Offshoring a 'growing threat'

Offshoring jobs is a growing threat and should be stopped, according to a Deloitte/YouGov survey of attitudes to global economic competition.

Some 82% of respondents said enough jobs have gone overseas, and almost one in three (32%) believe UK companies should be forced to bring jobs back to the UK. This is a marked increase on a similar survey in January this year. Then, 29% said they could see the advantages of offshoring, or even thought it was a good thing, compared with just 13% now, and only 22% of respondents thought UK companies should be forced to bring jobs back to the UK.

David Owen, consulting partner at Deloitte, said there were clearly personal concerns over job security behind the negative attitudes to offshoring: “Growing awareness of the increased mobility of both resource and labour is causing anxiety, with 17% of respondents believing that offshoring presents a threat to their own jobs. A further 25% think the increasing number of workers migrating to the UK is their biggest threat.”

When asked which countries posed the biggest challenges to the UK economy over the next five years, the emerging economies of China (76%) and India (48%) came out top, followed by the US (34%) and Japan (32%).

Just over two-thirds (65%) of survey respondents said that investment in education and training was required for the UK to maintain global competitiveness; followed by more encouragement for small business start-ups and entrepreneurialism

When asked which sectors the UK was most likely to be a world leader in, financial services came out top (32%), followed by professional services (25%), media and creativity (26%) and telecommunications and technology combined at 24%.