Outsourced, for some, is now past tense

NEW YORK, June 17 (UPI) -- A few U.S. employers said quality and cost were the deciding factors in bringing outsourced jobs back to the United States.

For U.S. workers, that's the good news. The bad news, for the 13.9 million unemployed workers in the United States is that the number of jobs returning home is small, CNNMoney reported Friday.

"I worry that there's a very big deal being made out of a few anecdotal instances," said Alan Tonelson, a research fellow at the U.S. Business and Industry Council.

Still, Harold Sirkin, senior partner at the Boston Consulting Group, said in China the cost of labor is climbing up to 20 percent per year.

"I think for many goods, people will say, 'I don't want to offshore to China because the economics aren't as good as making them in the United States,'" Sirkin told CNNMoney.

The smattering of jobs returning to U.S. shores includes 500 jobs NCR has already moved to Georgia from Brazil, China and Hungary and 150 technical support jobs in India that Carbonite is relocating in Lewiston, Maine, with designs of adding 100 jobs in 2012.

With turnover at 100 percent in India, Carbonite said quality would improve by bringing the jobs back home.

For General Electric, bringing 1,300 jobs back to a closed plant in Louisville, Ky., was about cost.

"When we look out five to six years, the United States is becoming a lot more attractive," said Jim Campbell, president and chief executive officer of GE Appliance.