If you watch the news on a regular basis, or at the very least before the election of our new President, you have likely heard of outsourcing. Are there pros to outsourcing? There most certainly are. But are there cons? Again, yes there are. Through this article we will detail a few of the most prevalent benefits and disadvantages of outsourcing.

First, should you still not be entirely clear as to what outsourcing actually is, allow me to explain it as plainly as possible. Outsourcing is when a company sends its most costly labor out to another part of the globe to have it done by another organization or group that is willing or able to do it cheaper.

Let’s talk about the benefits and disadvantages of outsourcing. Obviously there can be huge benefits to outsourcing jobs to India or the Philippines. Filipinos are known to be hard workers with pure honesty, loyalty and great integrity. A great benefit would be the fact that you can hire a full-time employee for as little as $250 per month. One disadvantage may be the fact that you cannot really monitor what they do with their work time. However, you can monitor results and as long as you profit from their labor it shouldn’t really matter.

So what are the advantages to outsourcing? Actually, from a company perspective, there are plenty of reasons that you might opt to outsource. While there might be many of quality reasons and purposes, you might benefit more from just having the two most common arguments as to why companies should outsource.

The first of these reasons is the truth that, it is much more profitable for a company to be able to outsource. You see, while it might be able to be done right where they are, should it be able to be done for fractions of that price, the company has a better chance of actually succeeding. With the constant flux of the national economy, businesses that were once prominent and powerful are crumbling below the weight of attempting to stay afloat. With outsourcing, they are able to not only keep their costs down, but inevitably keep that cost constant for the customer that purchases it.

The second most common reason that companies claim to outsource is to help out nations and regions that are suffering more than we are here. While in many cases this could be true, it might not always be so. Yet, for the cases in which it is true, this is a noble approach to business dealings. It would technically be a great situation for both sides, the economy improves through the production of jobs where the project was outsourced, while the stateside company gets to reduce their cost of production and stay in the running until the economy gets back to how it should be.

Before you get all for outsourcing, there are some serious disadvantages associated with the process. While there might be an equal amount to the advantages as far as the opposing party is concerned, I will again only address the two most common cons from a company choosing to outsource production.

While you might be able to make the argument that outsourcing vastly aids a struggling business (or business that isn’t struggling), there are just as many that would suggest that it is the individual, namely the employee of said company, that truly suffers. If you work for a company that has decided to outsource you are likely in fear of losing your job. While this might not be the case for everyone in the company, the low men on the totem pole (which consequently is a lot of people) might experience massive lay offs or even termination.

The second point is sort of related to the first. Should the hours that an employee works get cut, removed, or terminated than the country as a whole will suffer. You see, the whole United States operates on the income obtained by hard working people. So should these people lose their jobs, they will no longer have the income to put into keeping other companies from outsourcing to save money. It’s a pretty serious cycle that results in a lot of work being sent overseas and a lot of people filling out the unemployment lines.

So as you can see, there are benefits and disadvantages of outsourcing. While a compelling argument could be made on either side of the coin, where you stand is where it affects you. That is usually the case.

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