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nomies such as India and China has forced organizations to offshore work. Figure 1 highlight this trend in the US, where despite a growing demand for engineering graduates, their supply has been steadily declining since 1995, thus creating a widening gap between demand and supply.

Diminishing Supply of U.S. Engineering Graduate Students Despite Rising Demand - Offshore Drivers.JPG

Figure : Supply of US Engineers and their demand

Source: Adapted from National Science Foundation, Duke University - Couto, V., Mani, M., Lewin, A. and Peeters, C. (2006) The globalization of white-collar work. Booz Allen Hamilton Inc., Chicago

According to Robinson & Kalakota (2004), declining birth rate and ageing population in US and European countries also drive offshore outsourcing. According to them, the average age is increasing in these countries as baby boomers are entering their 50s and 60s. In comparison, countries such as India and China have a much younger population. It is estimated that 53% of India’s population is below the age of 25 and by 2020, 47% of Indians will be between the age group of 15 and 59, compared to the present figure of 35% (Engardio et al, 2003). The other important socio-demographic driving force is work force motivation and its influence on offshore outsourcing growth, which can be explained with the help of call center jobs. In high wage countries such as the US, these jobs are considered undesirable, non glamorous and as having little status. As a result, the quality of work is lower and there is a higher turnover. In comparison, these jobs have more stature in countries such as India, Barbados and Philippines, one of reasons being the prospect of working for globally renowned companies. In India, apart from a large number of job applicants per post, call centers are also able to attract college graduates and in Barbados, this activity is considered as professional and commands a higher status than in the US (Metters, 2008; Dossani & Kenney, 2003).

Technological driving forces:

In the context of offshoring, technological driving forces mainly refer to the growth and development in the areas of computers, telecommunication and transportation technologies. In addition to these, the development in the field of internet technologies and mobile telecommunications are also significant.

Some of the key developments in the field of information and communication technology include the increase of capacity and performance of storage medias and microprocessors, miniaturization of technology products by component integration and the growing integration between IT and telecommunications (Jahns et al, 2006).

During the last decade, with advances in multiplexing and optical switching technologies, there has been a dramatic increase in telecommunication bandwidth (Metters & Verma, 2008) along with a decline in transmission costs. The telecommunication channels, which were highly expensive during the mid-90s, became affordable for companies. For instance, in 1997 the cost of a 2Mbps leased line between the US and India was approximately US$ 1 million per year, whereas in 2002, it dropped to US$ 100,000 (Brudenall, 2005). This reduction in telecommunication costs made it cost effective for many US organizations to embark on communication intensive jobs in other countries. This trend was further fuelled by the