When Outsourcing Is Outsourced…

Only outsourced workers are outsourced?…

The NY Times reports that the heavily vilified repository of much U.S. outsourcing, India, is now itself outsourcing jobs:

India is outsourcing outsourcing.

One of the constants of the global economy has been companies moving their tasks—and jobs—to India. But rising wages and a stronger currency here, demands for workers who speak languages other than English, and competition from countries looking to emulate India's success as a back office—including China, Morocco and Mexico—are challenging that model.

Many executives here acknowledge that outsourcing, having rained most heavily on India, will increasingly sprinkle tasks around the globe. Or, as Ashok Vemuri, an Infosys senior vice president, put it, the future of outsourcing is "to take the work from any part of the world and do it in any part of the world."

More here. Hat tip: Film critic extraordinaire Alan Vanneman.

reason looked at how Barbie was outsourced first to Taiwan and then eventually to China (no doubt for the special Toxic-Lead Barbie). And back in July 2004, we told 10 Truths about Trade.