Figuratively Speaking: Employers say offshore jobs help American employees

Among employers who offshore jobs, percentage who say less than 5 percent of their jobs will be sent overseas: 44

Percentage who say more than 10 percent of their jobs will be sent offshore: 39

Percentage of employees whose jobs were displaced by offshoring who say that they were let go by their employer: 71

Well-connected countries

Rank of the U.S. among top telecommunications countries, according to a survey conducted by the London Business School measuring telecommunications quality and how it is used by consumers, business and government in 16 countries: 1

Ranks of Sweden and Japan: 2, 3

Rank of the U.S. among 30 countries in percentage of homes that have broadband access, according to a survey conducted by the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development: 15

Worldwide wellness

In a survey of more than 130 countries, ranks of Denmark, New Zealand and Canada as the countries that report the highest level of well-being, according to a Gallup Poll: 1 (tie), 3

Rank of the U.S.: 6

Number of countries in mainland Asia or Africa that make the top 10: 0

Dealing with diversity

Percentage of organizations that have already expanded the scope of their diversity and inclusion training programs because of the impact of globalization, according to a survey of senior human resources and training executives in the U.S. by Novations Group: 41

Percentage that had expanded their diversity and inclusion programming in 2005: 15

Comparing health care systems

Rank of the U.S. health care system as the most unpopular, according to surveys by Harris Interactive that asked an identical question to a cross-section of adults in 10 developed countries about their respective health care systems: 1

Ranks of The Netherlands, France, Canada, New Zealand and Australia on the list of the most popular systems: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5

Percentage of Americans who believe that the American system “has so much wrong with it that we need to completely rebuild it”: 33

Eyeing emigration

Number of times higher that the desire to emigrate is in countries at the bottom quartile in gross domestic product worldwide than in countries in the top quartile in GDP, according to the Migration and Remittances Factbook 2008: 2

Percentage emigration rate among college graduates in Belize: 51

Estimated emigration rate of college graduates in Guyana, Jamaica and Haiti: 80

Workplace attitudes

Rank of the U.S. among the four countries surveyed in terms of having the most respondents who selected “live to work,” according to a survey by Monster.com: 1

Percentage of U.S. workers who said they “live to work” rather than “work to live”: 22

Percentage of French workers who said they “live to work”: 16

Percentage of German and U.K. workers who said the same: 15 (tie)

Women in management

Percentage of Philippine companies that have women in senior management positions, according to the findings from the Experian/Grant Thornton International Business Report 2007: 97

Percentage of mainland China companies that have women in senior management positions: 91

Percentage of U.S. companies that have women in those positions: 69

Global music business

Estimated revenue generated by digital music sales, with tracks available through 500 online services located in 40 countries, according to IBISWorld Inc.: $2 billion

Estimated percentage of the total global music market this represents: 10

In 2006, estimated number of songs, equating to 38,000 years of music, that were swapped on peer-to-peer Web sites: 5 billion

Number that were purchased online: 509 million

International travel trends

When Americans were asked if they could choose a vacation in any country in the world outside the United States without having to worry about the cost, the rank of Italy as the most popular choice, according to Harris Interactive: 1

Ranks of Australia, Great Britain, France and Ireland on the list: 2, 3, 4, 5

Percentage who say they would not go anywhere outside the United States: 6

John MacIntyre is an author and former city magazine editor. His “Figuratively Speaking” column, launched in 1989, is published in more than 40 newspapers and magazines.[[In-content Ad]]