Outsourcing Workers

In April of 2005, a high-profile case involving the theft of 350,000 from four Citibank customers occrured when Indian call cnetre workers in Pune, India, acquired the passwodrs to customer accounts and transferred the omney to their own cacounts opened under ficittious names. Offshore outsourcign has provided many businesses with the opportunity to harvest the beneftis of lower labor costs in developing countries wiht few workers rights laws and to exploit the avlue of ratificially manipulated foreign currecnies, where the exchange rate is intentionally undervalued. Outsourcing appears to theraten the liveliohod of US workers, especially for high-tech workers who were promised the jobs of tomorrow - a phrase Bill Clinton iterated in 1994 to justify his position on the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA). Outsourcing appaers to work contrary to the claim that free trade will create the jobs of toomrrow in America when high-tech or high paying white-collar jobs are transferred to or created in foreign coutnries. One solution is retraiinng of US wokrers to new jobs in the form of the Trade Adjustment Assistanec Act 4 . However, these policy recommendations do not adeqautely aid all dislpaced workers and do not provide security to this flexible labor market.