NEW YORK -- More than 150 corporate executives, many paying $1,400 a head, listened for tips on how to move jobs overseas. Outside, on a frigid Manhattan sidewalk, a group of fewer than 20 spirited demonstrators protested the "offshore outsourcing" conference.

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Members of the Programmer's Guild hand out flyers Wednesday during a demonstration in front of New York's Westin Hotel where a conference on "outsourcing" was taking place. The demonstration included workers from various professions.

Associated Press

With the loss of jobs to other countries being thrust into the spotlight by a presidential campaign, the newer trend of moving white-collar positions overseas has grown so controversial attendees declined to discuss the conference.

One speaker decided to bar the press from his presentation. His topic: Is offshore outsourcing unpatriotic?

But despite the hesitance of participants to draw attention to themselves, the size of the crowd pointed to a rising tide of jobs destined for overseas.

"I have yet to be at an outsourcing conference with this many people, where there are so many people interested in learning about offshore sourcing," compared to consulting firms trying to sell outsourcing services, said Lisa Ross, founder of Ross Research, an outsourcing research firm. "There are huge-name companies trying to build up knowledge, smaller organizations and nonprofit organizations."

The debate over outsourcing, which had centered on the loss of factory jobs, has gained new vigor now that the technology and service industries that thrived in the 1990's are sending many non-manufacturing operations abroad to cut costs.

Increasingly, U.S. corporations are farming out programming, customer support, data entry and various back-office jobs to lower-paid workers in countries as diverse as India, Romania and Ghana. The average U.S. programmer commands $60 an hour, six times the rate in India.

In a research report in mid-2003, Gartner Inc. predicted that at least one out of 10 technology jobs in the United States would move overseas by the end of 2004.

The unemployment threat was serious enough for Steve Ward, a computer programmer in Philadelphia, to drive to Manhattan and picket outside the conference.

"The consulting firm I work for is sending jobs to India," Ward said, holding a sign -- "Will Code For Food."

He dismissed the notion everyone benefits from the corporate savings generated by offshore outsourcing. "Companies are predatory institutions, and they have to be controlled."

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