Outsourcing Labor
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After years of sending high-tech production work abroad, U.S. companies are increasingly shipping sophisticated software development and other engineering jobs overseas because they can't find enough qualified workers in the U.S. The escalated hiring of brainpower abroad, however, is carrying with it concerns about efficiency, management and spontaneous creativity that comes from having employees working on projects together in the same place. About 10% of Southern California's 8,000 software firms are now relying on skilled workers in foreign countriesup from barely 1% two years ago, said Rohit Shukla, President of the Los Angeles Regional Technology Alliance. Major companies that have long relied on low-skilled laborers overseas are now aggressively taking advantage of the growing pool of high-skilled engineers in countries such as India, Israel, Pakistan and Russia.
Nearly one-third of Microsoft Corp.'s 34,000 employees are based abroad, working on everything from translating software to marketing and sales. In recent years, the company has added more than 100 software developers in India and Israel and opened research facilities in China and England, Microsoft spokesman Mark Thomas said...