Outsourcing is not always a bad thing

By Aussiegirl

Herb Meyer and Thomas Lifson give a few insights into the whole "outsourcing" controversy. It's not always shipping jobs overseas. Increasingly, companies are springing up that specialize and do one thing extremely well, and extremely cheaply -- such as offering catering to employees as described in this case. Similar examples might be the increasing use of companies that perform limited functions like paper shredding, accounting, secretarial and reception services which used to be performed in-house. On the whole this is why our economy continues to grow and has the highest per-capita productivity in the developed world. We do it better, and cheaper.

The American Thinker: "Most people assume that "outsourcing" means the transfer of an American job to a foreign worker, for instance in China. In fact, most of the "outsourcing" going on today involves the transfer of a job from one American company to another American company. For example, a company with a big factory, such as an auto-manufacturer, needs a cafeteria in that factory so its workers can eat, cheaply and quickly, on their lunch breaks. They used to operate these cafeterias themselves. But in recent years, operation of these cafeterias has been "outsourced" to companies that specialize in operating food-service facilities within factories -- or other large facilities such as hospitals. That's because these food-service companies can do the job more efficiently because, unlike the auto-maker or the hospital, operating a cafeteria is the only thing they do -- so they do it very well.