AWA Feedback - First essay

"Most companies would agree that as the risk of physical injury occurring on the job increases, the wages paid to employees should also increase. Hence it makes financial sense for employers to make the workplace safer: they could thus reduce their payroll expenses and save money." 

Discuss how well reasoned you find this argument. In your discussion be sure to analyze the line of reasoning and the use of evidence in the argument. For example, you may need to consider what questionable assumptions underlie the thinking and what alternative explanations or counterexamples might weaken the conclusion. 
You can also discuss what sort of evidence would strengthen or refute the argument, what changes in the argument would make it more logically sound, and what, if anything, would help you better evaluate its conclusion. 

Link: https://www.mba.com/global/the-gmat-exa ... t-question
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The argument claims that some companies agree to the fact that an increasing risk of injury in the workplace should lead to an increase in the respective wage. The suggested action for this problem is the reduction of this risk in order to save money by cutting the payroll expanses. Stated in this way the argument fails to mention several key factors, on the basis of which it could be evaluated. The conclusion relies on assumptions for which there is no clear evidence. Therefore, the argument is rather weak, unconvincing and has vital flaws.

First, the argument readily assumes that the majority of the companies accept that there is a positive correlation between the risk of injury in the workplace and an increase on the salary of the employees. By stating this connection as a fact, the author builds his analysis. But the followed line of reasoning is mostly arbitrary and this can be proven with a plethora of examples. Specifically, there are many jobs that are from their nature risky and therefore it is not logical to assume that the salary should increase also. For example, military soldiers or military aircraft pilots are compensated based on their high-risk work. Based on the author’s analysis if the United States of America send a cadre of soldiers at war, were the possibility of dying was very high, the salary of those soldiers should presumably sky rocket. This argument could be much clearer if it specifically presented examples of companies were the increased risk-factor led to increased salaries.

Second, the argument claims that in order for the companies to save money by reducing salaries they should make the working environment safer. This is a very weak and unsupported claim as the argument assumes that because increased risk leads to increased salaries then reduced risk will lead to reduced salaries. This is a very common fallacy when trying to draw conclusions. For example people might believe that the faster a car goes the more gasoline it burns and therefore the slower it goes the less gasoline it burns. But this is not true because there is maximum efficiency level for the engine and below or above this level the consumption of gasoline increases. This analogy can also help illustrate another point; the goal of saving money on the payroll by increasing safety might very wall cost the company resources and this will finally lead to a zero sum game. If the argument provided clear evidence that proved a strong correlation between the salary and the risk in the workplace, meaning that either an increase or decrease in the risk factor will lead to an analogous movement on the salaries, the reasoning would be much stronger. Furthermore, examples on how it could be cost effective to increase safety, would provided more support on this argument.

In summary the argument is flawed and therefore unconvincing. It could be considerably strengthened if the author clearly mentioned all the relevant facts. In order to assess the merits of a certain situation, it is essential to have full knowledge of all contributing factors.

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