ENGL 161 Summary Response Essay Instruct 2

Student Name
Mrs. Theresa Grimm
English 161
January 25, 2015 Passport to Unemployment It was once said, “You can never plan the future by the past” (Blinder 8). However, in today’s world, the job situation is much more complicated. The work force is growing and growing, and with more people joining the workforce every day, people need to worry about whether or not their job will be around in the long term. “Will Your Job Be Exported?” is an article written by Alan S. Blinder, the Gordon S. Rentschler Memorial Professor of Economics at Princeton University. In the article, Blinder cites reliable evidence to successfully argue his opinion that the American education system needs to be revised in order to better prepare workers for employment in the current market. In the first section of the Blinder article, he starts off talking about much education one should accomplish. Blinder states, “In a progressive society, such as worrisome social phenomenon might elicit some strong policy responses, such as more compensatory education, stepped-up efforts at retraining, reinforcement of the social safety net” (Blinder 9). Americans are shredding the safety net; they keep on taking away reinforcements that help keep the playing field “fair.” According to Blinder, an effect of this is Social Darwinism, where the work force has become survival of the fittest. Employers are looking for people with a high level of education and good people skills. Having good people means being able to communicate well with others; it is a soft skill you must acquire. Later on in the article, Blinder talks about offshoring. In the article he explains that offshoring is, “the movement of jobs overseas” (Blinder 9). Countries with lower wages are taking jobs from Americans. Blinder talks about three reasons why jobs are becoming offshored. The first reason is because of “simple arithmetic.” The second reason is because of the growth in technology; people are now able to do jobs across seas in an efficient manner. This has a negative effect on American workers, because that means fewer job opportunities. Lastly, the number of workers overseas is growing rapidly, and these workers are willing to work longer hours, for lower pay, with few, if any, benefits. Blinder then goes on to talk about different types of jobs. Next in the article, Blinder discusses the different between personal and impersonal jobs. The higher paying jobs are the personal services that provide a specific service that cannot be provided remotely, like a plumber or a hair stylist, for example. He goes on to talk about how the American system of education is not preparing children the right way in school. Schools have them so focused on studying and memorizing for standardized testing instead of personal people skills. Blinder says how, “starting in elementary schools, we need to develop our youngsters’ imaginations and people skills” (Blinder 12). In the end he talks about education needs to better prepare children for the kinds of personal service jobs that cannot be exported. Blinder did a good job explaining his points about the workforce and about how it is changing. With every problem he presented, he argued and discussed a plan to improve that problem. For example, in relation to the personal service jobs, he wants to start children off earlier with learning people skills. Throughout the article, Blinder did not use any confusing words or ideas; he was straightforward and explained himself. He did express his opinions, but they did not come off too strong or heavy-handed. His opinions are supported with evidence and his article is written professionally, leaving the reader clear about what he was trying to say. I agree with what Blinder is talking about in the article. We need to push kids to get a college degree, not for the quantity of education, but for the quality. In America, we push kids to memorize and pass standardized tests that do not help them prepare for the future. Kids need to be learning how to apply what they learned in the real world and how to use that information to interact with people. The truth is, personal jobs are higher in salary. For example, think about doctors. Many medical specialists are foreign; many talented individuals come to the United States to take advantage of our excellent programs in higher education and stay in the U.S. for work. While I have no problem with this, I also worry that our early education system is failing students since fewer and fewer are achieving the kind of advanced education required to be a medical specialist or something similar. I have never lost a job to someone overseas, but my best friend had to move because her dad’s job was offshored and they had to relocate for him to look for work. I want to be a special education teacher, which is a personal service, for now. It scares me with all this growth in technology. Look how many online schools there are now. Will one day in the future there be no teachers, just assignments on a computer screen? We need to learn from the past and use it to prepare for the future in order to be successful in the workplace.
What if your job is exported? In the article, “Will Your Job Be Exported,” by Alan S. Blinder, he discusses how job exportation has become an unfortunate reality for so many Americans. Many people are losing jobs to people from other countries. Americans have to fight to keep personal service jobs versus impersonal services. Schools need to change their curriculum and teach kids material that will be valuable in the future. Kids need to learn how to apply what they learned in school to help them get a real world job. We need to take what worked in the past apply it and change it to what we need in the future. Americans need to use the advancement in technology to their advantage and hopefully stop the exporting of jobs.
Work Cited
Blinder, Alan S. “Will Your Job Be Exported?” Writing and Reading Across the
Curriculum. Twelfth Ed. Laurence Behrens and Leonard J. Rosen, eds. Upper Saddle River, NJ: Pearson, 2013. 8-13. Print.

Cited: Blinder, Alan S. “Will Your Job Be Exported?” Writing and Reading Across the Curriculum. Twelfth Ed. Laurence Behrens and Leonard J. Rosen, eds. Upper Saddle River, NJ: Pearson, 2013. 8-13. Print.