At first blush, it is easy to dismiss the effects of American outsourcing to India. As Mohan Thite and Bob Russell note, the Indian information technology, information technology enabled services (ITES) and business process outsourcing (BPO) industries--the major sectors receiving outsourcing work--constitute under 1 million workers out of the 500 million that make up India's total workforce (Thite, Mohan, and Russell, Rob, 70). Additionally, "India's share of the global IT/ITES market was still low at 0.8 percent in 2002" (Thite, Mohan, and Russell, Rob 71).
However, outsourcing to India deserves a closer look because of the future growth potential of India's outsourcing industries and the incipient changes outsourcing is effecting in the lives of Indians and Americans. In fact, it can be seen that the increase in outsourcing to India will most likely be a boon to India's economy and trade but have a mixed effect on both American and Indian workers if the growing labor force remains unorganized. In the end, though, the trend is just beginning.
Although they minimize the scope of India's IT sector, its most prominent outsourcing industry, Thite and Russell note that the effect of the sector's growth has changed India's trading patterns dramatically. In 1995, its top five exports were gems, garments, textiles, sea products and leather. In 2005, the top exports were software, engineering products, gems, chemicals and textiles (Thite, Mohan, and Russell, Rob 70). The future looks just as bright for the sector, which could grow from its revenue of $28 billion in 2005 to $148 billion by 2012 (Thite and Russell 71).
A vital question thus becomes who is gaining from the outsourcing. On one hand, it is the Indian people themselves. "For India, offshoring provides a vital and growing stream of new jobs for a young population hungry for opportunity," Mira Kamdar writes. In a society where status is largely s
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