effectively refuted the article’s claim in that he fails to illustrate downsized workers have attained suitable jobs even with high salary. To more effectively refute the claim, the author should provide clear evidence that downsized workers have been capable enough in overall job-seekers to win newly created jobs,  high-paid jobs and positions.



[ 本帖最后由 welcomebs 于 2007-3-3 00:22 编辑 ]