Outsourcing Centers Could Result in Urban Renewal

US companies have grown accustomed to offshoring jobs to foreign countries to save money. However, as this Houston Chronicle piece suggests, there is increasing popularity in outsourcing jobs that remain in the US. The article focuses on a firm that is setting up outsourced workers in Wheeling, West Virginia. Some of the jobs now being handled in that city were once handled overseas. The attraction is the US companies can keep some of the jobs that might involve more "sensitive" tasks or information, such as processing legal deposition transcripts, right here at home. Other examples cited include the increasing popularity of central call centers being set up in rural areas of the midwest.

The new trend is resulting in the renewal of some smaller and more rural areas like Wheeling, which has struggled with a declining population over the past several years as manufacturing plants closed, resulting in the loss of large numbers of jobs for the local economy.

Areas like Wheeling offer plenty of hardworking people interested in better-than-average pay and good benefits. In return, outsourcing operations in areas like this allow businesses to take advantage of lower real estate and labor costs than big cities such as Chicago.

Small business owners are always happy to be able to get quality work done for less labor cost, so in addition to the growth of work-from-home call center jobs, rural outsourcing centers could provide a good source of overflow help for entrepreneurs.