outsourcing

[Mark A. Mandel]

On public radio tonight, "Marketplace" I think, there was a long article
on the movement of American jobs to other countries; it may have been
the one described on their website (http://www.marketplace.org/) as
"India's youth are breaking new ground in previously unknown and
unpopular professions". The speakers all used the word "outsourcing"
specifically to mean (of a US company) having work done outside the
United States. This specification was new to me.


OED OnLine defines "outsource":

    trans. To obtain (goods, etc., esp.  component parts) by contract
from a source outside an organization or area; to contract (work) out.
Also absol.

and gives citations from 1979 to 1986.


MW Online does give the "foreign" concentration for the gerund, which
has its own entry. (The verb is apparently available on-line only with a
subscription.)

Function: noun
: the practice of subcontracting manufacturing work to outside and
especially foreign or nonunion companies


To quote the Gershwins, "How long has this been going on?"

-- Mark A. Mandel
   Linguistic Data Consortium, University of Pennsylvania