兰德-远程工作的全球化会在美国劳动力市场掀起一波浪潮吗？英-14正式版.doc

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1、October 2022PerspectiveEXPERT INSIGHTS ON A TIMELY POLICY ISSUETOBIAS SYTSMAThe Globalization of Remote WorkWill Digital Offshoring Make Waves in the U.S. Labor Market?Quietly, over the past several decades, advances in digital technology have expanded the capacity of remote work. However, this capa

2、city was rela-tively underutilized in many organizations until the coronavirus dis-ease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic.1 In the early months of the pandemic,roughly two-thirds of economic activity in the United States was done remotely.2 While rates of remote work have fallen since 2020, most survey evide

3、nce suggests that it is likely here to stay. For instance, a Pew Research survey found that 59 per-cent of workers with jobs that can be done from home were still teleworking as of January 2022.3 Survey data from Barrero, Bloom, and Davis, 2021, indicate that30 percent of all full paid working days

4、are being spent at home, as of May 2022 (Figure 1). This is a sixfold increase relative to the prepandemic baseline of 4.8 per-cent.4 Survey results from Brynjolfsson et al., 2022, show that 21 percent of workers say that most of their work will be remote after the pandemic, and 9.5 percent say all

5、their work will be remote.5 Similarly, the pandemic led to a rapid increase inC O R P O R A T I O Ninnovation surrounding technologies that support remoteSince the start of the pandemic, many in the popularwork6 and an increase in firm-level investments in digitalpress have pointed out the potential

6、 for remote work to leadtechnologies.7to increased offshoring. For instance, Will Daniel wrote inFIGURE 1Percentage of Full Paid Working Days Worked from HomePercentage of full working days7060504030201005/1/206/1/207/1/208/1/209/1/20 10/1/20 11/1/20 12/1/201/1/212/1/213/1/214/1/215/1/216/1/217/1/21

7、8/1/219/1/21 10/1/21 11/1/21 12/1/211/1/222/1/223/1/224/1/225/1/22DateSOURCE: Data from Barrero, Bloom, and Davis, 2021.NOTE: This figure displays the percentage of full paid working days worked from home. The data in the figure come from a survey conducted in waves by Barrero, Bloom, and Davis, 202

8、1.2Fortune, “Since the remote-work era began over two years ago, business leaders and economists have suggested that it may backfire by creating a more difficult environment for white-collar workers as companies begin to consider offshoring jobs to reduce costs.”8 Similar sentiments appear in other

9、publications, including the Financial Times,9 the National Review,10 and Forbes.11Behind these concerns is the idea that U.S. employers could replace domestic workers with inexpensive offshore workers using telework. These concerns are not new. Off-shoring has been going on for decades in some infor

10、mation technology and business processing occupations.12 How-ever, the unprecedented growth in remote work since the beginning of the pandemic may mean offshoring is about to become more common. Digital technologies (includ-ing those that make remote work possible) make services easier to transmit a

11、cross distances. As a result, U.S. service sector workers may face increased competition for jobs from workers in other countries where wages are signifi-cantly lower. The situation mirrors how improvements in communication technologies increased the tradability of production activities in the late

12、20th century, which con-tributed to job losses in the U.S. manufacturing sector.13 Digital offshoringmoving jobs overseas to cheaper loca-tions using digital technologiescould be performed by firms specializing in specific activities, similar to offshor-ing that has already occurred in customer serv

13、ice jobs. Alternatively, distributed work platforms could allow indi-vidual contractors to carry out offshored tasks and jobs.14Digital offshoring appears to be on the rise. Recent survey data from Barrero, Bloom, and Davis, 2021, show that high domestic labor costs have led 8 percent (net) of emplo

14、yers to use remote work to increase offshoring overthe past year.15 Research suggests that artificial intelli-gence (AI) technologies and offshoring are complements.16 Growth in AI adoption could lead to increased offshoring as well. While it may seem simple to offshore a job, the relationship betwe

15、en offshoring and the domestic labor market is complicated. The labor market impact of digital offshoring will depend on the types of tasks and jobs that are offshored, how the gains from trade are distributed across society, and what kinds of new employment oppor-tunities digital offshoring creates

