No Agreement On Outsourcing: Is It Helpful Or Harmful To U.S.?; Both sides in offshoring debate say U.S. needs to retrain laid-off workers.(A)

Byline: J. BONASIA

By now, everyone has seen the concerned TV news anchors reporting day after day about all the jobs that America is losing to places like China and India.

It's true that more U.S. firms, needing to watch expenses, are moving their service jobs to countries with low labor costs. This practice, dubbed "offshoring," can save companies about 40% on their total costs of operation.

But some researchers and politicians are saying the media drumbeat may be out of synch with what's really happening -- that offshoring will actually lead to more U.S. jobs.

Why the controversy? Unlike the loss of U.S. factory jobs in the 1980s and 1990s, offshoring is affecting white-collar workers, particularly in the information technology field. These are jobs that Americans didn't expect to see exported.

Critics want new policies to protect U.S. service jobs. Proponents, on the other hand, say outsourcing helps the economy as a whole. But they concede it causes pain for individual workers who get laid off.

Better Than Unemployment