Offshore outsourcing is the practice of hiring an external organization to perform some or all business functions in a country other than the one where the product will be sold or consumed. It can be contrasted with offshoring, in which the functions are performed by a foreign division or subsidiary of the parent company. Opponents point out that this sends work overseas, thereby reducing domestic employment. Many jobs in the infotech sectors - such as IT, Data entry, and Customer support - have been or are potentially affected.
The general criteria for a job to be offshore-able are:
- The job does not require direct customer interaction;
- the job can be telework;
- The work has a high information content;
- The work is easy to set up;
- There is a high wage difference between the original and offshore countries;
- The work is repeatable.