Saturday's edition of The Times of India has a very confusing article on "outsourcing". It start's off this way:
WASHINGTON: India and China account for only 1.6 per cent of total employment of US multinationals by way of outsourcing, the government's figures have revealed, dispelling notions spread by critics of offshoring that the two countries are swallowing American jobs.
Latest figures released by the US Commerce Department show that by contrast, Canada was home to more than three times as many workers for US multinationals as China.
The UK was home to about nine times as many workers as India. Also, for each job in low- or mid-wage countries in 2003, US companies employed more than 10 workers at home.
The author of the report, Raymond Mataloni, said the numbers "don't provide a lot of support for the notion that massive offshoring is going on."
Now if I'm reading this correctly, they are confusing a US expat working in India (or China, or Canada, etc) versus an Indian (or Chinese, or Canadian) performing work in India which was shifted from a US site and performed by an American. Having an executive from Microsoft in Redmond transfer to Microsoft in China for a few years is not an "outsource".
Am I reading this incorrectly??
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