Offshoring: A thing of the past?

Steve Crosby, a senior managing director of the securities and investment practice at PricewaterhouseCoopers, says Corporate America’s massive wave of off-shoring could come to a grinding halt. Rather so-called “near-shoring” will regain vogue status in these tough economic times. Call it a more benign version of Buy American.

“People are making some hard-nosed decisions about what it costs to go to India when wages are up 30% in the last 18 months,” says Crosby. Crosby believes that companies are now waking up to the unforeseen burdens of off-shoring: namely hidden travel costs and new onerous taxes that some local tax authorities are levying on U.S. companies operating within their borders.