I think this is less a jobless recovery and more an outsourced recovery. It's not that the jobs aren't there; it's that they're going elsewhere.
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Originally Posted by OP article
Manufacturing jobs have of course been moving overseas for decades, and still are; but recently, the outsourcing of much white-collar work has become possible. Companies that have cut domestic payrolls to the bone in this recession may choose to rebuild them in Shanghai, Guangzhou, or Bangalore, accelerating off-shoring decisions that otherwise might have occurred over many years.
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The trend of outsourcing white-collar work has been increasing even before 2008. Now, with companies being more cautious, and even more looking at ways to keep costs down or even lower them, the opportunities for outsourcing certain operations and tasks is far more appealing. India and China have made several inroads with this kind of labour, expanding on their manufacturing base. What you're seeing is more than just call-centre operations. You're now finding services including editing/proofreading, administrative tasks, converting older technologies to new, etc.
The alternative would be to hire domestic temp/contract workers, which I think is another trend to look at. When you have a series of 3- or 6-month contracts making up a reasonable bulk of the "job recovery," how does this show up in the numbers? Does it dilute them?