Yankee Ingenuity Wins Out

Another study is out predicting that offshore outsourcing will do more to create U.S. jobs than export them--to the tune of 337,000 new jobs by 2010.

The jobs won't be in IT alone but across all industries as companies that outsource offshore benefit from lower costs and create more demand for high-end jobs, says Nariman Behravesh, chief economist at Global Insight, the consulting firm that conducted the study for the Information Technology Association of America. The ITAA represents tech vendors, many of which are sending work offshore. "Large IT shops tend to hang on to high-end jobs like customer-facing and design work," Behravesh says.

IT-services firm anl ITAA member Keane Inc. is touting itself as an example of just the kind of U.S. employer that's creating these new jobs. The company has hired 3,600 IT consultants and other employees over the last two years, with half of those hires in 2005, says Scott Santoro, Keane's director of staffing and recruitment.

There's certain key talent that Keane wants to add. "We're looking for Yankee ingenuity," Santoro says, and customer-facing and related skills still lacking in some offshore companies.

Many of Keane's customers are focusing on IT projects that are industry-specific. For some of these clients, Keane is helping to build and deploy executive dashboards that allow a company's higher-ups to easily "look at all applications across the world," including time lines for enhancements and the status of upgrades. Says Santoro, "IT has become the competitive advantage for these companies."