WASHINGTON, DC – In an effort to keep jobs in the United States and help consumers identify which companies are sending jobs overseas, U.S. Senators Jack Reed (D-RI), Gary Peters (D-MI), Debbie Stabenow (D-MI), Joe Donnelly (D-IN), Dianne Feinstein (D-CA) and Sherrod Brown (D-OH) have introduced the Outsourcing Accountability Act, which would require publicly traded companies to disclose their total numbers of employees by location, including by state and by country.  The legislation will also require companies to report the total number of employees and percentage change in employment numbers for each state and country where they have operations.

“What gets measured gets managed. This legislation will make it easier for the public and investors to discern which companies are hiring American workers and which companies are shipping jobs overseas,” said Senator Reed.

“It’s hard to hold companies accountable for gaming the system and shipping jobs overseas when it’s not even known where their employees are located,” said Senator Peters. “Consumers have a right to know if their hard-earned dollars are supporting American jobs, and this bill will help shine a light on the number of jobs companies are truly outsourcing. When they are given a level playing field, American workers will make the best product every time, and this legislation will help incentivize companies to show they are invested in creating and retaining American jobs.”

The bill is supported by the United Steelworkers and the United Auto Workers.

Currently, the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) requires publicly traded companies to disclose certain information about their employees, including the total number of employees and anticipated changes in the number of employees working in different corporate departments. However, companies are not required to publicly disclose where employees are based, making it very difficult to accurately track the number of jobs they are eliminating in the United States and moving overseas.  For example, a company could eliminate 700 American jobs and create 1,000 jobs abroad, but under current requirements without disclosing the location, those numbers would appear as a net gain of 300 jobs.

According to the Economic Policy Institute, our growing trade deficit with China cost the U.S. 3.4 million jobs from 2011 to 2015.  However, the exact number of jobs lost to outsourcing can be difficult to estimate because the data is difficult to find.  To attempt to an estimate, researchers have to look at a variety of data sources that can range from local newspaper stories in foreign media outlets to filings with foreign governments and even construction blueprints for new factories in other countries to guess at how many people the facilities might hold.  The Outsourcing Accountability Act will make this information readily available to the public.