Stop Offshoring
Monday, June 14, 2004
The outcry over offshoring seems to have tapered off somewhat in recent weeks. I attribute some of it to the report that offshoring only accounted for about 2 percent (4,633 out of 239,361) of layoffs in the first quarter.
Before people start getting excited that the offshoring problem isn't as serious as first thought, consider these points mentioned in the article:
- The survey covered only companies employing at least 50 workers where at least 50 employees were laid off. Acknowledging the survey's limitations, the BLS news release noted that the data "do not reflect layoffs of less than 50 at these companies, nor do they capture layoffs occurring at establishments with less than 50 workers."
- "This is a company checking a box on a survey, and having little incentive to be completely forthcoming" about why it laid off a large number of employees, Lee said. "There's no kind of follow-up or investigation on the part of the BLS. So I don't think this is a particularly good way of doing an exhaustive measure of job loss."
Lastly, one quarter of data is insufficient to draw any conclusions.
