• Originally published on CBSMarketWatch.com [here ] on October 15, 2004

Outsourcing of U.S. jobs alive and well
New study sees 406,000 jobs moving offshore in 2004

By Gregory Robb, CBS Marketwatch.com

WASHINGTON (CBS.MW) -- The outsourcing of U.S. jobs overseas is proceeding at an accelerating pace, according to a new study released Friday.

The data suggest that 406,000 jobs will be shifted from the United States to other countries this year, the study found. By comparison, 204,000 jobs were shifted in 2001.

Cornell University and the University of Massachusetts at Amherst conducted the study for the U.S.-China Economic and Security Review Commission.

Job shifting to India is outpacing shifts to China, the study found.

Richard D'Amato, the chairman of the commission, said Congress must "enact corporate reporting requirements" to track job shifts.

The authors of the report conducted a media tracking exercise from January to March. All regions of America are affected by the shifts, but the Midwest has been especially hard-hit, the data indicated.

Unionized workplaces are disproportionately hurt by the production shifts. Almost 40 percent of all jobs being shifted out of the country are from unionized facilities, the report concluded.

The report said the Bureau of Labor Statistics "grossly underestimates" the number of jobs lost overseas.

While the government found only 4,633 private sector workers lost their jobs to global outsourcing from January to March 2004, the authors said they were able to "find solid confirmation for an absolute minimum of 25,000 jobs shifted out of the United States during that same period.

The report said its methodology likely captures only a portion of the job shifts.

Over the first three months of the year, the study found 23,396 jobs moving to Mexico, 8,283 to China, 3,895 to India, 5,511 to other Latin American countries, 4,419 to other Asian countries and 2,933 to other regions.