Summary Paper Long 1

Nguyen Minh Long

1810140037 – Anh 02 CTTT KT

Vu Thi Diem Phuc

College Composition 150

August 20, 2019

Outline Summary for Article “Will Your Job Be Exported?”

In the article “Will Your Job Be Exported?” published in The American Prospect in

2006, Alan S. Blinder elaborates on the potential influence of offshoring on service jobs in

US and some corresponding measures towards this type of outsourcing. Over the past 25

years, as Blinder states, labor market apparently has placed increasingly stronger emphasis on

the level of education – a trend termed “skill-based technical progress” by economists,

propelling the public to prolong young people’s learning process. However, this is no longer

the case. What crosses Blinder’s mind is that offshoring, especially in service jobs, may be

the major obstacle for upcoming American workers due to staggering headway in

communication technology and the rise of Asian and Eastern Europe labor force, subjecting

the service sector to foreign competition.

In fact, Blinder holds a firm belief that “service-sector offshoring will eventually

exceed manufacturing-sector offshoring by a hefty margin” (pg. 2) on the grounds of the

abundance of service jobs in developed countries, the growing range of offshorable service

jobs and the technical capability of developing-country workers. Nonetheless, the author does

not mean to demonstrate his total deprecation of service-sector offshoring, admitting that

“trade in services” will eventually benefit US living standards. Rather, the main detrimental

impacts on US workers actually lies in the “transition” period.

Acknowledging that offshoring has the potential to influence manifold categories of

service sector, one question is put forward here: to what extent will offshoring affect different
Summary Paper Long 2

types of service jobs. To answer this, the article provides the readers with the definition of

two types of service jobs: personal services, which requrie physical proximity to customers

versus impersonal services with the opposite definition and implies that the former will suffer

less from outsourcing. Having said that, Blinder thinks that the society urgently needs

educational overhaul with the aforementioned definition in mind since the range of

impersonal services will only be augmented more and more by technological advances. The

article further clarifies the divergence between personal and impersonal jobs focuses not on

education levels but rather on the nature of that occupation. That thought prompts the writer

to the conclusion that “the relative demand for labor in the United States will shift away from

impersonal services and toward personal services” (pg. 4).

This is not to downplay the role of education but rather to address the need for

tremendous transformations, which is what Blinder strives to elucidate immediately

afterwards. He proposes three possible solutions to this issue. The first and foremost remedy

lies in upcoming US workers themselves by dint of self-preparatory actions for non-

offshorable personal service jobs. The author then calls for an education reform,

concentrating on interpersonal skills and vocational training that equip young people with

adequate proficiency in high-end personal service jobs still available in US years later. When

it comes to such a broad matter like outsourcing and employment prospects, government

policies need to come into play too. What US government can do in this complication are to

raise wages and enhance the quality of workplace environment, “widening the pipeline” for

workers to develop the right skills for the right jobs to their full potential. The article then

leaps to ultimate conclusion that superb education is still the starting pinnacle of young

people’s career path and that enormous efforts should be channeled into preparing Americans

for personal service jobs.