Opinion on "how to counter laying off workers if a company implements automation or outsourcing some of the current worker's tasks?

Why would no overtime wages be paid to the original employees, if they do Task X?

http://ask.metafilter.com/work-money: Assume that the outsourcing of task X will increase the company's revenue How? Will you be able to get more instances of X done in a given calendar day, and be able to take on more business? Otherwise, it just looks like outsourcing is an increased expense. http://ask.metafilter.com/work-money: Earlier in the sense that its still after standard working hours but not way past working hours. I'm not sure I understand this. Assume a 35 hr week. If you don't have to do X, are you still working 35+ hours? If not, and you can't fill that work time, then layoffs are a (but not the only) viable option. If removing the task still leaves a worker with a "full" work week, then management's concept of a work week needs to be fixed.

When they were first rolling out the self-serve checkout scanners in grocery stores, I was wondering what would happen to the employees. Then, I read an article (which I can no longer find) about how it turns out that many (most?) grocery stores didn't lay off workers when the scanners came in -- they just had them do other stuff, stuff they used to let slide because they wouldn't normally have had the time. Presumably the result was a neater, better stocked, better maintained grocery store.

Why would no overtime wages be paid to the original employees, if they do Task X? - Because thats the way how my country works. lol. ASIA! How? Will you be able to get more instances of X done in a given calendar day, and be able to take on more business? Otherwise, it just looks like outsourcing is an increased expense. - Its just an assumption. The main topic is to how to counter layoff. I'm not sure I understand this. Assume a 35 hr week. If you don't have to do X, are you still working 35+ hours? If not, and you can't fill that work time, then layoffs are a (but not the only) viable option. If removing the task still leaves a worker with a "full" work week, then management's concept of a work week needs to be fixed. - In my country, the working hours are basically 8.30 - 5.30 . But usually it will be 8.30 - 8.30 due to the amount of work. Thats how things are done. So by outsourcing task X, workers could probably go back earlier, lets say 7.00?

mhum has the idea, generalized to "time that was wasted accomplishing task X can now be spent on improvement tasks Y and Z." The way to sell it is the argument that current employees familiar with the company's procedures, culture, and market and in the best position to improve process and expand. You might be interested in "7 Habits of highly effective people" and the chapters on "sharpening the saw" and "tending the goose" for great sound bites to explain this with.

The top management of the company feels that with the outsourcing of task X and with increase profit, they feel that they are able to lay off some workers as the amount of job that the workers are doing has decreased since the outsourcing of task X. You could point out to them that they can utilise their newfound excess capacity to do more business, generating more profits. Let's say I have a factory and I'm producing 10,000 widgets a day with 50 employees. Each employee costs $200 a day, so my widgets cost (200*50)/10000 = $1 each to make, and I sell them for $2 each, so I make $1 in profit on each one, i.e. $10,000 profit a day. Let's say I invest in some automation, so I can do the same amount of work with only 40 employees. The automation costs $1,000 a day. If I lay off the 10 workers, my widgets cost (200*40+1000)/10000 = $0.90 to make. I still sell them for $2, so I now make $1.10 on each one, i.e. $11,000 profit a day. On the other hand, I could reassign my 10 workers to produce more widgets. As 40 workers could make 10,000 widgets, with 50 workers, I could make 10000*50/40 = 12,500 widgets a day. My widgets now cost me (200*50+1000)/12500 = $0.88 each, so I make $1.12 of profit on each one, and I've got more of them to sell, so I make a total of $14,000 a day. Even if to sell my excess 2,500 widgets I have to drop my price to $1.99 from $2.00, I still make $1.11 per widget, and $13,875 a day.

To riff on mhum and oblio_one answers, the concept here is http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Opportunity_cost. If it turns out that opportunity costs are low, layoffs would probably be inevitable.