Study: Outsourcing mostly domestic

Most companies that are outsourcing information technology work are not sending their jobs offshore, according to a new study. The report, released Wednesday from industry news organization Enterprise Systems, said more than 70 percent of companies that outsource choose a domestic provider. In addition, 33.4 percent of companies surveyed are currently outsourcing projects, 42.8 percent are evaluating outsourcing providers, and 23.9 percent lack solid plans to outsource.

The study, which surveyed professionals from 744 organizations from a broad range of industries, also found that application development was the top recently outsourced IT project among respondents (26 percent). Web site Development/Management came in a distant second (12 percent). Outsourcing refers to the farming out of tasks such as data center management to a third party. So-called offshore outsourcing, the sending of work abroad, has become a controversial issue in the United States.