There is a growing ache in many local communities as work is shipped offshore, not because there is a shortage of skill or calling at home, but because there is a pursuit of cheaper labour elsewhere. This trend comes dressed in the language of efficiency, productivity and global competitiveness, yet the hidden cost is borne by the people whose livelihoods are quietly displaced.

What looks wise on a spreadsheet often wounds in the street. Local families feel the strain.

Apprenticeships do not form. Small businesses fold. Young people struggle to find meaningful work that anchors them in their own towns. The community fabric begins to fray.

This is not a distant theory for me. I have lived this reality in my own body and heart. Last year, my role was handed over to a Virtual Assistant based in the Philippines. I understood the reasoning. The numbers made sense. The hire was cheaper. The decision was framed as practical rather than personal, yet the impact on my soul told a different story.

The months that followed were not only about the loss of income. They became a slow and painful unravelling of emotions I did not expect to surface so strongly. Rejection crept in quietly, whispering that I was no longer needed. Abandonment echoed older wounds, the familiar ache of being replaced and left behind. Feelings of failure and worthlessness settled deeper than I care to admit, as though my value had been measured, compared and quietly deemed insufficient.

Even though I wasn't looking for a job when it found me, losing it wounded just the same. It took most of the rest of the year to sit with those emotions honestly before God and allow Him to tend what had been bruised by being laid off.

Understanding the logic of a decision does not lessen its emotional cost. Loss still carries grief. Work, I learned again, is never merely transactional. It is bound up with dignity, contribution and belonging.

This is the part rarely named in economic conversations. When work is removed, something deeper is often touched. Work carries dignity. It affirms contribution. It says, you are needed here. When that is withdrawn without relational care, the wound can linger long after the practicalities are resolved.

Understanding the logic of a decision does not lessen its emotional cost. Loss still carries grief. Work, I learned again, is never merely transactional. It is bound up with dignity, contribution and belonging.

I am learning that grief over lost work is valid grief. That the ache does not mean weakness, but humanity. That healing takes time, honesty and the gentle presence of God, who never reduces a person to a cost calculation.

Scripture reminds us that labour is covenantal, not disposable. It preserves dignity, cultivates skill, builds legacy and anchors people in community.

When labour becomes something to outsource at the lowest possible cost, dignity is reduced to a line item and the wage-earner becomes interchangeable. This is not the economy of the Kingdom.

International collaboration is not inherently wrong. Nations have long blessed one another through shared work and trade. The fracture appears when cost-cutting becomes the highest virtue, eclipsing justice, stewardship and care for the communities that house us.

There are employers who could train a local graduate, mentor a tradesperson, or restore confidence to a parent returning to the workforce. They could invest in homegrown skill and strengthen the social fabric around them. Instead, many chase cheaper contracts elsewhere, unaware of the quiet grief left in their wake.

The irony is that what appears financially beneficial in the short term often proves costly in the long run.

We may need to reasses the impact of ofshoring on our local communities. Is saving a few dollars on  labour rates really worth it?🤔

Society absorbs the consequences through unemployment, social strain, declining local expertise and the erosion of communal resilience. These costs eventually return to the very people who were told the decisions were efficient.

The people of God are called to weigh economic choices by more than profit. We are invited to measure them by righteousness, remembering that the Lord sees how we treat the worker, the neighbour and the vulnerable within our gates.

Communities flourish when work is honoured, families are supported and skill is cultivated. Such choices may cost more on paper, yet they yield what no balance sheet can record: stability, dignity, belonging and hope.

My prayer is that we recover a vision of labour that sees people rather than numbers, communities rather than contracts, and the Kingdom rather than the quarterly report.

💡Reflection:

• Where have economic decisions in my own life impacted my sense of dignity, identity or belonging?🤔

• What emotions surfaced for me when I experienced loss, displacement or being replaced, and which of those still need God’s gentle attention?🤔

• How do I currently measure worth, both my own and that of others, by productivity, profit or by God-given value?🤔

• In what ways might the Lord be inviting me to heal from rejection or perceived failure connected to work or provision?🤔

• How can I honour labour, skill and community in the choices I make, even when those choices cost more or require greater trust?🤔

Closing Prayer

Lord God, You are the giver of work and the restorer of dignity. You see every unseen labourer and every quiet loss carried in the heart. I bring before You the places where rejection, abandonment and worthlessness have taken root through economic decisions beyond my control.

Heal what was bruised when provision was removed. Restore what was shaken when my value felt questioned. Teach me to anchor my identity not in productivity or employment, but in being Your beloved child.

Give me wisdom to choose righteousness over convenience, people over profit, and faithfulness over fear. May my life reflect Your Kingdom economy, one marked by justice, compassion and honour.

I place my trust in You as my Provider, my Healer and my Defender.

In Jesus Name, Amen.