Alan Blinder's influential estimate, 2007: 25pct more of U.S. jobs were at risk of being offshored; instead, more jobs were added than lost, against the scaremongering that millions would be lost

Report: Overboard on Offshore Fears. Adam Ozimek, chief economist at Upwork. Sep 27 2019. https://www.upwork.com/press/economics/report-overboard-on-offshore-fears/

In 2007 an economist predicted U.S. service sector jobs were at high risk of being offshored. Data now shows that instead they are going remote.

Executive Summary

Advancing technology is unlocking great potential in remote work opportunities by making it increasingly easy for work that used to be done in person to now be done remotely. Yet these changes have led some researchers to worry about the offshoring of U.S. jobs. In one influential estimate from 2007, economist Alan Blinder projected that a quarter or more of U.S. jobs were at risk of being offshored.

In this report, we take a look at the data from the decade-plus since this warning was issued and find that the techno-pessimism was misplaced. Instead of being offshored, the types of work predicted to be at risk of offshoring are increasingly being performed remotely by workers within the U.S. While technology may be giving firms the choice of hiring workers from around the globe, this is not translating to job loss. Instead, it’s leading to more U.S. workers enjoying the greater freedom, flexibility, and shorter commutes of remote work.

This analysis investigates the growth of remote work in the U.S. using Census Bureau data, unique surveys and data from Upwork, the largest online work website. The key results are as follows:

.  Contrary to popular predictions made in 2007, offshoring risk is not related to job loss for hundreds of occupations.

.  Instead, those jobs predicted as “at risk” of being offshored are significantly more remote work based today.

.  Data from Upwork shows that U.S. knowledge workers retain a competitive advantage even in a global marketplace, and are in demand from both U.S. businesses and businesses around the world.

.  Young business owners and hiring managers are more comfortable with remote work, and younger workers are more likely to want to work remotely, which suggests the remote work trend will continue to grow based on demographic change alone.

.  Instead of focusing on how demand might shift overseas, research should consider how remote work could help shift demand within the U.S. to lower cost of living areas that are currently lacking in economic opportunity.


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The White-Collar Job Apocalypse That Didn’t Happen.  Ben Casselman. TNYT, Sep 27 2019. https://www.nytimes.com/2019/09/27/business/economy/jobs-offshoring.html

In a follow-up paper released Friday, another economist, Adam Ozimek, revisited Mr. Blinder’s analysis to see what had happened over the past decade. Some job categories that Mr. Blinder identified as vulnerable [to offshoring], like data-entry workers, have seen a decline in United States employment. But the ranks of others, like actuaries, have continued to grow.

Over all, of the 26 occupations that Mr. Blinder identified as “highly offshorable” and for which Mr. Ozimek had data, 15 have added jobs over the past decade and 11 have cut them. Altogether, those occupations have eliminated fewer than 200,000 jobs over 10 years, hardly the millions that many feared. A second tier of jobs — which Mr. Blinder labeled “offshorable” — has actually added more than 1.5 million jobs.

But Mr. Blinder didn’t miss the mark entirely, said Mr. Ozimek, who is chief economist at Upwork, an online platform for hiring freelancers. The new study found that in the jobs that Mr. Blinder identified as easily offshored, a growing share of workers were now working from home. Mr. Ozimek said he suspected that many more were working in satellite offices or for outside contractors, rather than at a company’s main location. In other words, technology like cloud computing and videoconferencing has enabled these jobs to be done remotely, just not quite as remotely as Mr. Blinder and many others assumed.