Database administrators must expand their skill sets and take on business management roles to protect their jobs as the popularity of offshore outsourcing increases, according to industry experts.

As new technology allows for more DBA jobs than ever to be filled at remote locations, more database administrators — especially junior ones — are vulnerable to outsourcing, according to some experts.

“It’s not surprising that DBAs are having trouble finding jobs,” said Cynthia Kroll, a senior regional economist at the Fisher Center for Real Estate and Urban Economics at University of California, Berkeley. “Some of the job losses have been the dot.com busts, but I think a significant portion of this is outsourcing.”

Kroll recently co-authored a report titled “The New Wave of Outsourcing” and is working on a book titled Globalization and the High-tech Economy.

Her report, released earlier this month, estimated that India — the primary destination of business services outsourcing from Western countries — would employ over 2 million people by 2005 as a result of offshore outsourcing. The offshore outsourcing sector is growing at a rate of 60% a year.

Do DBAs need to be on site?

In India, Anand Varadarajan, an Oracle DBA and co-founder of a DBA outsourcing firm, said that he may be offering cheaper labor, but his standards are as high as the ones American companies have. Varadarajan knows that many U.S.-based companies argue that companies are taking big risks, and underestimating the role of the DBA, when they outsource jobs.

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