Two: Accenture recently said that, by year's end, it will have more employees in India than in the United States, and that its Indian workforce will include well-paid business consultants and industry specialists in addition to the usual programmers and help desk associates.
Three: Last week, global pharmaceutical company GlaxoSmithKline outsourced clinical data management for new drug development to India's Tata Consultancy Services. To fulfill the contract, TCS is building a new data center in Mumbai devoted exclusively to its Glaxo work.
Four: IBM this week said it's expanding a Bangalore research group tasked with helping the company develop autonomic -- or "self healing" -- computer systems. IBM for several years has been pushing the autonomic capabilities of its servers as a key differentiator in a market that is somewhat commoditized. In other words, autonomic research is key to the success of IBM's hardware business -- and much of that research will take place in India as well as the United States.
Five: A recent poll by Syncroness found that a full 83% of the United States companies it surveyed have outsourced some aspect of new product development. Among the top reasons cited, according to Syncroness, were speeding time-to-market of new products and access to new talent pools.
What's the upshot of all this for United States workers? Being a highly skilled, highly specialized professional is no longer a surefire safeguard against losing your job to outsourcing. Global competition is now a fact of life for almost every profession in every industry. Ready to compete?