The difference is, offshoring in the 2000s was largely private sector driven with minimal subsidizes and investment promotion programs lead by countries and their local governments.
On the other hand, in the 2020s, India, Israel, most Eastern European states, Ireland, Costa Rica, and a couple others have launched industrial promotion subsidizes for software offshoring - often providing US$10k-30k per head in federal and local subsidizes along with subsidized office space and real estate and tax windows.
That along with the internal frictions of async work largely being ironed out due to the COVID remote work period along with an exodus of mid-level managers on work visas during the early pandemic layoffs which had an outsized impact on Indian, Chinese, and Eastern European techies in the US made offshoring much more cost competitive and effective than it was 25 years ago.
Putting your head in the sand saying it's no big deal is honestly very stupid if you are hoping to maintain your career for the next 5-10 years in any white collar job.
And it's only going to get even more competitive now that the Indian government is enacting labor reform laws to align Indian labor laws with China's [0], making it even more cost effective for businesses to offshore by reducing regulatory overhead [1].
> On the other hand, in the 2020s, India, Israel, most Eastern European states, Ireland, Costa Rica, and a couple others have launched industrial promotion subsidizes for software offshoring - often providing US$10k-30k per head in federal and local subsidizes along with subsidized office space and real estate and tax windows.
This isn't true either in India or most of eastern europe.
Maybe you are confusing PLI for manufacturing? Altough even that's not on per head basis.
> This isn't true either in India or most of eastern europe.
It is.
Wage arbitrage doesn't move the needle for offshoring once operating costs come to play, and outsourcing companies like EPAM, WITCH, and others juiced their margins by padding heavily, which further reduced the cost competitiveness of outsourcing without subsidies.
Czechia [0], individual Volvodships along with the federal government in Poland [1], state+center in India [2][3], Ireland [4], Romania [5], and others [6] dated list from KPMG which doesn't include state and local incentives) are all providing subsidies for GCCs now which include a payroll/per-head incentive depending on the amount spent in FDI, along with added additional subsidies per industry (eg. Life sciences GCCs get additional sets of subsidies versus a generic software GCC versus a VFX GCC).
The US has some of the weakest R&D tax incentives globally [6], with no payroll or financing incentives - only Vietnam, Philippines, Peru, and PNG are stingier, which has been a major role for why GCC expansion has been rapidly growing for the past few years.
That said, these incentives are primarily targeted at large employers becuase if you cannot provide at the minimum dozens of jobs, then the cost cannot be recouped over the long term by most subsidies. So mom-and-pop 3 person consultancies are ignored because in most cases they are parasites and large firms interested in opening large dedicated headcount offices are incentivized.
On the other hand, in the 2020s, India, Israel, most Eastern European states, Ireland, Costa Rica, and a couple others have launched industrial promotion subsidizes for software offshoring - often providing US$10k-30k per head in federal and local subsidizes along with subsidized office space and real estate and tax windows.
That along with the internal frictions of async work largely being ironed out due to the COVID remote work period along with an exodus of mid-level managers on work visas during the early pandemic layoffs which had an outsized impact on Indian, Chinese, and Eastern European techies in the US made offshoring much more cost competitive and effective than it was 25 years ago.
Putting your head in the sand saying it's no big deal is honestly very stupid if you are hoping to maintain your career for the next 5-10 years in any white collar job.
And it's only going to get even more competitive now that the Indian government is enacting labor reform laws to align Indian labor laws with China's [0], making it even more cost effective for businesses to offshore by reducing regulatory overhead [1].
[0] - https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2025-11-21/india-imp...
[1] - https://www.fortuneindia.com/business-news/tech-sector-expec...