U.S. jobs being sent overseas

The odds of UCLA students finding white-collar jobs upon
graduation are getting worse because, according to a recent study,
millions of jobs are being sent overseas.

As a method of establishing lower production costs, jobs are
being outsourced to other countries at an exceptionally high rate,
the study reported.

Jobs in medical transcriptions services, customer service
call-centers, payroll and other services where face-to-face
interaction with the customers is not necessary are at the greatest
risk of being outsourced, according to the study published by Ashok
Deo Bardhan and Cynthia Kroll, researchers at the Fisher Center for
Real Estate and Urban Economics at the University of California
Berkeley.

The report shows these positions typically have a low set-up
cost and are transferred to countries such as India, China, Russia
and Israel, where labor wages are much lower.

“In India, wages for data processing or call centers can
be one-tenth of that in the United States,” Kroll said.

Bardhan said there is a “media frenzy” in India
right now due to the new wave of job availability.

Forrester Research, an independent technology research company,
has estimated that 3.3 million jobs would be outsourced by
2015.

Bardhan and Kroll believe this is a conservative figure
considering 25,000 to 30,000 jobs were outsourced to India in June
2003.

According to the researchers, major metropolitan areas like Los
Angeles are vulnerable to outsourcing because of the high cost of
labor and greater number of jobs.

Though Los Angeles may see its share of outsourcing jobs, it is
not as vulnerable as San Francisco or New York City, which have
higher wages and costs of living, Kroll said.

This recent economic trend may endanger students’
investments in their education.

As the mother of a freshman at Sonoma University, Kroll admits
selecting a major as a student can be “worrisome” when
jobs in certain fields are being outsourced.

Kroll suggested that college students find ways to diversify
themselves ““ such as declaring a minor ““ in order to
increase their marketability when searching for a job after
graduation.

“Outsourcing shouldn’t discourage you from entering
a particular field,” said Kroll.

Bhagwan Chowdhry, a professor at the UCLA Anderson School of
Management, said large changes in technology and software have led
to shifts in the job market, but that the economy always adjusts to
such changes.

College students, he said, are also able to make these
adjustments.

“Education prepares people for flexibility,” said
Chowdhry. “The hardest hit will be the people who have been
at a job for a long time and can’t change
overnight.”