Study: Offshore outsourcing may create jobs in the US

Waltham (MA) - A study released to day by the Information Technology Association of America (ITAA) indicates that outsourcing of IT jobs to foreign countries may fuel job growth in the US.

Praised by many executives and often criticized by politicians and industry organizations, moving US IT jobs to foreign workers might not that catastrophic for the US economy. "Global sourcing", the study concluded, will double the number of jobs it moves offshore. According to the document, 104,000 jobs were relocated in 2003, but 90,000 were created as a result of outsourcing. This trend would continue and allow US companies to spend more money on US workers, the study says. Looking ahead, 317,000 new jobs would be created due to outsourcing.

The impact on US jobs does vary by industry sector, with the major beneficiaries for the next five years being construction, transportation and utilities, education and health services, wholesale trade, and financial services, the ITAA said. The findings point to software and services as the job segments which will be affected most by outsourcing trends with more than half of newly created jobs moving offshore : 516,000 jobs are expected to be created over the next five years in an environment with global sourcing but only 490,000 without it. Of these 516,000 new jobs, 272,000 are expected to go offshore, while 244,000 are expected to remain onshore.

While the publication certainly certainly puts a new spin on the discussion about the effects of outsourcing, the results are anything but surprising. The study was sponsored by the ITAA which represents more than 11,000 IT companies in the US, including corporations such as IBM, one vocal proponent of outsourcing.