<p>Should your S or D avoid fields that are being outsourced? Here’s an interesting view of the question from the McKinsey Global Institute by way of The Economist: [Ignorance</a> and the fear of offshoring](<a href=“http://www.economist.com/business/displayStory.cfm?story_id=4135319]Ignorance ”>Getting the measure of it )</p>
<p>Some highlights:</p>
<p>
No one knows the exact size or shape of offshoring. There is no doubt that firms today use outside suppliers (some of them overseas) to do many of the things they once did themselves…Last month the McKinsey Global Institute, the consulting firm’s internal think tank, published a report on the subject. Called The Emerging Global Labour Market, it began by saying, So far, the debate about offshoring has been fuelled by anecdote rather than fact, and then set about gathering hard data.</p>
<p>Extrapolating from a study of eight industrial sectors, the institute calculated that in 2003 there were 1.5m service jobs outsourced abroad from developed countries. By 2008, it reckons that number will have risen to 4.1m. To set that in context, it points out that an average of 4.6m Americans started work with a new employer every month in the year to March 2005…</p>
<p>Limits to the growth of offshoring are already appearing…The demand for engineers from Britain and America alone, it claims, will use up the suitable supply in all of China, India and the Philippines by 2011. The institute advises firms to choose their locations carefully. It is hard to switch later because of sunk costs in physical and human capital.
italics added</p>
<p>That’s all seems consistent with predictions by labor experts that there the shortage of qualified people in the US, particularly in engineering and programming in the relatively near future.</p>
<p>My husband and I were talking about this yesterday. We decided the jobs that could never be outsourced were plumbers and electricians. Trade schools are looking more and more appealing.</p>