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British businesses that export their jobs overseas are boosting employment levels in the UK; contrary to their workers’ claims that offshoring damages their prospects. The belief that outsourced jobs go mainly to low-cost labour hotspots like India and China is also a misconception that negates the pull factor of skills. So says Prof David Greenway of Nottingham University’s Globalisation and Economic Policy Centre, whose study into the impact of offshorng is said to be the biggest to date. After probing 66,000 UK firms from 1996 to 2005, he found that the offshoring policy resulted in the creation of 100,000 extra jobs and a £10bn boost in company turnover. The “far more complex picture” than typically people imagine of offshoring jobs also includes a boost to the productivity of the exporter’s workforce. Moreover, he found that most of the jobs outsourced from the UK go to “similarly developed European nations” and the US, where “language skills are better.” “If you think of manufacturing and the production of parts, then it is skilled work,” Prof Greenway said, crushing the myth of only low-skilled jobs going offshore. “If you look at car manufacturing, Ford may make engines at Dagenham but gear boxes in Spain; if you think of Airbus – Britain makes the wings and engines, France the bodies.” Although the research shows there are both winners and losers of jobs being outsourced overseas, it found that flexible staff were among the best-placed workers to weather the negatives. Prof Greenway said: “Offshoring does lead to increased job turnover and a change in the skill mix in a firm. The winners are those who have the skills required by firms that are offshoring and growing; the losers are those who cannot adapt.” In a message to policymakers, he said offshoring should be embraced, but the UK must “continually invest[s]” in upgrading workers’ skills so they can easily jump from one job to another. Jun 9, 2008 Email this article Printer friendly page Previous Page
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