The Services Shift by Robert E Kennedy (with Ajay Sharma) reached me a little while ago and now I've read it I can recommend it as an excellent and concise overview of the offshoring of services. It combines very well the economics of global supply chains with a business perspective, which is quite a hard trick to pull off –  I think it will be useful to both audiences.

Quite a lot of the book is retrospective but there is also a foward-looking section on business strategies and policy, with the firm conclusion that outsourcing in services will continue to grow, as it has in manufacturing. On balance I think this is right. Although world trade has plunged during the winter, pointing to a 30s-style retreat from globalization, I find it hard to see how 25 years worth of the building of supply chains across borders could easily be unpicked and restitched on a national basis. It doesn't seem plausible that the US or UK will rebuild from the ground up the kind of basic manufacturing that has been outsourced.

When it comes to services, however, it does seem likely there will be a long pause in the outsourcing/offshoring process, especially as much of it had occurred in financial services. Call centres are exactly the kinds of jobs that will surely stay onshore until after the recession? Beyond that, the economic and business logic set out in the book will kick back in. But I'd be interested to get Bob's update on how he sees the situation if he's reading this.