[jsfg_cinti] White-collar jobs moving abroad

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White-collar jobs moving abroad
A spate of new studies points to an exodus of skilled labor, from high-tech to 
financial services.
By Stacy A. Teicher - Staff writer of The Christian Science Monitor 
For decades, Americans watched as manufacturing plants set up shop overseas to 
capitalize on cheap labor. Ross Perot immortalized the anger many workers felt, 
vividly terming the potential exodus of jobs to Mexico that "giant sucking 
sound." 

Now a growing number of US firms are sending coveted high-tech and service jobs 
"offshore" in a move that's reviving a debate about the future of the American 
workforce.
...

The number of such jobs now outsourced - from information technology (IT) to 
architecture - is less than half a percent of the US workforce. But it may grow 
fast:

. Half a million IT jobs - roughly 1 in 20 - will go abroad in the next 18 
months, according to Gartner, a research firm in Stamford, Conn.

. Nearly 5 percent of human- resources jobs have moved offshore in the past 
year, and by 2007 that number will climb to at least 15 percent, says Jay 
Whitehead, publisher of HRO Today magazine, which tracks outsourcing.

. By 2015, 3.3 million US high-tech and service-industry jobs will be overseas, 
according to Forrester Research in Cambridge, Mass. That's 2 percent of the 
entire workforce, and $136 billion in US wages. Oracle, for instance, already 
has 2,000 employees in India and expects to move 2,000 software-development 
jobs, plus accounting, payroll, and customer-service positions.
...

It's unclear how much offshoring contributes to job cuts, ... Mr. Hundley of 
RAND attributes job loss to the current economic doldrums, and says it will 
ebb. But Gartner's July 15 report estimates that through 2005, fewer than 4 out 
of 10 IT workers whose jobs go overseas will be redeployed by their own 
companies.

...
Companies are training developing nations' workforces to become America's 
competitors, says Basheer Janjua, CEO of Integnology Corp in Santa Clara, 
Calif., which offers domestic IT outsourcing.

"What's going to be the incentive for our future generations to get a degree in 
electrical engineering?" he asks. "We have to ask if we're ready to give up our 
pioneering position in the world."
...

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Details at URL:
http://www.csmonitor.com/2003/0729/p01s03-usgn.html



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