Isn't outsourcing essentially a tax avoidance? Companies look for cheap labour overseas because they don't want to pay local rates, which typically include higher tax and cost of adhering to any regulations. If a person tried to do this - for example outsourced their bank account to tax haven and asked their salary to be paid there, the authorities would be all over it.
So now the fact that companies are not only not hiding the fact they are trying to bypass the system, they also are lobbying governments to make it easier! I for a second don't believe that there is no money under the table involved. Why otherwise politicians would choose to funk up the local population to appease a big corporation?
Bottom line is that outsourcing should only be possible if it was not possible to create a product locally or companies should pay any difference in tax locally, so that people who got put out of jobs because of this can at least get benefits.
And finally I don't understand why even discussing doing any deals with China does not amount to farting in a room.
Outsourcing is done for many reasons. Sometimes companies have more projects than staff and outsourcing offers them flexible bandwidth. The downside to this approach is that it puts stress on staff who have to train or maintain the outsourcer.
I would understand outsourcing to countries that value human rights, have workers' protections in place and so on. But simply going for the cheapest possible option, where you get forced labour and children making your product simply wrong and indefensible.
We at least should lobby online and offline shops to show country of origin on the labels.
I wish if I could go on Amazon and have ability to filter out anything that comes from China. If you want to buy something responsibly it is very time consuming and some manufacturers go to great length to hide where their products are really made.
Those people who exploited labour in Asia now got filthy rich and they are in position to shush any politician looking to put a stop to this or make sure such filters would not be implemented.
Bottom line is that outsourcing should only be possible if it was not possible to create a product locally or companies should pay any difference in tax locally, so that people who got put out of jobs because of this can at least get benefits.
And finally I don't understand why even discussing doing any deals with China does not amount to farting in a room.