Can Obama keep IT jobs in the United States?

U.S. corporations will move at least 140,000 jobs offshore in 2009 and 2010, and more than 50 percent of those jobs will be in IT, according to a December 2008 report by the Hackett Group, a global strategic advisory firm. By 2010, about 25 percent of all IT jobs at the world's largest companies will have been moved offshore, according to Hackett.

That is not a happy prospect for American workers, who are looking to President Barack Obama to keep more jobs in the United States. It won't be easy to reverse the tide, but there is hope that some tax breaks and spending proposed in the economic stimulus package now pending before Congress will provide some help.

The details of the legislation remain in flux, but it could include $20 billion for health information technology and the building of an infrastructure to promote the electronic exchange of health records. That investment will create or retain 86,820 jobs for one year in high-paying industries such as computer hardware manufacturing, software and IT services, according to the Information Technology & Innovation Foundation.

The stimulus act also may include another $6 billion to improve broadband Internet access in the United States that would create or retain 29,892 direct telecom jobs for a year and 8,304 capital equipment jobs, ITIF said. Finally, $11 billion may go to modernizing the American power grid, which will create or retain 64,509 direct and indirect IT jobs for a year, according to the foundation.

For more on the stimulus package:
- see this BusinessWeek.com article [1]