The Sky is Falling!
Baseline has a good article about the offshoring trend. One interesting aspect of it is that they discuss the possibility that companies are training their own competitors. I'm not so sure that applies to insurance companies going offshore, but it might to technology companies. Anyway, it's an interesting thought. Typically, US employees are bound by non-compete to not completely rip off the IP of the companies that they work for, but are offshore workers bound by the same constraint? How would you sue an offshore company for infringement?
It seems to me that a lot of the consternation and hype surrounding offshoring is because of the lame economic environment and is the result of simple linear thinking. They cite the total of 800,000 "back-office" jobs that will leave to go offshore. What proportion of new jobs is that? What is the effect on prevailing wages for "back-office" jobs? How many new jobs would be created if we were to legally preclude this activity? How would that affect US competitiveness?
I do agree with some of the other conclusions in the article that emphasize that if we are going to continue down this path, there really needs to be a idea of how to retrain displaced workers so they can continue to be productive. In a free country, most of this responsibility falls to the individual, but the absence of any help will cause a social backlash against the trend with possibly far-reaching implications.
I'm impressed with this analysis - it is not just the cookie-cutter alarmism and shows some creative thought and research.