What goes around comes around, even in outsourcing apparently! A front-page story in a recent Boston Globe says Indian software companies are facing a labor crunch similar to what U.S. companies experienced five years ago and are responding in kind. To wit--companies like Infosys Technologies and Tata Consultancy Services are planning to recruit thousands of new workers from around the world over the next year--including from the U.S.

According to the Globe, Infosys alone plans to spend $100 million on this mission, hiring both recent graduates and experienced workers.

Dubbed "reverse outsourcing," the effort involves both opening offices in other countries and hiring foreigners to work in India (see Marianne McGee's recent blog asking whether IT pros would consider moving to India to move up the career ladder for a range of perspectives from InformationWeek readers on that idea).

Now much of this hiring supposedly won't be done in the U.S. That's not surprising--Indian firms are under the same cost pressures as are U.S. and other western companies, and they're looking at rising salaries for local workers given the fierce competition for their services. But they will hire some Americans, and that trend is expected to grow. It will be interesting to see whether that sparks a mini price war or helps ratchet up salaries a bit--at least in some jobs--on both sides of the ocean.

It's not so far-fetched. If companies like EDS and IBM are looking to hire thousands of mostly overseas workers--many in India--at a time when Indian outsourcers and developers can't fill their own staffing needs internally, I see a collision ahead. Even Japan, which faces a nearly 10% loss of its current workforce between 2007 and 2009, may be forced to consider foreign workers. What we're looking at is a big circle, where Indians hire Americans and other foreigners, and global western companies hire Indians, Chinese, etc. All this suggests the potential for a shortage of IT workers, if not fierce competition, and if so, there has to be some upside here for IT workers everywhere, but certainly here as well.

Recent reports that the offshoring impact on U.S. jobs is overblown--at least for IT positions requiring advanced degrees and business knowledge--and that half of IT pros are confidently planning to look for new jobs are enough to brighten up the oft gloomy IT employment picture. But toss in a growing global battle for IT resources, and you have to believe that things just might be starting to pick up for IT workers. Does anyone see cause for optimism?