16、 for American workers. With 80 percent of U.S. workers employed in the service sector17 and the historical failure to compensate workers displaced by previous waves of globalization,18 digital off-shoring in a post-COVID world may directly or indirectly impact many American workers.What Can We Learn

17、 from Previous Waves of Offshoring?Offshoring refers to moving some aspects of a companys processes or services overseas. Often, this is done to take advantage of lower costs in foreign markets. Offshoring is sometimes conflated with outsourcing, but they are not the same. Outsourcing refers to cont

18、racting out a specific part of business operations to a third party, who may or may not be located in a foreign country. Digital outsourcing could be thought of as a company replacing in-person workers with remote workers in another U.S. state, while digital offshor-ing is a company replacing domest

19、ic workers with remote workers in another country.Economic theory highlights two main implications of offshoring. First, theory predicts that offshoring will have a positive impact on the overall economy. The posi-3tive impact is driven by productivity improvements. When employers offshore jobs, the

20、y can cut costs, lower prices, and grow. Their growth creates additional growth through-out the economy. Second, offshoring displaces some work-ers. This job loss, while often smaller in magnitude than the job gains produced by the first effect, can be devastat-ing for affected workers and some loca

21、l communities.19 While, in theory, the gains from offshoring could be re distributed to those who are displaced, this is difficult to do in practice.A 2003 McKinsey report put some numbers to the economic theory.20 The authors estimated that every dollar of U.S. services offshored to India in 2003 c

22、reated $1.47 globally, a 47-cent “return on investment.” Of that $1.47,33 cents went to India. Of the remaining $1.14 left for the United States, shareholders and consumers of the firms that offshored got 54 percent, the initially displaced U.S. workers got 41 percent through reemployment in other f

23、irms or other occupations, and the remaining 5 percent went toward additional exports. A lot has changed since 2003, but these numbers provide some insight into the way offshoring redistributes value across the economy.How Many Jobs Are “Offshorable”?There is a large literature on the labor market i

24、mplications of service-sector offshoring dating back to the early 2000s. Most of this research occurred before the pandemic. For instance, Blinder, 2009, estimated that 2229 percent of all U.S. service jobs could be offshored over the next several decades.21 Other studies have come to similar conclu

25、sions. Van Welsum and Vickery, 2005, estimated that 20 percent of total U.S. employment in services is offshorable,22 andJensen and Kletzer, 2010, found that 38 percent of U.S. workers are employed in offshorable service occupations.23 However, evidence of substantial job losses due to service offsh

26、oring is scarce. Instead, Crin, 2010, notes that, up until the mid-2000s, service offshoring had had, at most, a small negative effect on total employment. Estimates from 2004 indicate that job losses due to offshoring accounted for a small fraction (34 percent) of total job losses in the United Sta

27、tes.24Since the pandemic, a renewed interest in offshoring has led to additional research on offshorable service jobs. Some of this research has focused on improving estimates of potentially offshorable jobs. For instance, Frey et al., 2021, estimated that 26 percent of U.S. service jobs could be of

28、fshored over time. Others use new data sources and empirical methods to evaluate changes in service-sector offshoring. Ozimek, 2020, evaluated the claims made in Blinder, 2009, and other earlier studies, finding that most of the occupations that were predicted to be offshored have become remote jobs

29、 in the United States rather than moving overseas.25The emerging research on offshoring in the wake of the pandemic indicates that any significant impact on U.S. jobs has yet to materialize, but some note that the pandemic has likely accelerated its arrival.26 A 2020 report from NTT, a Japanese tele

30、communication firm, suggested that 45 percent of global corporations expected to expand their use of outsourcing over the next 18 months, though they were not surveyed about whether the outsourced jobs would be domestic or offshore.27 Survey evidence from Barrero, Bloom, and Davis, 2021, found that

31、8 per-cent (net) of employers have used remote work to increase offshoring during the pandemic.28 Equally important,4however, is how little we know about how many jobs have already moved offshore. Studies in this literature cite data limitations as a primary obstacle to projecting how future offshor

32、ing may evolve. 29What Are the Characteristics of Offshorable Service Jobs?While data on jobs that have actually been offshored are lacking, empirical research suggests that jobs that (1) are relatively more skill-intensive, (2) provide impersonal services with little face-to-face interaction, and (

