ResumeBuilder.com’s latest research showed that 30 percent of companies that had a recent round of layoffs replace U.S. workers with offshore ones while 24 percent of companies with recent layoffs “plan to terminate and replace U.S. employees with offshore workers in 2025,” the report’s authors said.
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ResumeBuilder.com also found among those companies that replaced laid-off employees with offshore workers, 22 percent indicated that 1 to 10 percent of the laid-off employees were replaced. “About 29 percent reported that 11 to 25 percent were replaced, while 24 percent stated that 26 to 50 percent were,” the report stated.
Stacie Haller, chief career adviser at ResumeBuilder.com, said companies that are “opting to lay off workers and replace them with offshore employees are targeting roles that can be easily managed remotely, such as customer service, tech support, and data entry positions. Offshore workers live in countries where they have been working globally for years, so there is an existing experienced workforce in place.”
The researchers found that the most commonly affected roles were customer service at 58 percent and tech positions at 49 percent. Forty-seven percent of the offshore replaced workers were in data entry positions. Digital marketing came in at 41 percent and manufacturing had 40 percent.
“Historically, many companies have filled these positions offshore due to cost benefits,” Haller said. “However, the current trend represents a new level of outsourcing, where layoffs of U.S. employees are being used as a cover for replacing them with a lower-cost workforce abroad.”
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Haller said by doing so, companies can maintain “or even improve efficiency while significantly reducing expenses. However, this approach raises ethical concerns and can impact employee morale, trust, and the overall perception of the company’s commitment to its domestic workforce.”
Offshoring of tech-related jobs is not new, but advances in technology have accelerated the trend. The nonprofit Population Reference Bureau noted a sharp increase in computer programming jobs in its 2008 U.S. Labor Force Trends Report. The top roles being offshored included data entry, computer/IT specialists and electrical and electronic drafters.
“The offshoring of manufacturing jobs has been occurring for decades, but the offshoring of service-sector jobs is an incipient phenomenon, emerging in substantial numbers since 2002 and growing rapidly,” the report’s authors said.
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