India-bound jobs may detour to areas such as North Dakota

After two rounds of layoffs, Ellen Wagner still had a job — training the programmers brought in from India to replace her co-workers. But frustrated and tired of resisting the changes, Wagner decided to take a bold step.

She outsourced herself.

She quit her job in Seattle and took another paying half as much. She sold her house and traded it for a split-level overlooking a pasture here, for a third of what it would cost in the frenzy she left behind.

She piled into an SUV with her golden retriever, Ginger, and two cats, and beelined away from the offshoring trend that has siphoned thousands of jobs from the U.S. economy.

The journey took Wagner to this town of 1,435, nearly 50 miles from the closest traffic light — and a job in an office fashioned out of an old John Deere tractor dealership. The slate-blue cubicles around hers, decorated with pictures of faraway skylines, house programmers from Chicago, Pittsburgh and Jacksonville, Fla.

"I’ve been here six weeks," says Larry Cross, who migrated from Halifax, Nova Scotia, after his last job was shifted to India. "And from the door of the office, I’ve already seen three antelope and five deer."

Companies are betting that by doing business in cheaper locations and paying workers much less than their big-city counterparts, they can secure jobs that might otherwise go offshore.

By ADAM GELLER

The Associated Press

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