Wednesday, May 7, 2008

High-Skill Offshoring

If your job doesn't require much face-to-face interaction, it could be targeted for a move offshore.

That means more high-skill, high-paying jobs are likely to relocate, according to a new report by the University of Pennsylvania's Wharton School and CareerBuilder.com. Two-thirds of employers surveyed said high-skill jobs are at equal or greater risk of outsourcing than low-skill jobs.

So computer programmer, software developer and customer service jobs top the outsourcing list.

Most employers offshore jobs to save money, so they may consider sales managers, general managers and human resources staffers, according to the Wharton survey of 3,016 hiring managers and human resources professionals.

At companies that have already sent job slots overseas, more than two-thirds of workers were out of work after their jobs left, and one-fifth were reassigned to other work.

Some jobs may provide safe harbor from offshoring. In its annual Best Careers issue, U.S. News & World Report identified some of them: genetic counselor, mediator, curriculum or training specialist, ghost writer and user experience specialist.

-- Vickie Elmer