ARGUMENT143 [REBORN FROM THE ASHES] TASK ONE by 城堡

城堡UID：2726418

Total words:492
Time:No limitation
First argument in my life,sigh~

The author is trying to convince us that an article on corporate downsizing in United States is misleading. According to the article, the downsizing causes some serious economic hardships for the workers who lost their jobs before they could find another. To disprove this claim, the author cites a recent report which indicates vast jobs have been created since 1992 and many of them are in good payment. Unfortunately, there are several logical flaws in this argument that would weaken the author’s claim.

First of all, the author unfairly implies us that the unemployed would not face serious economic hardship by giving the evidence from the report that far more jobs have been created than have been eliminated since 1992. On one hand, the author provides no data of the unemployed. Perhaps the amount of unemployed increases much faster than that of the created jobs every year, in which case the workers who suffer from downsizing face even fiercer competition. On the other hand, the author ignores the possibility that the created job might not be suitable for the unemployed. For example, a person who once worked as a salesman would hardly get employed if most of the jobs are created for technical workers. Without ruling out these scenarios, the author’s claim would be undermined.

Another flaw with this argument is that the author fails to convince us that the situation of unemployment is not serious because we don’t know the exact data of the unemployed who have found other jobs. The notion that many of those who lost their jobs have found new employment may be misleading. For instance, if 10000 people, who could be described as many of course, have found new employment while the total number of the unemployed is one million, the situation of unemployment is still very serious. Unless the author gives further explanation of the term of many, the demonstration is open to doubt.

Additionally, the author provides no evidence that the newly created jobs are applicable for the unemployed. The term of above-average seems obviously attractive at first glance. However, after given a second thought, it is confusing because both far higher and a little higher than the average are all called above-average. If it is the former, the unemployed might not even get a chance to access to the jobs, considering they may be paid below the average in their last jobs or they don’t have required skills for such employment. Under this condition, even with more jobs created, the unemployed are still incapable of getting employed.

In sum, the author’s evidence does not lend strong support to his conclusion. To better assess it, we need to know the concrete data about the amount of the unemployed, what’s the ratio that the workers who have found other jobs among the total unemployed and clearly evidence that the unemployed are totally incapable of finding the newly created jobs. Thus, the argument will be more cogent.