Worth a look

The Tyee is in the midst of an interesting series on outsourcing, noting that for all the trade disputes between the U.S. and Canada, the greater American concern is the loss of jobs caused by outsourcing to other countries:

The jobs leaving the U.S. are not just IT and call centre work. The Reuters news agency is hiring 1,500 staff in Bangalore - 10 percent of its workforce - at the expense of American jobs. The U.S. health care industry is sending X-rays and MRIs to be read by Indian radiologists. One analyst expects that in 2005, 400,000 U.S. tax returns will be produced in India.

Still, it's information technology, particularly software development, that is most at risk right now, as global corporations tap into a young, well-trained, usually English-speaking workforce that earns about 20 or 30 percent of the wages garnered by a comparable U.S. worker. The Hiras argue the lack of opportunity in the IT sector is reflected in a 20 percent decrease in U.S. computer science enrolment in 2003-04.

Give Part 1 and Part 2 a read.