You asked how many Connecticut companies have outsourced jobs overseas and how many jobs they have outsourced.

SUMMARY

After checking numerous sources, we could not find any comprehensive, authoritative source that tracks the number of jobs outsourced overseas from Connecticut and how many companies in the state have done this. Overseas outsourcing usually means a company moves jobs from the U. S. to another country in order to cut costs, most notably labor costs.

One pro-outsourcing information technology (IT) association issued a report this year that estimates 104,000 computer programming and other high-tech jobs were moved from the U. S. to other countries in 2003. The report did not break down the estimate by state or company.

One media source, CNN’s Lou Dobbs Tonight business program, compiled a list of major companies and corporations that outsource, which includes at least 13 Connecticut-based companies. On its web page (http: //www. cnn. com/CNN/Programs/lou. dobbs. tonight/), the Dobbs program defines outsourcing not just as moving jobs from the U. S. to locations overseas, but also choosing to expand overseas instead of in the U. S. It does not provide a state-by-state breakdown of where jobs were lost.

We contacted 10 of the companies on the Dobbs list. The three that responded (Aetna, General Electric, and Rogers Corporation) each described their overseas operations as something other than outsourcing. Their responses follow.

AETNA

Company spokesman Fred LaBerge said the only employees Aetna has overseas are 60 claims servicing staff in Castle Ray, Ireland. Aetna did not move them there, he said, but acquired them several years ago when it purchased the health care insurance arm of New York Life.

He acknowledged that Aetna has contracted with claims servicing vendors in India, but said that arrangement did not displace any Aetna employees. The overseas claims processing helps the company efficiently handle claims in a timely way, including meeting government-mandated deadlines, he said. By having processing capabilities in distant time zones, the company is able to process claims virtually 24-hours a day, helping to keep it competitive.

LeBerge said the Indian and Irish operations process about 10% of the total claims. He noted whenever a customer calls Aetna for assistance, the person responding on the phone is always an Aetna employee in the U. S.

The company has about 2,500 IT service employees and 11,000 claims servicing employees in Connecticut and Pennsylvania, he said. According to the Hartford Business Journal’s list of Connecticut’ largest employers, Aetna has about 7,000 employees in the state.

GENERAL ELECTRIC

Bob Risch, GE’s New England Government Relations officer said, after checking with the five GE businesses headquartered in the state, that none of them have lost Connecticut jobs due to outsourcing. GE is an international conglomerate with about a dozen different businesses and hundreds of thousands of employees around the globe. Its businesses are as diverse as manufacturing power generators and providing financial services.

GE spokesman Peter Stack said since the composition of GE’s businesses is complex it is not always easy to determine why a job is no longer needed in a particular place. It may be because of one or more market forces, such as changes in technology, proximity to clients, development of new markets, or changes in the economy. Furthermore, he added that since only about 5% of the world’s population is in the U. S. , it would not make sense for a global operation to limit its facilities to that one country.

But the big picture, he said, shows GE’s U. S. employment to be strong, remaining steady at about 160,000 over the last 10 years. It’s Connecticut employment has increased as the company placed more emphasis on financial services, and at the same time its number of employees outside the U. S. has grown by about 100,000. The Hartford Business Journal’s list shows GE with 7,285 Connecticut employees.

ROGERS CORPORATION

Rogers Corporation is a Connecticut-based specialty manufacturer that employs about 1,200 in the U. S. and overseas. In January, the company announced it was closing its plant in Windham, where it makes certain polyurethane and rubber parts for other manufacturers’ goods, to relocate in Suzhou, China. The closure means about 110 jobs will be lost by the end of this year.

“We don’t consider this outsourcing. It’s not something that we wanted to do,” said Ed Joyce, manager of investor and public relations. “Ninety percent of our customers for rubber items are in Asia, mostly in China. The only way we can stay competitive is to be close to our customers,” Joyce said.

The Windham plant makes, among other things, rubber rollers for computer printers and rubber floats for level sensing devices. Major Rogers customers, such as Lexmark International, Inc. , have moved much of their manufacturing facilities to Asia, Joyce said.

The business’s revenues declined almost 50% over the past four years resulting in significant operating losses in 2003, Rogers stated in the closure announcement.

“The decision to close our Windham plant is not one that we took lightly, or made quickly,” Rogers President Robert Wachob said in the statement. “We are fully aware of the impact this decision will have on our fellow employees and their families as well as the local community, however business conditions make it impossible to continue operations in Windham. ”

After closing the Windham plant, Rogers will have about 350 employees in Connecticut. The company has a foam-rubber plant in Woodstock and its corporate headquarters and research and development in Killingly. It also has manufacturing plants in Arizona, Illinois, Belgium and China.

SOURCES ON OUTSOURCING

An Information Technology Association of American (ITAA) study released in March estimates that 104,000 computer-programming and other high-tech jobs left the U. S. to go overseas in 2003. It also predicted the number of jobs outsourced will increase each year, but it balanced that by saying more jobs will be created in the U. S. due to outsourcing than will be lost. The ITAA study, conducted by Global Insight (USA), Inc. , asserts jobs will be created because companies will save money and become more efficient through outsourcing. It argues that without outsourcing, these companies would not be as competitive in the global economy. The report’s executive summary can be found at: http: //www. itaa. org/itserv/docs/execsumm. pdf.

On the other side of the debate, the website www. Techsunite. org provides information from the point of view of IT workers who have lost their jobs due to outsourcing. The site is sponsored by the Communications Workers of America, AFL-CIO, and includes an “Offshore Tracker” that counts how many jobs have left the U. S. But it discloses its figures are culled from media reports and may not be entirely accurate. The tracker shows 209,000 jobs outsourced since March 2000. It does not provide state-by-state figures.

JM: nf