zimv20
Dec 24, 2003, 11:46 PM
link (http://www.reuters.com/newsArticle.jhtml;jsessionid=YO4U2PJMXUGSECRBAELCFEY?type=technologyNews&storyID=4039177)
NEW YORK (Reuters) - U.S. corporations are picking up the pace in shifting well-paid technology jobs to India, China and other low-cost centers, but they are keeping quiet for fear of a backlash, industry professionals said.
Morgan Stanley estimates the number of U.S. jobs outsourced to India will double to about 150,000 in the next three years. Analysts predict as many as two million U.S. white-collar jobs such as programmers, software engineers and applications designers will shift to low cost centers by 2014.
But the biggest companies looking to "offshoring" to cut costs, such as Microsoft Corp. (MSFT.O: Quote, Profile, Research) , International Business Machines Corp. (IBM.N: Quote, Profile, Research) and AT&T Wireless (AWE.N: Quote, Profile, Research) , are reluctant to attract attention for political reasons, observers said this week.
"The problem is that companies aren't sure if it's politically correct to talk about it," said Jack Trout, a principal of Trout & Partners, a marketing and strategy firm. "Nobody has come up with a way to spin it in a positive way."
Moreover, on the threshold of a U.S. presidential election year, job losses are a hot button issue. A company that highlighted a major job transfer could wind up in the campaign debate.
Multinationals find that when they trumpet expansion overseas, they cause problems at home. When Accenture Ltd. (ACN.N: Quote, Profile, Research) executives in India this month announced plans to double their staff to 10,000 next year, they triggered a flood of calls to the company's U.S. offices about U.S. job losses.
NEW YORK (Reuters) - U.S. corporations are picking up the pace in shifting well-paid technology jobs to India, China and other low-cost centers, but they are keeping quiet for fear of a backlash, industry professionals said.
Morgan Stanley estimates the number of U.S. jobs outsourced to India will double to about 150,000 in the next three years. Analysts predict as many as two million U.S. white-collar jobs such as programmers, software engineers and applications designers will shift to low cost centers by 2014.
But the biggest companies looking to "offshoring" to cut costs, such as Microsoft Corp. (MSFT.O: Quote, Profile, Research) , International Business Machines Corp. (IBM.N: Quote, Profile, Research) and AT&T Wireless (AWE.N: Quote, Profile, Research) , are reluctant to attract attention for political reasons, observers said this week.
"The problem is that companies aren't sure if it's politically correct to talk about it," said Jack Trout, a principal of Trout & Partners, a marketing and strategy firm. "Nobody has come up with a way to spin it in a positive way."
Moreover, on the threshold of a U.S. presidential election year, job losses are a hot button issue. A company that highlighted a major job transfer could wind up in the campaign debate.
Multinationals find that when they trumpet expansion overseas, they cause problems at home. When Accenture Ltd. (ACN.N: Quote, Profile, Research) executives in India this month announced plans to double their staff to 10,000 next year, they triggered a flood of calls to the company's U.S. offices about U.S. job losses.
