Outsourcing No Threat To Tech Jobs, Survey Says

Unemployed computer professionals are quick to blame their situation on the so-called offshoring of U.S. tech jobs to low-wage countries like India and China. But a new survey of corporate CIOs shows that spending on foreign tech labor by American businesses is miniscule.Only 3.3% of 2007 corporate IT budgets are allocated to the funding of offshore outsourcing programs, according to a new survey of 140 chief information officers and other tech execs. By contrast, tech chiefs are setting aside, on average, 33% of their budgets for in-house staff, the survey says. The survey was released Tuesday by the Society for Information Management.

The survey also revealed more good news for technology professionals. Nearly two-thirds of the respondents will maintain or increase their levels of IT staffing in 2007.

This information is consistent with other reports we're seeing here at InformationWeek that points to a robust market for tech labor. All the facts indicate that offshoring is having only a minimal impact on IT jobs, despite the histrionics of Lou Dobbs and other scaremongers who never bother to look at the numbers.

I talk to CIOs and execs on the tech vendor side almost daily. They all have one problem in common: They can't find enough qualified computer pros to fill out their staffs. Outsourcing, while presently limited, is growing. But that growth is being driven as much by companies' inability to find competent domestic programmers as it is by the desire to cut costs.

Some may disagree with that premise, but an increasing amount of data says otherwise.