US President Barack Obama almost reversed his stance on outsourcing and said he won't insist on bringing back poorly-paid, low-skill jobs to America.  Obama said he would rather work on creating high-skill, well-paying jobs in the US.

 The president's change of tack is a clear acknowledgment that offshoring is here to stay and brings a glimmer of hope to the over 2 million employees in technology services and BPO firms in India, and other offshore hotspots like China and the Phillippines.

Nasscom president Som Mittal said, "It will be good for the US and for us".  Both low-end and high-end offshoring will grow, he added.

Rober E Kennedy, a professor at Ross School of Business, University of Michigan: "It is the right sentiment.  At a broader level, the issue is not high end or low end, but accepting the reality of today's world, that is, you cannot root any job to a geography."

Responding to a question about outsourced jobs returning to the US, Obama said, "Not all of these jobs are going to come back.  What we've got to do is create new jobs that can't be outsourced.

IT honchos said the Obama administration wants to legitimise offshoring.  "Obama is actually saying that the US needs to move up the value chain while legitimising offshoring.  About 8-10% of those done in India is high end and this trend will continue even as the US scales up further, " said the India head of a US service multinational who requested not to be named.

The high-end jobs in India include the work done at R & D  units of multinationals, analytics, engineering service, new technology development and so on.