The Counter-deception Blog

Lying to your employers (us) Department: And if you have to learn Bengali to get a job, think of it as a fringe benefit.

OCTOBER 17, 2005  BusinessWeek.com

UP FRONT

Just The Bright Side, Thanks

After holding off for more than a year, the Commerce Dept. has quietly released a study of offshoring -the movement of white-collar jobs to low-wage countries. But it's not the even-handed assessment completed by staff analysts in June, 2004, after six months of research. The staff report was largely ditched, say outside experts who heard the staffers' views. Instead, these critics charge, Commerce political appointees put out a 12-page report that portrays offshoring as an unconditional boon to the U.S. economy. After BusinessWeek's print edition went to press on Oct. 5, the Commerce Dept. responded by saying: "In carefully developing the report, we sought to ensure that it was thorough, objective and that the competitive environment was properly assessed and supported by hard data."

Commerce has only released its final report to Rep. Frank Wolf (R-Va.) who ordered it up, but BusinessWeek has obtained a copy, as well as a slide show tied to the original research, presented by staffers at a conference last December.

The staff researchers' presentation gave both the pros and cons, comparing factors that favor U.S. high-tech job growth with those that favor offshoring. The official version dispenses with most of the disadvantages. Instead it points to pro-offshoring studies done by McKinsey Global Institute and uncritically cites data from a lobbying group that represents the U.S. subsidiaries of foreign companies. "No objective analysts, even if they were in favor of outsourcing, would write a report like this," says Ron Hira, a professor at Rochester Institute of Technology, who saw the December presentation. To see the slide show and official report, go to www.businessweek.com/extras

By Aaron Bernstein

Online Extra: The Commerce Dept.'s Official Offshoring Report
Here's the department's full-length "Six-Month Assessment of Workforce Globallization In Certain Knowledge-Based Industries. To read the report, http://images.businessweek.com/ss/05/10/commercebriefing/commerce_offshoring_report.pdf

Online Extra: Commerce Staffers' Original Offshoring Report
Here's the original presentation prepared by Commerce Dept. researchers, with pros and cons for the U.S. workforce. To view the slide show,

http://images.businessweek.com/ss/05/10/commercebriefing/index.htm

posted by Dr. Frank Stech  # 3:55 PM