WASHINGTON — As U.S. companies send more high-tech work overseas, they are creating a “downward pressure on salaries” that may help slow American job losses, a technology industry leader told Congress on Monday.

Indeed, U.S. workers may have to get used to lower wages, said Harris Miller, president of the Information Technology Association of America.

Unlike the late 1990s when the tech sector was booming, U.S. workers can’t expect employers to offer “six-figure incomes to technical people with little or no actual on-the-job training,” Miller told the House Committee on Small Business.

Americans must face the “hard truth” that offshore firms not only offer information technology services for “a fraction of the cost,” but can “compete for increasingly more sophisticated and complex IT work,” he said.

The silver lining, Miller said, is that “a more competitive payroll picture may undercut (U.S. employers’) need to move jobs offshore.”

Miller said cutting wages is not the only strategy for staying competitive. He said a key step is to provide greater value, which means raising the skills of U.S. workers and the creativity of U.S. firms. “The U.S. cannot legislate or regulate its way out of this perplexing situation,” he said.

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