What white-collar jobs can't be done more cheaply overseas?
In "After the New Economy", Doug Henwood remarks that most of us work in services, rather than goods -- globalization being commonly thought of as a borderless flow of goods. But it now includes services. E.g., when IBM refilled programmer positions it had dropped in the U.S. during the last recession, it filled them largely in the BRIC countries.
Or Intel deciding to do their R&D overseas. Or the head of the NSF reportedly telling corporate honchos that they shouldn't be hiring US physics doctoral graduates when overseas Ph.D's are so much cheaper.
This kind of thing probably hasn't affected labor statistics to any great extent, but I can't see how it won't 10 years from now.
This trend certainly is beneficial to emerging market countries, but I have to wonder if the US labor market -- and that of other "first world" countries -- won't become concentrated in jobs requiring in-person contact, like plumbing or hair-dressing. (Being only a little facetious here.) I certainly can't see US programmers happily competing with Indian programmers for $10K/yr jobs. Ditto for tax accountants, electrical engineers....
To be fair, I have to note that Japan seems to be avoiding this problem -- by preventing technology transfers? or maybe because Chinese engineers don't want to learn Japanese? But that doesn't seem like a model the West can or wants to apply.
Interested in any informed thoughts on this subject. Thanks.
- Eric