Life changes and Globalization Essay
America has changed in many ways during several decades. Lived experience of people has changed dramatically due to the development of technology, telecommunications, due to immigration and globalization. The ways of socializing and connecting with friends have significantly changed: people nowadays tend to exchange news and ideas through internet or contact each other using cell phones, while previously there were more personal contacts. The attitude to time also changed: along with greater flexibility, there is now more irresponsibility because it is possible to update schedule or cancel something almost instantly.
There is a notable change in the structure of jobs: many blue-collar jobs are replaced by automated processes while white-collar jobs are more demanded (Weir, 2013). International specialization is also notable: for example, some countries specialize on selling raw materials (e.g. Russia), some sell the labor of their citizens (China), while America focuses on management, technology and innovation. While this is a favorable position for the country as well as for talented and educated individuals, blue-collar workers and people from poorer social groups are currently in a more disadvantaged position than, for example, a decade ago.
In my opinion, the greatest problem that America is facing today is outsourcing of production and blue-collar activities. With the help of outsourcing, businesses reduce their costs and make their products or services more competitive. Low-qualified jobs, manual jobs and entry level jobs are often given to the workers overseas or to immigrants who agree to work at minimal wage in America. As a result, those people who cannot afford getting a decent education and seek such low-level jobs in America to sustain their living are left without jobs due to outsourcing. Only on of three such people actually finds a new job (Weir, 2013). Moreover, according to Hira and Hira (2008), more than 3.5 million of white-collar jobs are to be outsourced by 2016, and overall every ninth working place is at the threat of being outsourced. The United States cannot compete with the developing countries in the cost of labor, since the cost of living in the developing countries is 10 or more times cheaper compared to the U.S (Weir, 2013).
During the past 150 years, Americans had to face the problem of cheap immigrant labor, and the key solution to such challenge was the creation of new jobs in innovative spheres as well as expansion of American countries overseas. However, these solutions are hardly applicable to the problem of outsourcing, because earlier people had to be physically present at their workplaces and therefore had to deal with the same cost of living. Possible solutions to the considered problem are investing into education (so that people from poor social groups could afford it and could study to get a secure job) and applying elevated taxation to the companies using outsourcing so that they would not disadvantage American society in such a significant way.
