US worries about outsourcing peter out as economy improves

BOSTON, FEB 25: According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, unemployment in the US is down to 5.2%, and is expected to decline further. Although the US economy is still not out of the woods, the economic trend and the declining unemployment rate shows the way to a better future ahead. Economists are not looking forward to any miracle, but are confident of improving the economy at a steady rate.

For all of 2004, the US economy added 2.2 million jobs. Last year, the economy clocked a 4.4% increase in growth, its best performance in five years. Looking ahead, analysts predict that the economy will expand by 3.5% or more in 2005. That would be sufficient to spur modest job growth in the months ahead, analysts say.

The service sector, the engine of job creation, showed hiring gains in January. Retailers added around 19,000 jobs, an improvement from a loss of around 8,000 in December. Job gains also were reported for education and health services, in the financial sector and in transportation. But these were partially offset by job losses at factories and in construction.

Education and health services continued to add jobs in January, increasing by 35,000. Within the sector, healthcare employment rose by 15,000 over the month, and was up by 258,000 over the year. Employment in educational services edged up in January and the industry added 86,000 jobs over the year.

In transportation and warehousing, employment increased by 34,000 in January. Since its most recent low in July 2003, employment in this sector has grown by 166,000, with trucking accounting for about a third of the growth. Within transportation and warehousing, employment in the couriers and messengers industry grew by 17,000 in January after a loss of 9,000 in December.

Employment in financial activities rose by 21,000 in January. Both credit intermediation and securities, commodities and investments contributed to the gain. Over the year, employment in financial activities increased by 159,000, with most of the gain occurring in the last six months.

With the US presidential elections behind, hoopla over job losses and chronic job shortages are evaporating fast. In fact, outsourcing is gaining much more acceptance throughout this country. Millions of US jobs supposedly fleeing to China and India are not so worrying for the people nowadays, as there are more jobs and moneymaking opportunities available than in the recent past.

The availability of jobs requiring low and mid-level skills in the US may be slowing down, but the opportunities to make money are not. After so much hue and cry over outsourcing for the past few months, this same is benefiting America. Outsourcing is not only limited to big companies like GE but has opened the door for smaller companies and virtually anyone can outsource their job via internet these days.

For instance, a person from Florida who lost his job due to outsourcing started a business in web programming and internet marketing and outsourced the whole of his job to Delhi, where he gets everything done in almost $100 per month for the worth of $5,000 per month. He earns twice what his job used to pay him.

General feeling in the industry is that in a very recent future there will be a shortage of send workforce as big industries including oil and other companies will have many retirements coming soon. Average age of workforce in major oil and service companies is around 55 years, which predicts a big shortage of trained workers in the not-so-distant future.

With this future shortage in mind, people are going back to the school to get ready for the job boom. Universities are experiencing heavy applications in engineering, science, management and technology. Online universities are making merry of this situation. General universities are opening campuses closer to the workplaces.

Universities are adopting the curricula based on the present and the future needs of the industry. They are providing training online as well as clbuttroom courses and the employers are encouraging their employees to get as much training as possible.

They not only sponsor their employee to take courses but also provide funds to the university for further research and development which in turn creates jobs.