Meaning & use
offshoring
Last updated
Meanings
noununcountablebusiness
The practice of moving part of a company's work, such as manufacturing or customer service, to another country to cut costs.
Grammar: Usually uncountable: offshoring has increased.
Patterns
- offshoring of something
- offshoring to somewhere
The union protested against the offshoring of factory jobs.
Offshoring to lower-wage countries saved the firm millions.
Critics say offshoring harms local workers.
verbtransitivebusiness
The -ing form of offshore: moving a business activity or investment to another country.
Grammar: Takes an object: the company is offshoring its call center.
Patterns
- offshoring something to somewhere
The bank is offshoring its accounting work to India.
They are offshoring production because wages are lower abroad.
Offshoring software development has become common.
Word forms
| base verb | offshore |
|---|---|
| past tense | offshored |
| -ing form | offshoring |
Common combinations
- offshoring of jobs
- The offshoring of jobs worried residents.
- reduce offshoring
- The law aims to reduce offshoring.
- offshoring and outsourcing
- Offshoring and outsourcing are often mentioned together.
- offshoring to Asia
- Offshoring to Asia grew rapidly in the 1990s.
- cost-saving offshoring
- The firm defended its cost-saving offshoring.
Synonyms and how they differ
- outsourcing
- Means hiring an outside company to do work, in any country; offshoring is about location abroad.
- relocation
- Is a broader word for moving to any new place, even within a country.
- overseas production
- Is a plainer description focused on manufacturing abroad.
Opposites
Word family
Commonly confused: offshoring or outsourcing?
offshoring vs outsourcing
Outsourcing means paying another company to do work, which could be in the same country; offshoring means moving the work abroad.
Practice
A clothing company closes its local factory and opens one in another country to cut wage costs. This is called ____.
Choose one answer.
Moving production abroad is offshoring. Downsizing means reducing staff and does not involve moving to another country.
Make it your own
Write a sentence using “offshoring”, then check it and compare it with the examples above.