A new government report indicates that offshore outsourcing could hurt IT employment growth over the next decade.
But the study, released today by the U.S. Government Accountability Office at the request of Democrats in the U.S. House of Representatives, is sprinkled with caveats and qualifiers because government data can’t provide a complete picture of the economic impact of the use of offshore labor.

At best, the GAO said, the data provides only “some clues” to the extent of offshoring activity in the U.S. economy. And while offshoring “is a small but growing trend,” further efforts will be needed to understand it, the GAO said.

For instance, the study found that while total U.S. employment is projected to increase by 15% to 165 million jobs from 2002 through 2012, that figure represents 2.4 million fewer jobs than the level projected for 2000-10.

The GAO said government projections indicate that IT-related occupations are expected to grow faster than most occupations by 2012. Indeed, seven of the 30 fastest-growing occupations are IT-related. But the rate of growth for these occupations for the 2002 through 2012 projections is significantly lower than the rate projected for 2000-10, the GAO reported.

The GAO report doesn’t say with certainty that offshoring will be to blame for the change in IT labor growth projections. It cites the recession earlier in this decade, the dot-com bubble of the late 1990s and increases in productivity as potentially contributing to the changed job forecast.

The report was prepared at the request of Reps. Ike Skelton (D-Mo.), the ranking minority member of the House Committee on Armed Services; John Dingell (D-Mich.), ranking minority member of the Committee on Energy and Commerce; Tammy Baldwin (D-Wis.); Jay Inslee (D-Wash.); and Adam Smith (D-Wash.).

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