(2003-02-01) Exporting White Collar

White Collar jobs are moving overseas. After that, simple service work, like processing credit-card receipts, and mind-numbing digital toil, like writing software code, began fleeing high-cost countries. Now, all kinds of knowledge work can be done almost anywhere... Microsoft Corp. (MSFT) Senior Vice-President Brian Valentine--the No. 2 exec in the company's Windows unit--urged managers to "pick something to move offshore today."... Even Wall Street jobs paying $80,000 and up are getting easier to transfer... Many jobs can't go anywhere because they require face-to-face contact with customers. Americans will continue to deliver medical care, negotiate deals, audit local companies, and wage legal battles. (and deliver pizza)... Now, by sending routine service and engineering tasks to nations with a surplus of educated workers, the U.S. labor force and capital can be redeployed to higher-value industries and cutting-edge R&D.