Offshore Jobs in Technology: Opportunity or a Threat?
By STEVE LOHR

The United States economy is finally getting stronger, but there seems to be one unsettling weakness: the apparent wholesale flight of technology jobs like computer programming and technical support to lower-cost nations, led by India.

The trend is typically described in ungainly terms - as "offshore outsourcing" or "offshoring." But that rhetorical hurdle has done nothing to lessen the recent public debate and expressions of angst over this kind of job migration. There are some early signs of political reaction. Last month, for example, the State of Indiana pulled out of a $15 million contract with an Indian company to provide technology services. And a proposed bill in New Jersey would restrict the use of offshore workers by companies doing work for the state.

Forrester Research, a technology consulting firm, published a report this month pointing out that the movement abroad is only gradual. The firm bemoaned "the rising tide of offshore hype." Yet Forrester itself played a significant role in framing the debate on offshore outsourcing, as well as stirring fears, with a report last year. That report, published in November 2002, predicted that 3.3 million services jobs in America would move offshore by 2015, and added that the information technology industry will "lead the initial overseas exodus."

So what is really happening? Is the offshore outsourcing of technology jobs a cataclysmic jolt or a natural evolution of the economy?

The short answer is that the trend is real, irreversible and another step in the globalization of the American economy. It does present a challenge to industry, government and individual workers. But the shifting of some technology jobs abroad fits into a well-worn historical pattern of economic change and adjustment in the United States.