Communications - October 2010

100 observations, we observed the lowest displacement rates among sales representatives and nurses. Moreover, a number of occupations with fewer observations (such as real estate agents, veterinarians, professors, and religious professionals) reported no offshoring displacement. In addition to providing a basis for comparison with the IT worker population, data from these other occupations provides preliminary support for the hypothesis that employees providing more personally delivered services are generally less vulnerable to offshoring than occupations that need not be in a fixed location (such as computer programmers and machine operators).

services must be co-located with the
markets being served. If a firm’s cus-
tomers are all located in the U.S., it
will offshore jobs that do not require
personal interaction with the U.S.
market. However, if a firm does busi-
ness in overseas markets, employers
will also hire offshore workers who

table 3. correlations between offshoring destinations and type of work.

type of Position offshored
customer
Reason
occupational attributes

country total India 236 china 128 u.S. Territories 74 Mexico 63 canada 47 Other 43 Germany 41 Philippines 37 united Kingdom 37 France 33 brazil 31 Argentina 23 Italy 23 Japan 23 Australia 22 Other europe 21 Poland 20 russia 20 Taiwan 20 ** p<.01 *p<.05, n=458. For “Type of Position,” we report correlations between whether a firm reports offshoring to a country and whether it reports offshoring a particular worker type. For “reason,” we report correlations between whether a firm reports offshoring to a country and whether wages are a principal reason it did so.

it . 43** –.08 –.06 –.08 .01 –.06 .04 .08 –.06 –.01 –.00 .00 .02 .01 .02 –.03 .02 .09 .05

marketing management Sales –. 14** –.08 –. 16** .03 .05 .05 . 18** . 16** . 15** . 10.05 .05 . 22** . 26** .04 –.07 .03 –.05 . 20** . 26** . 15** .01 .03 –.02 . 22** . 20** . 24** . 23** . 17** . 10 . 27** . 17** . 18 . 13** .07 .09 . 29** . 22** . 19** . 15** . 18** . 20** . 26** . 29** . 20** .00 . 14** .07 .01 .05 .03 . 11** .05 –.01 . 11** . 10* .08

Wages . 40** . 11** –. 30** .09* –.01 –. 17** –.09* .09* –. 15** –. 13** –.09* –.01 –.07 –.07 –.06 –.07 .05 –.04 .06

table 4. Worker displacement levels by occupation.

occupation

engineer Machine Operator/Assembly IT Manager/network Administrator Other computer or Internet Specialty engineering Technician Other Health care Professional Maintenance/Mechanic/repair Worker Sales representative, retail Food Preparation/Service Worker Other Profession Administrative Assistant/Secretary Other Financial Professional Transportation/equipment Operator Sales representative, Other nurse, nurse Practitioner, or Physician’s Assistant Total a Table includes only occupations with at least 100 samples in the survey.