33、3) make intensive use of internet and communication technology are the most tradeable and, hence, the most offshorable.30 Other studies highlight the importance of soft skills and communication when considering jobs that can be performed remotely and potentially offshored, high-lighting that not all

34、 tradeable jobs are offshorable. For instance, Baldwin and Dingel, 2021, find that telework-able (i.e., tradeable) jobs tend to require stronger English language skills and place greater importance on written expression, persuasion, and social perception than non-teleworkable jobs.31According to Fre

35、y et al., 2021, digitally offshorable service jobs tend to be relatively high-skill and higher-paying.32 Examples include such occupations as software developers, editors, accountants, and office clerks. These characteristics are notably different from those of jobs exposed to industrial robots and

36、automation, which tend to be lower-paying jobs with more routine tasks. Examples of jobs at high risk of automation include cashiers and assem-bly work.33What are high-skill and low-skill jobs? These terms are commonly used to describe the technical training and knowledge required to carry out job t

37、asks. A skilled job may or may not require a college degree, though often researchers use degrees as a way of delineating a jobs skill level. Higher-skilled jobs have larger barriers to entry because workers need to acquire skills before they can perform the tasks effectively. As a result, higher-sk

38、illed jobs are typically higher-paying jobs.Emerging research highlights a potentially troubling trend: Automation can result in increased offshoring.34 Baldwin, 2019, wrote that the dual process of automation and offshoring could put increased pressure on the middle class, giving rise to greater in

39、equality within countries including the United States.35Using data from an online job platform, Brinatti et al., 2021, evaluated which jobs are offshorable using informa-tion on worker and employer locations.Their findings are broadly aligned with previous research; the most offshorable jobs fall in

40、 the technology or information sector.36 For example, software develop-ment, computer programming, and data management occupations are highly offshorable. The study also found that nontech jobssuch as architect, interior designer, interpreter and translator, accountant, and order clerkare offshorabl

41、e as well. Additionally, the authors provided evi-dence that wages for remote workers are beginning to con-verge to a single global wage. However, the authors noted that wage gaps for online labor still exist across countries.5A future concern?Research is identifying new links between technology and

42、 offshoring. Several studies have found that when employers adopt AI, they are likely to also increase offshoring. For instance, Stapleton, 2020, found that the adoption of machine learning has led firms to increase offshoring of business and professional services. Similarly, Stapleton and Webb, 202

43、0, found that firms that had not already offshored jobs became more likely to do so after adopting industrial robots. Nordas and Tang, 2022, found that AI adoption has led to greater offshoring in service sectors as well.Offshoring Contributes to Economic InequitiesGiven that higher-skilled tasks ap

44、pear to be easier, in theory, to offshore, one might expect that service offshor-ing will reduce demand for higher-skilled domestic work-ers. This line of thinking is behind the numerous articles in the popular press that foretell the “loss of good jobs” as a result of offshoring. For example, Simon

45、 Kuper wrote in the Financial Times that “The biggest economic winners of the last 40 years were highly skilled natives living in super-star cities. They risk becoming the biggest losers of the next era. To quote the scary new mantra: if you can do your job from anywhere, someone anywhere can do you

46、r job.”37However, relatively few studies find evidence support-ing these fears. In fact, most empirical analyses find that service offshoring increases the demand for high-skilled workers in the domestic economy. In other words, offshor-ing higher-skilled jobs and tasks improves the employment oppor

47、tunities for domestic higher-skilled workers. For instance, Crin, 2010, found that service offshoring is skill-biased because it tends to increase employment in skilled occupations and reduce employment in lower-skill occu-pations.38 Geishecker and Grg, 2013, found that service-sector offshoring has

48、 contributed to a widening wage gap between skilled and less-skilled workers.39 A similar effect was found in Andersson, Karpaty, and Savsin, 2016.40 Oneexception is Ornaghi, Van Beveren, and Vanormelingen, 2021, who use transaction-level data from Belgian firms to find that service offshoring reduced labor demand for higher-skilled workers in Belgium.41What explains the positive association between ser-vice offshoring and domestic demand for high-ski