Offshoring and the IT Industry

            As I am sure you know, there are certain jobs that are the first to offshore. These tend to be the more unskilled jobs: factories, call centers, or menial office duties. It would be unimaginable to offshore skilled, in-demand jobs right? Well, I found a pattern of offshoring in the one industry I personally thought to be untouchable—information technology and computer programming.

            I always imagined that technology allowed offshoring to occur. For example, businesses could use technology to monitor offshored plants. Since technology is more of a skilled sector, I pictured that the unskilled jobs would be moved to create room for the skilled work. I never imagined technology to actually be created overseas. With the IT and programming jobs that have been offshored, this is exactly what is happening, but at a much more optimistic rate.

            Recently, the Hackett Group released a report indicating offshoring patterns in the IT industry. Just in 2009, over 330,000 jobs belonging to billion dollar American and European industries went offshore. Fortunately that number reduced to 113,000 in 2011 and the Hackett Group report predicts this number to decrease by nearly 50% by 2016 (Reisinger 2012). So we are seeing that the trend in offshoring IT jobs is decreasing, which is great, but I am still shocked that this job was being offshored to begin with! Thibodeau suggests that this trend will decrease in the next 10 years simply because companies will run out of offshore-friendly jobs (Thibodeau 2012). So a word of encouragement to all you IT students, the odds of finding a job are not completely against you! Hooray!

            As a college student, when I look at trends in offshoring, it makes me realize the importance in what students choose as a career path. People always say to look for the major that brings in the most money, but I am entertaining the thought that students look not for jobs with a large pay grade, but rather jobs that are not “offshorable”. Unfortunately fewer and fewer jobs are becoming immune to this trend, but as we saw with the Hackett Group Report, not all jobs are going to be leaving. There will be a point where firms run out of jobs to offshore. As true as this may be, this is a difficult to imagine given how rapidly the world is moving as a result of technology. Regardless, I look forward to seeing what happens to the job market here in America when that time approaches. For more information on the Hackett Group and a downloadable copy of their report, click here.:

Works Cited

Reisinger, D. (2012, April 10). “IT offshoring set to increase in near future before leveling off”. IT Management. Retrieved from: http://www.cioinsight.com/c/a/IT-Management/IT-Offshoring-Set-to-Increase-in-Near-Future-Before-Levelling-Off-459504/

Thibodeau, P. (2012, March 21).“Offshoring shrinks number of IT jobs, study says”. Computer World. Retrieved from: http://www.computerworld.com/s/article/9225376/Offshoring_shrinks_number_of_IT_jobs_study_says_