MICROSOFT’S TECH SUPPORT
The outcry against employing foreign workers.
Everywhere you turn around, it seems, IT professionals are concerned that their jobs will be outsourced. In many cases, this outsourcing goes offshore to foreign workers. Alternatively, foreign IT talent is imported through the much-reviled H1-B visa. (The H-1B is a non-immigrant visa. It allows US employers to employ foreign guest workers in specialty occupations.)
From an academic point of view, offshoring is a phenomena that reflects the growing globalization of resources. Work that was previously done by Americans has now been shifted to foreign-based workers. This kind of work varies from the high-end, application development (or what used to be called “programming” before) to the customer-intensive (call centers) to the mundane but necessary (transcripting of medical records). The latter transcribes the spoken notes of the physician to written form. There are several advantages to the offshoring trend. First, rates inexpensive relative to American wages. Second, these are the rates paid to numerous skilled English-speaking educated workers. And third, most offshoring destinations are in Asia—principally India and the Philippines. When it’s night time here, it’s day time there. That allows work to be literally turned over overnight.
Let’s recognize that offshoring is not a new practice. It’s never been on the radar as prominently as it is now because in the recent past, offshoring involved manufacturing jobs—many of which required technical expertise. A good example is Boeing. Many airplane components are built overseas—not in Asia but in Europe. That’s offshoring too.
Offshoring is a major burden for Americans who lose their jobs. However, economically speaking, it makes a lot of sense. Offshoring is a part of the trend towards specialization in skilled services. In fact, it’s easier understood when you think of it as international trading in services.
The US has a sizable trade surplus with other nations. In fact, we have a trade surplus in services only. In goods, we have huge deficits with the rest of the world.
The US “wins” by specializing in high-value services such as transportation (UPS, FedEx, and DHL), accounting (Ernst & Young which are respected names around the world), consulting (McKinsey & Co.), and others. As a country, we trade away our lower-value services, such as call centers and data entry work (of which medical transcription is one of them) in exchange for high-value services.
Offshoring increases the demand for complementary jobs in the US. The lower cost of time-intensive transcription work reduces the cost of that piece of medical administration. And heaven knows how much more we need to reduce that cost. Complementary jobs take the form of nurses, physician assistants, therapists, and the like. If transcription work wasn’t offshored, these jobs would be in short supply. (They already are so the problem would be exacerbated!) Offshoring has another less apparent benefit. The cost advantage it gives American companies make them more competitive in the global market. Offshoring jobs may actually be thought of as importing competitiveness.
