Are you ready to see government intervene to limit offshoring or do you think this is a "crybaby" argument? Will job losses be absorbed with higher-level jobs? Or will the high-level jobs go overseas soon, too? Tell us what you think in the Talk to the Editors forum.
Despite mounting evidence that offshoring is a snowball threatening to strike a mortal blow against IT and related professions in the U.S., many offshoring proponents still claim that it's a natural form of competition whose effects will be short-lived. Like subsidies and tax breaks that protect companies from "unfair" foreign competition, domestic labor is entitled to similar protections.
by A. Russell Jones, Executive Editor
October 19, 2004
here's a great deal of information, innuendo, and rumor circulating concerning offshore outsourcing, more widely known as offshoring: the practice of moving jobs from a host country to a different country. Offshoring is a controversial topic because it affects people's emotions powerfully on several different levels simultaneously; offshoring affects our sense of fair play, our sense of national identity, and our hopes for prosperity and the future.
But whether offshoring at the macro level is a net negative, net positive, or something in between is a popular subject for debate. Many prominent economists and business leaders have expended much ink trying to assure U.S. workers that offshoring is no different than other large labor trends of the past two centuries; from farm to factory, from manual labor to automation, and from factory to service industries. In fact, offshoring, many say, is a beneficial process that improves the quality of domestic jobs and salaries. I've listened closely to these arguments, hoping for some reassurance; sadly, my assessment of the offshoring trend remains grim.
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here's a great deal of information, innuendo, and rumor circulating concerning offshore outsourcing, more widely known as offshoring: the practice of moving jobs from a host country to a different country. Offshoring is a controversial topic because it affects people's emotions powerfully on several different levels simultaneously; offshoring affects our sense of fair play, our sense of national identity, and our hopes for prosperity and the future.
