The federal government lacks comprehensive data on the size of the movement of white-collar jobs--called offshoring--overseas, a new report says.

But the study, released in early October, nevertheless identified trends in offshoring and discussed how they could affect white-collar jobs in the U.S.

The report came as both Democrats and unions cite rising numbers of U.S. white-collar jobs migrating to India, Eastern Europe, China, the Philippines and elsewhere. The jobs are in areas such as software programming, research, testing and design, call centers, accounting and payroll, medical records transcription and paralegals, the 80-page Government Accountability Office (GAO) report said.

Those jobs were supposed to drive the "new economy," but their numbers have declined since the dot-com "boom" turned into a bust after the end of the year 2000.

"This study is a good first step," said Charles Bofferding, executive director of SPEEA/IFPTE Local 2001, one of two Washington state unions that track the issue. "It recognizes that outsourcing is growing and a troubling trend for our workers and our country."

"The GAO clearly stated outsourcing of U.S. jobs abroad can not be ignored, and the government needs to act in order to address the issue in terms of data collection and policy solutions," added Marcus Courtney, president of WashTech, CWA Local 37083, that also tracks offshoring.

SPEEA represents technical workers and engineers primarily at Boeing. WashTech represents high-tech workers in the software industry. Both have experienced union members losing jobs as companies send more work to lower cost areas overseas.

While GAO had trouble finding numbers of white-collar jobs that migrated abroad, it found the Commerce Department data on how much money U.S. firms spend for such services offshore.

That spending on "business professional and technical (BPT) unaffiliated services grew from $6.4 billion in 1997 to $10.7 billion in 2002, or 67.2 percent," GAO said.

Offshoring grew more in some areas than in others, notably computer and data processing services. U.S.-based firms contracted for $636 million in offshore services in that field in 1997, and $1.1 billion in 2002.

Offshoring drew particular notice as IT work--plus call centers and other white-collar jobs--moved to India. But GAO said U.S. firms' investment in offshored IT work in India is a small share of both overall investment in India and U.S. investment in offshoring worldwide.

Nevertheless, "In some BPT services? subcategories, imports from India increased," the report says. "In particular, imports of India?s computer and data processing services rose from $8 million in 1997 to...$76 million in 2002," or 850 percent.

"Imports," in GAO's terms, refers to work U.S. firms buy offshore, which is produced there and shipped back to the U.S.

What GAO could not measure--because the U.S. has yet to develop data to track it--is how such "imports" translate into jobs. The Labor Department is working on that problem, it said.

"According to BEA, available data on U.S. multinational companies? operations do not show whether companies? new investments are replacing their U.S.-based operations or substituting for exports to foreign markets that would have been supplied by their U.S.-based operations.

"The data currently available do not show any significant shifts or sizable investment in developing countries that may be used as a platform for offshoring," GAO added.

The GAO report is in line with a recent study WashTech commissioned, showing continuing U.S. job losses in the IT field even after U.S. "recovery" allegedly began after November 2001.

Mark Gruenberg writes for Press Associates, Inc., news service. Used by permission.