Resolved: Offshoring is good for America

A great debate featured on Fastcompany. As Ashok Soota points out the issue has to be seen at a micro level and a macro level.

At a micro level, one must empathize with anyone who loses a job whether due to offshoring or obsolescence. Assistance in reskilling such persons must be available at a social and structural level.
At a macro level, jobs lost in one part of the economy are replaced by gains elsewhere. A well-known McKinsey study shows that the U.S. economy gains $1.14 in return for every dollar of offshoring spend in India.

These numbers don't take into account the additional gains from Capital investment. For example, the majority of the funding for MindTree and many other companies is from U.S. sources (institutional and individual) who will benefit when we go public.
The U.S., as the world's largest exporter of services, is the largest beneficiary of open markets. Also, countries with more open approach to offshoring like the U.S. and UK have lower levels of unemployment than relatively conservative economies like Germany and France. All of the above reconfirm that offshoring is good for America.

To say that "if the current trends continue, the US will soon be running a trade deficit in its service category" is not based on facts. The US is the world's No. 1 exporter of services (per WTO/Dept of Commerce report 2005) at $318 billion with 15% share of the world services market. The next largest is UK with 8% share. Indian share of the overall service market (of which programming is a part) is a paltry 1.9%. That HUGE gap is not going to go away soon as feared by you.

On the re-skill issue, I must share with you what happened to computer manufacturing in India when the market was opened up to global competition. Most manufacturers had to shut shop and were replaced by IBM, Dell, Compaq and HP. What happened to the people in India who used to manufacture computers? Some re-skilled themselves, some changed professions and some I am sure, were left behind. The onus to learn and add new value is a global imperative.