EDS Outsourcing to Double in Two Years

Electronic Data Systems (EDS), the computer and data services giant, will double the number of workers it employs world-wide within two years, reports the Wall Street Journal.

The simple reason is that countries in Asia have a cheap and growing workforce with the technical skills EDS needs, says CEO Michael Jordan.

The company now has about 15,000 workers at “cost-advantaged locations” outside the U.S., Jordan says. “We found there is no way to reverse the trend,” he says, pointing to the decline in the number of people with engineering and information-technology degrees coming out of U.S. colleges.

EDS currently has about 117,000 employees world-wide but, according to Jordan, as the number of EDS employees in Asia and other low-cost countries goes up, the number of employees in the U.S. and Europe will go down.

–David Rosenbaum