The economic downturn from 2007 through 2010 has cost this economy millions of jobs across all economic sectors. From December 2007 to March 2010 the economy only actually produced jobs twice – most recently in the past month. We have cut hundreds of thousands of jobs in manufacturing, hundreds of thousands of jobs in finance and hundreds of thousands of jobs in the service sector.

This job loss trickled down to the rest of the economy. With fewer people employed in high-salary jobs there was less money flowing in the consumer economy, leading to fewer open positions in everything from fast food to retail. The result of this employment collapse was a doubling of our total unemployed population, and a vast increase in the number of underemployed and disinterested jobless.

Both the president and Congress have constantly harped on the notion of creating jobs here in the United States. Democrats are generally happy with the progression of the so-called “bikini graph.” The job situation has not been as dire at any point since The Obama administration took office as it was during the worst employment month of its predecessor.

Nonetheless, the unified Republican opposition continues to repeat time and again, across all forms of media, “where are the jobs?” The Republicans will not be happy until this administration makes up for the losses of its predecessor, and even then it is unclear whether they would let up.

Despite the pejorative, and often derogatory, tone of Republican rhetoric their question actually has some merit. Where are the jobs?

The answer: the jobs are everywhere else.

One example was provided by technology news website The Industry Standard, which outlined the huge boom in tech service employment opportunities in India. According to their reports the tens of thousands of IT layoffs in America have become tens of thousands of job opportunities for India.

One of the top companies sending investment capital and facilities overseas is Microsoft, but that is only one example. Boeing and General Motors have been investing in China for years. Ford and GM sent factories to Mexico and Canada, respectively, a decade ago. Textiles and toys have been produced predominantly overseas for even longer.

The problem is not Microsoft in particular, it is our entire business and economic climate. American consumers are always in pursuit of the cheapest good, not necessarily the one that is best fit for the economy. This pushed interest in cheap imports, and in order to compete and survive U.S. producers had to go overseas. Since there is no reason to employ one person there and one person here they cut ties with the higher paid of the two – always the American – and went on their way.

This outsourcing is fundamental to our economic framework, and it is also instrumental in our economic decline. Calling out Microsoft solves nothing, changes nothing, and accomplishes nothing. Instead, we need to call on Congress and the White House to finally instill the outsourcing reform they promised in 2008. The Republicans will never pick up this mantle, and the Democrats have forgotten it. The people of the United States need to remind both sides who precisely they work for.

If we don’t end outsourcing, we don’t solve the employment crisis. It is a very simple problem, but one that requires a series of complex solutions. In the meantime, every moment we waste is another wealth-producing job lost.

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