"My Job Came From India!"

Given the uproar over "outsourcing,"* one wouldn't guess that the process could also work in the other direction.

Some 250 new jobs are to be created in Northern Ireland after an Indian IT company agreed to expand its operation in Belfast.

In a reversal of the recent "jobs-to-India" trend, HCL BPO is beefing up its call centre in Belfast to take-on new business in Europe and the UK as it provides contact services for companies in the retail, banking and commercial sectors.

Should this really come as a surprise? Isn't this precisely what happened with other once-poor but fast-growing countries to which jobs were also being "outsourced?" I wonder if all those who are in favor of outsourcing would be similarly eager to see Korean and Japanese firms with Western employees take "their" jobs back home.

*Which, despite the fancy terminology, isn't really anything new. International trade in services has been going on for at least two millenia by now - Roman equites and publicani (the dreaded "publicans" of the Bible) were lending money and collecting taxes on behalf of the state throughout the Mediterranean as early as 100 BC.