Outsourcing, what exactly is it? It is an effective cost-saving process that companies use to ship jobs or services (internal resources) needed by a company or agency to an external organization or country (external resources). This practice has been going on since the 19th and early 20th centuries. During the Industrial Revolution period, companies outsourced legal work, engineering, and independent architecture instead of keeping them in-house. In the 1970s many consumer goods manufacturers outsourced clothes, shoes, toys and electronics. These companies often turn to foreign countries with lower wagering costs to produce these goods. Once a company was confident it could outsource its manufacturing processes and shipping costs to reduce goods on the market, more and more companies began to outsource. In the 1980s, companies began outsourcing more administrative functions such as invoicing, accounting, and word processing in an effort to keep costs manageable. IT companies were the first to outsource their payroll. In today's economy, outsourcing of most business functions is quite common. Call centers are working overtime handling the constant flow of customers from companies looking to outsource many of their tasks. When a customer calls a company's 800 number with a question or concern, they will likely speak to someone who works for another company, even if that person has been trained to handle customer service duties. Not all outsourcing involves overseas workers or foreign countries. Many people today work as independent contractors providing services to businesses. Outsourcing is an increasingly popular trend that isn't likely to slow down in the near future. Gone are the days when an employee works for…half of paper…wishes to outsource? When companies attempt to rationalize overhead costs in order to maximize profit, they look to outsourcing as a tool to do so. Management asks you to find ways to achieve these goals. For example, if a company decides to outsource its sales department, it eliminates the following internal functions: employee benefits (health/401k/pension), vacation/sick, training/support, office space and supplies, travel expenses and entertainment, advertising taxes on costs and wages. This definitely saves the company a lot of money, because these functions are no longer paid for. So what do you say to an employee who no longer has a job? How can you ask an employee who is 60 years old to resign from a lower paying position? These are difficult and delicate things to do when the economy is uncertain and the middle class is disappearing.