Domestic Accountants Vulnerable to Future Offshoring
Bookkeeping, accounting and auditing clerks -- 1.9 million in the U.S. -- share category one status with computer programmers, telemarketers, computer systems analysts, billing and postal clerks, and machine operators and computer support specialists.
Domestic accountants are considered a category two on Blinder's list, which also includes auditors.
Blinder says the U.S. could lose between 30 million and 40 million jobs in the coming decades, due to improved communications technology and "new" workers from countries like India and China.
Blinder looks at this from both the optimistic and pessimistic views. He suggests that higher education may not be the ticket to a secure job, as it has been in the past two decades. Rather, he believes occupations that happen to require less education -- skilled trades such as roofers and plumbers and electricians -- are less vulnerable to offshoring.
Number of comments: 6
AccountingWEB.com May-15-2007
Categories: International, News Archives
Times read: 2042
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Pat Gilligan , 18 May 2007 @ 18:28 PM
Off-shoring accelerated by IFRS There is an acceleration factor to consider as well, related to a US public company's potential choice of accounting standard to follow. If U.S. public companies are permitted in the future (e.g., 2010) to choose between US GAAP and International Financial Reporting Standards, picking IFRS may enable greater efficiencies than sticking with US GAAP. Off-shore accountants would need to know one accounting standard, not too, which decreases their upfront training/education cost and enables greater capacity. This is only applicable to accountants and auditors serving public companies however that is a sizeable portion of US accountants. I have not read the entire Princeton study yet however I doubt this angle was considered. |
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Sue Bishop , 17 May 2007 @ 20:12 PM
What does off-shoring do to our career pipelines? I've heard reports that two of the Big 4 have already off-shored their analyst work. (I'm referring to the people who support their practice leaders, not client service people.) They are apparently keeping their analyst managers state-side. I wonder what kind of pipeline they will have for managers in the future if there is no opportunity to rise up through the ranks. Sue B, CA |
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Robert Webster , 17 May 2007 @ 19:56 PM
Postal Clerks Offshored??? In reading this article, I believe that there is either a mistake in the study or in the article. This is based on the statement in the article about Postal Clerks being in Category One. All of the other job types listed make sense, but Postal Clerks? Robert Webster, Kansas |
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Jeff Morgan , 17 May 2007 @ 19:36 PM
Off-shoring and Out-sourcing Many tasks that are commonly out-sourced, like payroll, could easily be off-shored. In fact, I wouldn't be suprised to see any number of data entry-intensive clerical jobs that many coompanies already out-source leave the country. And my experience has been that smalls outsource quite a bit because it is cheaper than paying taxes, insurance and retirement on another employee. Jeff M. |
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Barry Boese , 17 May 2007 @ 18:09 PM
"Offshoring" to Canadian Accountants Keep in mind that before offshoring, USA companies can outsource to Canadian accountants, bookkeepers, etc that are familiar with the way they do business, have a similar culture and language. Our company works with many USA based businesses, which operate on www.netsuite.com and our staff reside in Canada. This allows for lower costs for the USA companies and improved access to very capable staff and services.
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Timothy Mauch , 16 May 2007 @ 00:50 AM
Off-Shore Accounting It all depends on your customer base. Those that need or desire face-time, specialized reports or colloquial language skills, such as very small or specialty business owners, won't use off-shore bookkeepers or accountants. Tim M. |
