Offshoring's giant target: the Bay Area
Silicon Valley could face export of 1 in 6 jobs -- worst in nation
San Francisco Chronicle
Carrie Kirby, John Shinal, Chronicle Staff Writers
March 7, 2004
Jobs are more likely to be shipped overseas from Silicon Valley than any other region in the nation, placing the Bay Area's economic engine directly in the path of the global freight train known as offshoring.
Specifically, 1 in 6 jobs in Silicon Valley are at risk of being sent abroad, compared with only 1 in 10 positions nationwide, according to RESEARCHERS AT UC BERKELEY. The economists estimate that 1 in 7 San Francisco jobs could be exported.
Offshoring refers to corporate America's recent push to cut costs by sending jobs to low-cost, highly educated regions such as India and China. But unlike previous waves of job exportation, which centered on manufacturing, white-collar jobs are now in play. And that's what exposes the Bay Area, a region known for its high-paid service jobs such as computer programming and accounting....
"The good scenario is that innovation and dynamism keeps California one step ahead of the rest of the world, so the good jobs stay here and the more routine ones go overseas. ... But the bad scenario is that in the absence of innovation, you're going to have a situation where others catch up" and Silicon Valley loses its dominance, said ASHOK DEO BARDHAN, ONE OF THE [UC BERKELEY] ECONOMISTS WHO PUBLISHED THE STUDY in November. Last month, the researchers calculated the data for the Bay Area....
BARDHAN AND HIS FELLOW RESEARCHERS, DWIGHT JAFFEE AND CYNTHIA KROLL OF UC BERKELEY'S FISHER CENTER FOR REAL ESTATE AND URBAN ECONOMICS, aren't saying that every one of the jobs they have earmarked as possible targets will be sent overseas. But they do identify the jobs that are the most likely targets, including any work that is done primarily over the phone or over the Internet. The researchers found 37 job categories ripe for being moved overseas -- not just computer workers, but insurance claim processors, radiology technicians and paralegals.
But like dozens of experts before it, the Berkeley team does not know how many jobs have gone abroad to date, nor how many will go in the future. Quantifying the offshoring phenomenon is a problem that many researchers have wrestled with, reaching a wide range of results....
Source: UC Berkeley in the News
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