|
THE
Philippines trails five other countries in a recent poll
by the
Wharton
School of the University of Pennsylvania as choice
destination of American companies offshoring their
businesses.
The
poll, part of a research on the implications of
outsourcing on the US job market, shows some 26.52
companies in the
United States
citing the Philippines as the site of their offshoring
business.
The
country trails
Germany,
Canada, Mexico, China and India in a survey of 3,000
hiring managers and human-resource professionals across
the US, the study said.
The
study, funded by dot-com firm CareerBuilders, comes at a
time when a stalling US economy pressures companies to
shave costs but, at the same time, rein in impacts of
job losses.
“An
economy plagued by uncertainty is refueling debates over
the impact of offshoring US jobs,” said the study by the
firm owned by Gannett Co. Inc., Tribune Co., The
McClatchy Co. and Microsoft Corp.
The
Business Processing Association of the Philippines (Bpap)
has maintained that bringing noncore businesses
overseas, or offshoring, have been practiced even before
the downward spiral of the US economy.
“The
reactions [by the American public to offshoring] are
normal during their time of uncertainties,” Bpap
president Oscar Sañez told the BusinessMirror in the
group’s press briefing early April.
The
Wharton poll, however, revealed only 390 of the 3,000
employers polled said they outsourced work to
third-party vendors outside the US in 2007. This means
2,610 or a huge majority of employers polled said they
either didn’t know (231) or didn’t do so (2,379) last
year.
The
Wharton poll also quoted the same number of employers as
saying they would offshore job functions this year.
The poll
said 63.9 percent or 249.21 employers cited cost savings
as the main reason why their companies went into
offshoring. Other reasons were availability of skills,
plans for expansion into the offshore-destination market
and service quality.
Most of
these employers (171.21 or 43.9 percent) said they chose
and would choose India as the top site for outsourced
operations.
China
follows with 92.82 companies (23.8 percent of 390);
Mexico
(46.02 or 11.8 percent); Canada (33.93 or 8.7 percent);
and, Germany (30.03 companies or 7.7 percent). Some
companies offshore operations in more than one country.
According to the study, “more firms are offshoring
high-wage, high-skill jobs that were once thought to be
immune to global competition.”
The
study said some jobs that companies plan to offshore
include those of computer programmers (32 percent),
software developers (32 percent), customer service (25
percent), systems analysts (16 percent), sales managers
(8 percent), graphic designers (8 percent), HR personnel
(7 percent), general managers (6 percent) and marketing
personnel (5 percent).
“Among
industries, technology services, telecommunications,
insurance, manufacturing, engineering, banking and
finance, oil, travel, utilities and communications all
reported higher rates for offshoring,” the study said.
“The
adverse impact of offshoring has been somewhat tempered
by a shift of displaced workers to firms that are not
yet offshoring,” the study quoted Prasanna Tambe,
doctoral student at the Wharton School.
“Although offshoring has already had a significant
impact on some US workers, offshoring-related
displacement currently accounts for a relatively small
proportion of annual US employment turnover, which can
be close to 40 percent per year.”
American
companies, the study added, are arguing that offshoring
“ultimately” benefits the American work force. |
