Labor Events and Resources Blog

Institute of Industrial Relations Library

Brookings Trade Forum 2005
Offshoring White-Collar Work:
The Issues and the Implications

Co-chairs: Lael Brainard and Susan M. Collins
May 12-13, 2005
http://www.brookings.edu/es/commentary/journals/tradeforum/about2005.htm·
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Agenda and Papers:
http://www.brookings.edu/es/commentary/journals/tradeforum/agenda2005.htm
[full-text papers are available at this URL]

"Offshoring" has suddenly entered the lexicon of mainstream America, raising anxieties that whole categories of services jobsformerly considered a "nontradeable" safe havenare up for grabs in the global economy, along with manufacturing. How America handles this challenge will have profound implications not only for its own domestic "social contract" but also for its ability to provide international leadership and to liberalize areas critical to the poorest countries. Understanding these developments requires more than the head-line grabbing assertions, casual empiricism, and shaky estimates that have dominated the public debate on offshoring.

To address these issues, The Brookings Trade Forum has convened a set of world-class academics, policy analysts, government representatives, and business thinkers to present original and thought-provoking new analysis of offshoring. Their contributions range from the broad implications for America's workforce, productivity, and competitiveness to detailed studies of offshoring in financial services, radiology, call centers, software, and semiconductors. The analysis also extends to India's rise as a leading provider of world-class services and questions about the future sustainability of this trend. The conference represented not only a critical step forward in theoretical and empirical understanding of offshoring but also in defining a coherent policy response to the trend.

News Source: The Institute for Workplace Studies (IWS) in New York City.