Some jobs safer than others

By Mary Ellen Slayter
Washington Post

The average length of unemployment grew to 20.3 weeks in February, the longest in more than 20 years. The jobless rate hovered at 5.6 percent that month.

Nearly 3 million manufacturing jobs have disappeared during the past four years, many now filled by cheaper labor in Mexico and China. An estimated 3.3 million U.S. service-sector jobs will head overseas during the next 15 years, along with $136 billion in wages, Forrester Research predicts.

What sort of work is immune to outsourcing? What kind of training should you seek if you want a job you can feel reasonably confident in?

The issue has inspired much political rhetoric and many proposals for change. Sen. John Kerry, D-Mass., has made the issue a key part of his presidential campaign, going so far as to call chief executives who send jobs overseas "Benedict Arnolds." He has proposed changes to the corporate tax code to make "offshoring" jobs less attractive to U.S. firms.

Some argue that American fears about jobs moving overseas are misplaced. One industry-financed study by economic forecasting firm Global Insight, released last week, conceded that offshore outsourcing eliminated 104,000 jobs between 2000 and 2003.

It emphasized, however, that the vast majority of the nation's job losses, including in information technology, were caused by other factors, such as the overall slowdown in the U.S. economy and improved worker productivity.

The study argues that outsourcing actually creates jobs by creating a bigger market for U.S. exports and by keeping inflation and interest rates down. Global outsourcing, the study says, contributed $2.3 billion to U.S. exports in 2003.

So why are we so worried about jobs creeping overseas now? It could be because these losses, long concentrated in the manufacturing sector, have begun to affect white-collar workers. It could also be latent xenophobia swelling up in our globally isolated little American hearts. Even if they tell us it's for our collective good in the long run, that's little comfort when you're asked to train your replacement halfway around the world.

You obviously can't protect yourself against all odds of losing your job, whether to outsourcing or that classic bogeyman "downsizing," but here are a few options that could make you feel more secure:

• Get cleared. Jobs requiring security clearance are highly unlikely to be outsourced, for reasons of national defense. Of course, getting clearance is easier said than done. You can't apply for a security clearance on your own; you must be sponsored by a company that employs you — or wants to employ you badly enough to deal with the cost and hassle. Certain skill sets are in particular demand, such as the information technology background that the private market has less use for these days.
• Serve the public. Teachers, police officers and firefighters can never be outsourced. Municipal services have long provided a secure, usually unionized, place to work. This isn't the kind of work that will make you rich or famous. If your primary goal is avoiding financial risk, though, consider it.
• Go with what you're good at. Generally, the better you are at your job, the less likely that you'll be cut. This is no guarantee, though. Given how weak science and math education is in this country, chances are those information technology workers in India, Ireland and China really are better.

The best protection, and the only one that has worked over the long term, is to relax a bit and be flexible — something American workers have always been good at.

You shouldn't put all your energy into planning your career defensively. Chronic fear makes for lousy performance, no matter how "safe" the job you've chosen.