Offshoring, industry heterogeneity and employment11This paper is the research outcome of two projects: the ISIGrowth project on Innovation-fuelled, Sustainable, Inclusive Growth funded by the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme under grant agreement No. 649186–ISIGrowth; the project titled “Citizenship, social rights and working practices, migrations, fundamental rights, democracy and caring, inclusive society” funded by the University of Camerino

This paper assesses the employment impact of offshoring in five European countries (Germany, Spain, France, Italy and the United Kingdom), distinguishing between different types of inputs/tasks offshored, different types of offshoring industries and types of professional groups. The empirical evidence shows that offshoring activities are mainly driven by a cost reduction (labour saving) rationale. This is particularly the case for the manufacturing industry where offshoring is found to exert a negative impact among the less qualified or more routinized types of jobs, while the main difference between high- and low-technology industries has to do with the type of labour tasks that are offshored and the types of domestic jobs that are affected. In high-technology industries the negative effects of offshoring on employment are concentrated among managers and crafts. A specular pattern is found in the case of the low-technology industries where job losses are found among manual workers.