One of the many issues regarding outsourcing is that it will take away jobs from many people and placed in the hands of as-skilled yet less expensive employees from another part of the world. The surge of outsourcing in recent years has added to the questions that outsourcing and offshoring have brought to the table. One of these issues is that of white collar jobs, and their possible outsourcing to other countries. It has picked up so much momentum that there have been bills passed in recent years preventing the outsourcing of certain white collar jobs to other countries such as India. The thing is, were all that really necessary? Is there really a danger of outsourcing countries such as India, China, and the Philippines, for example, of eating up all the jobs in the United States?

These high skilled jobs, white collar as they may be, have been outsourced to different countries for many years prior. The recent trends in the US economy may have prompted some sectors to turn their attention to these outsourced jobs and blame the downturn of jobs and employment on the outsourced ones. In fact, several proponents of this present evidence and stories of American businesses laying off US workers in favor of offshoring them. Included in this is a an oft-quoted report by Forrester Research which projected that 3.3 million of US services jobs will be moved offshore by 2015.

However, this may not be entirely inaccurate. While job loss is evident, it has occurred non-uniformly across different states with some gaining and others losing jobs, suggesting that no singular nationwide trend other than the regular business cycle is occurring. There is no singular trend of white collar (or even blue collar) jobs being lost due to a single cause. It may be that the association of offshoring and outsourcing to the recent job loss trends in many parts had been an over reaction of sorts.

It can also be noted that there are jobs that were lost that were actually due to technological change rather than lost through offshoring or outsourcing. It can be said that even without the presence of outsourcing or offshoring, these jobs may have been lost anyway due to advancements in technology. Also, in the IT industry, though IT occupations have declined, the job loss is concentrated on low-skilled IT occupations.

All this being said, it probably would not have been sufficient enough to put the blame on outsourcing alone. White collar jobs (high-paying jobs at that) have been the target for speculation of various sectors because they are more high profile than most jobs. One can say that the normal regular job cycle would really entail certain jobs being lost, but few would quote that a great number of jobs are also being created in the process.

White collar jobs are not particularly at risk, nor any other job for that matter. The sensationalization of job loss that have been occurring over recent years have led to some people to have a negative view of outsourcing and also offshoring. We must take the time to explain that it is not really taking jobs away from local employees. However, one cannot discount that in some cases that have been happening, though it is unfair to put the blame on outsourcing and offshoring alone. While jobs are being lost, the US economy is still also strong enough to generate more jobs than are to thought to be lost to offshore outsourcing in the coming decades.