Globalisation · Advantages and disadvantages · Band 7
Outsourcing Jobs Abroad: Pros and Cons
The question, a model answer written to the band 7 descriptors, why it scores that band against the 4 official criteria, topic vocabulary, and a common mistake to avoid.
Advantages and disadvantages
Many companies in wealthier countries now outsource manufacturing and customer service jobs to countries with lower labour costs. What are the advantages and disadvantages of this practice? Give reasons for your answer and include any relevant examples from your own knowledge or experience. Write at least 250 words.
Model answer (band 7)
Written to the band 7 descriptors, not by a real examiner. Read it for structure and language, then write your own in your own words. Examiners can tell a memorised essay from an original one.
Outsourcing jobs to countries with lower labour costs has become a standard business practice for many companies, delivering clear economic benefits in some regions while creating real disruption in others.
For companies and consumers in wealthier countries, outsourcing reduces production costs significantly, savings that are often passed on as lower prices for consumer goods and services, improving affordability for households across the income spectrum. For the countries receiving outsourced work, this practice has provided substantial employment opportunities and contributed meaningfully to economic development, with countries such as India and Vietnam experiencing significant growth in their manufacturing and service sectors directly linked to international outsourcing contracts, lifting millions out of poverty over recent decades.
However, the disadvantages for workers in wealthier countries are considerable. Entire industries and communities that once depended on manufacturing or call-centre employment have experienced significant job losses, often concentrated in specific regions that then struggle with long-term economic decline and limited realistic alternative employment for affected workers. There are also concerns about labour standards in countries receiving outsourced work, where regulations protecting workers may be weaker, raising ethical questions about whether cost savings are partly achieved through conditions that would be considered unacceptable in the country where the product is ultimately sold.
On balance, I believe outsourcing has delivered genuine, measurable economic development benefits in receiving countries, but wealthier nations need stronger support for workers displaced by the practice, including retraining programmes, rather than treating job losses as an unavoidable, purely private cost of doing business.
In conclusion, outsourcing creates real economic opportunity in receiving countries, but its disadvantages for displaced workers elsewhere remain a genuine and largely unresolved policy challenge.
Why this answer scores band 7
Mapped to the 4 official IELTS Writing criteria.
- Task Response: advantages and disadvantages are both supported with specific, concrete detail (India/Vietnam growth, labour standards) rather than generic claims.
- Coherence and Cohesion: clear benefit-then-cost structure with an 'on balance' paragraph that weighs rather than simply restates the two perspectives.
- Lexical Resource: precise economic vocabulary ('labour standards', 'economic decline', 'retraining programme') used accurately and naturally throughout.
- Grammatical Range and Accuracy: strong control of complex sentence structures, including passive voice and concessive clauses, with very few errors.
Useful vocabulary & collocations
Phrases used in the model answer that lift Lexical Resource naturally.
Common mistake on this type of question
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