Jobs that Are Vulnerable to Offshoring
Reviewing the Criteria that Makes Jobs Offshoreable
Sep 19, 2008
With the hard hit U.S. economy taking even more hits during the last few days, businesses are looking at additional ways to cut costs and save money giving rise to the idea that offshoring jobs may still be the way to go.
When businesses talk about offshoring jobs, a lot of what they are referring to includes manufacturing processes, customer service centers and careers in technology. However, it is important to understand that most offshoring of jobs has to do with the specific type of job rather than any one specific industry. That is, a call center servicing the financial sector could just as easily be offshored as one servicing the retail or hospitality sector, even though retail and hospitality jobs typically have been considered safe bets.
What Makes a Job Offshoreable?
According to a March 2007 paper by Alan Blinder of Princeton University whether or not a job is offshoreable has less to do the education, skill and salary range of employees, and more to do with five job attributes.
In his paper he determined that the offshoreablity of a job relates to whether a job requires face-to-face interaction with customers and/or how difficult it would be to deliver this service remotely. The five key elements that keep a job onshore are:
- establishing and maintaining personal relationships
- assisting and caring for others
- performing for or working directly with the public
- selling or influencing others
- social perceptiveness
What it comes down to is that offshoreability involves looking at which services must be personally delivered. If service can be provided electronically or if an employee’s work is impersonal, such as data entry or writing computer code, then it is more likely that these services can be offshored. On the other hand, if an employee provides personal services such as a driver, housekeeper or hair stylist, the job is typically safe from offshoring.
Top Five U.S. Industries that Resist Offshoring
According to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS), “Employment growth is projected to continue to be concentrated in the service-providing sector of the economy. Service-providing industries will generate almost all of the employment gain from 2006 to 2016.” That is why based on the offshoreability factor and the BLS statistics these are five of the best industries to look at when considering a career.
- Education. While long-distance learning is a reality, there really is no better way to get an education than by attending a class and learning from someone face-to-face. Whether a pre-school teacher or an educator of adults in advanced degree programs, teaching is still a noble – and non-offshoreable -- profession.
- Healthcare. Hospitals, trauma centers, home healthcare services, mental health services, geriatric centers and so much more. Healthcare is a field that just continues to grow as the U.S. population continues to age. Not surprising the projected employment growth rate for the home health field is estimated at 55 percent and for hospitals it’s estimated at around 14 percent over the next few years according to the BLS.
- Hospitality. While travelers may call an offshore call center to make their travel arrangements, workers still need to be onsite to provide the service. Working at a hotel, convention center, amusement park or related business is one area of the service industry that requires hands-on interaction and care.
- Retail. While it is true that the economy has rocked the retail sector and online shopping is readily available, offshoring is not a likely to have an impact on brick-and-mortar retailers. Jobs in retail still exist and will continue to do so as long as there are people who enjoy that hands-on experience. In fact, according to the BLS even “limited-service eating places” (that means fast-food restaurants) are anticipated to increase employment by over 13 percent during the next few years.
- Security. Police, Transportation Security Administration (TSA), private guard services, and other security venues are a never-ending need. And for techies, there’s always the field of system security. The highest growth sector projected by BLS for this particular field is security guards, which made it into the top 30 growing occupations at nearly 17 percent.
Finding a job that is not offshoreable is all about finding one that requires employees to be front and center to make it work. For employees to avoid losing their job to offshoring, they need to focus on providing hands-on service.
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