london the fear of large numbers of good quality british jobs being outsourced to rapidly developing countries such as india may be overstated says a new report published by the work foundationdespite the rhetoric of an abundance of indian knowledge workers hungry for british jobs there is little direct evidence so far of significant job migration the report finds setting at rest fears that india is taking away a large number of british jobsthe report also says that british trade in information and communications services with developed countries such as germany dwarfs that with india the work foundation is an independent research organisation and consultancythe report finds that according to independent analysis just 55 percent of all jobs lost across europe were due to offshoring activities in the first quarter of 2007 in 2005 the figure was 34 percent meanwhile jobs in sectors theoretically vulnerable to outsourcing such as call centres have gone up rather than down in britainthe report says travel 626 million and transportation 289 million are the largest services imported from india while computer and information services 122 million are only the third largest importbritain imports almost four times more computer and information services and over 16 times more business services from germany than from india according to the report india ranks 15th in the list of countries from which britain imports servicesthe report says that labour costs are only one factor in decisions regarding business location cultural contexts in particular the advantage for producers in being located near to key target markets remains critically important for successful organisations katerina rdiger author of the paper globalisation a threat for the uks knowledge jobs said if you go to an indian business district you could be forgiven for thinking the whole world is chucking work and jobs at india because of its magical highskill lowwage mix indias high tech sector is indeed booming but is not coming for our lunch as some of the more apocalyptic commentators have suggestedthe evidence suggests that while trade in services between britain and india is certainly rising it is not happening nearly as fast as is sometimes imagined an increase from 04 per cent to 12 per cent between 1995 and 2004 is less of an explosion and more of a slow evolution technology has always led to people being displaced from some lines of work into others but what is not happening is a straightforward job migration from north to south west to eastover recent years the debate about offshore outsourcing has taken on an alarmist tone amid anxiety that lawyers medical professionals software designers actuaries and chartered surveyors were all potential victims of outsourcing the report argues that selfserving claims from consultancies and aggressive public relations work by outsourcing companies themselves have tended to drown out the careful analysis of data regarding offshoringrather than a clearly defined trend of western multinationals offshoring to save money on labour costs the report argues that increasingly companies are mixing business models