150,000 Software Jobs Lost in 2002

Here is some more disturbing news about software jobs and IT in general in the U.S. I guess the good news is that job losses in consulting companies and the like slowed in 2002 as opposed to 2001. While not all of the job loss (150,000 software jobs) can be attributed to offshore outsourcing with the economic slowdown, that has to be a major factor. It'll be interesting to see what happens if the economy continues to recover. The disturbing point in the article is the note that:

"the impact of high-tech manufacturing and services outsourcing to foreign countries remains extremely hard to gauge, as most companies refuse to detail how many positions they have shipped overseas. Until businesses are more forthcoming with those numbers or the U.S. federal government requires some form of reporting on employee outsourcing data it would be nearly impossible to estimate just how many jobs have been transferred offshore"