Despite the brouhaha over 'millions' of jobs being shifted out of the United States due to offshoring, a US Labor Department survey shows that only 4,633 jobs were outsourced in the first three months of 2004, said The Wall Street Journal.

This figure represents about 2.5 per cent of the 182,456 non-seasonal layoffs over the January-March period.

The industrial Midwest and South bore the brunt of the jobs lost overseas, particularly in manufacturing, WSJ reported.

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The small number of jobs lost through layoffs will now bolster the argument that the overall loss of American jobs to foreign countries is not a threat to the US economy. With the US economy showing signs of strength with the addition of almost one million new jobs since January, the pro-outsourcing groups have a stronger case to present in favour of the booming offshoring trend.

Moving jobs within the United States accounted for 9,985 layoffs, or 5.5 per cent of non-seasonal layoffs. Seventy-six per cent of jobs moved were within the same company, although 36 per cent of jobs moved overseas were with a different company.

The department's mass layoff data covers companies with more than 50 workers filing for unemployment benefits for a month or more. The figures do not count outsourcing at smaller companies or outsourcing that did not involve mass layoffs.

Outsourcing of jobs to low-cost countries has become a hot political issue over the past year even though the US job market has shown signs of a rebound from its recent slump.

A recent Goldman Sachs survey indicated that US firms have moved 300,000 to 500,000 jobs offshore in the past three years.

Another study by the Information Technology Association of America concluded that even though some high-tech jobs have been lost to developing countries, the US economy gained a net 90,000 jobs from outsourcing.

The improving economy has turned down the volume on the election-year outsourcing debate. The Bush administration has endorsed the view that sending US service jobs abroad probably is a plus for the economy in the long run, because foreign workers can do the jobs more cheaply, reducing costs for US consumers and companies.

Dozens of US state legislatures, responding to the furor over white-collar jobs being sent overseas, have considered anti-outsourcing Bills. The business lobby has killed or weakened every proposal to prohibit government work from being sent abroad.

An overwhelming majority of workers who lost their jobs from January through March lost them for reasons other than job relocations either in the US and abroad, which accounted for just 7 per cent of the overall tally, the WSJ report said.