WTO Gets It Right on Offshore Outsourcing

Information week
In its annual trade report, issued last week, the World Trade Organization concluded what many advocates of offshore outsourcing have been saying for some time: that offshoring is good for both buyers and sellers of IT and business-process services--and the countries in which they operate. To the argument that offshoring kills off good jobs and generally harms the economies of nations importing IT services, the WTO notes that offshoring's impact "on production, employment, and trade patterns is significantly less than suggested by press reports or popular perceptions." The trade body further points out that the United States enjoys an overall trade surplus in business services that's larger than that enjoyed by India. The upshot of that nugget is that the United States would be more harmed than helped by some politicians' calls for protectionism around business and IT services. more...