Offshore outsourcing
Offshore outsourcing: is the practise of hiring an external organization to perform some or all business functions in a country other than the one where the product will be sold or consumed. It can be contrasted with offshoring in which the functions are performed by a foriegn division or subsidiary of the parent company. Opponents claim that this sends work overseas thereby reducing domestic employment. Many jobs in the infotech sectors - such as IT, Data entry, and Customer support - have been or are potentially affected.The general criteria for a job to be offshore-able are:
- The job does not require direct customer interaction,
- Job can be Telework
- high information content
- Easy setup
- High wage difference.
- Repeatable.
Some of the major countries that provide services are India (Programming and IT), the Philippines (Data Entry and Customer Support), China (Programming), and many others.
There are different views on the impact on society, which reflects the attitude of Protectionism versus Free Trade. Some see it as a potential threat to the domestic job market and ask for government protective measures, while others (and not just corporations) see it as an opportunity.