Offshore Outsourcing
Creates Jobs Submitted By: Steve Parker According to Infoworld,the economic
benefits from offshore outsourcing will create more than 337,000 jobs
by 2010, on top of jobs lost through outsourcing, according to the study,
by economic analyst Global Insight Inc. ITAA called offshore outsourcing
a "net positive for American workers and the U.S. economy."
But the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers-USA (IEEE-USA),
representing U.S. IT workers, disputed the study,
saying Global Insight failed to factor in concerns about outsourcing such
as national security and the future IT innovation in the U.S. Both national
security and the future of innovation will be at risk if the U.S. continues
to export high-tech jobs and lose expertise in creating new defense systems
and new IT products, said Ron Hira, chairman of the IEEE-USA's research
and development policy committee.
"It should also weigh out the costs and the downside," Hira
said of the study. "They ignore national security and technological
innovations in these studies."While the study seems to assume that
displaced IT workers will quickly find jobs, that's often not the case,
added Hira, a professor of public policy at the Rochester Institute of
Technology. A U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics survey, released in July
2004, found that of the 5.3 million U.S. workers who lost their jobs between
January 2001 and December 2003, 35 percent had not found jobs by January
2004, Hira noted.Combined with a push by the ITAA and many tech vendors
for the U.S. to increase the number of foreign workers allowed under H-1B
visas, offshore outsourcing hurts many workers, Hira said. Click
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