[CasearianDaoist]

But isn't this changing the definition of outsourcing, and how can it br accurately traced?

Buying a sofware consulting from IBM was not considered outsourcing no more that buying a car from Ford, and if the vendor, say IBM, is outsourcing this work then what does that dso to these numbers.

[jimbokun]

"Buying a sofware consulting from IBM was not considered outsourcing"

Uh, that's exactly the definition of outsourcing. Contracting a service from an outside vendor instead of hiring an employee to do the same job.

[jpthomas]

The definition of outsourcing as used in the WSJ article was developed by the Bureau of Economic Analysis, a branch of the U.S. Department of Commerce. If the Democrats are going to hammer at Bush over "jobs/lost created" data produced by the Department of Labor, it seems equally fair to use the definition of outsourcing developed by the federal agency tasked to track outsourcing as an economic factor.