Federal IT contractors find domestic sourcing an alternative to offshoring

Federal information technology contractors should move jobs to rural areas of the United States where labor costs are low rather than outsource jobs overseas, some federal vendors said. George Schindler, president of CGI Federal, said IT companies that invest in rural areas, a practice known as domestic or rural sourcing, have access to new pools of talent and can deliver services at a significantly lower cost. Schindler was part of a panel discussing technology procurement issues that was sponsored by the lobbying group TechAmerica. Rural sourcing is an attractive alternative to outsourcing jobs to India or China because U.S. companies can avoid the problem of different languages and time zone issues while taking advantage of the lower cost of living as compared to large metropolitan areas, he said.