Anxious About Outsourcing
States Try to Stop U.S. Firms From Sending High-Tech Work Overseas
Washington Post
By Greg Schneider, Washington Post Staff Writer
January 31, 2004
State and federal lawmakers are finding little success in efforts to stop technology companies from sending jobs overseas. But a paragraph buried in the giant federal spending bill the president signed Jan. 23 could pave the way for state laws around the country aimed at preventing the export of white-collar jobs to cheaper foreign markets.
The paragraph prohibits the federal government from awarding certain contracts to companies that will perform the work overseas. The measure expires at the end of September, and industry officials say few contracts are likely to be affected.
But the provision sets a precedent that information technology companies say could stoke a national backlash against them. Such companies are at the forefront of a trend of moving service jobs offshore -- jobs such as computer technical support and software programming -- and giving them to English speakers in India, the Philippines, Russia and other countries with lower wages for such work.
Critics say the trend contributes to the U.S. economy's "jobless recovery," along with the more extensive loss of manufacturing jobs transplanted overseas. Last July, for instance, U.S. firms shipped as many as 30,000 new service-sector jobs to India while eliminating some 226,000 in this country, according to a recent study by researchers at the UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA, BERKELEY.
Forrester Research has estimated that 3.3 million U.S. service-sector jobs will flee to foreign countries over the next 15 years, along with $136 billion in wages.
They'll be drawn by stark economics: Computer programming jobs that pay $60,000 to $80,000 per year in the United States can go for as little as $8,952 a year in China, $5,880 in India or $5,000 in the Russian Federation, according to the UC-BERKELEY STUDY....
Source: UC Berkeley in the News
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