[Congressional Bills 109th Congress]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office]
[H.R. 6279 Introduced in House (IH)]








109th CONGRESS
  2d Session
                                H. R. 6279

 To improve the collection of labor data by Federal agencies to better 
  measure and evaluate the outsourcing and off-shoring of public and 
            private sector business operations and services.


_______________________________________________________________________


                    IN THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES

                           September 29, 2006

   Ms. DeLauro (for herself and Ms. Linda T. Sanchez of California) 
 introduced the following bill; which was referred to the Committee on 
                      Education and the Workforce

_______________________________________________________________________

                                 A BILL


 
 To improve the collection of labor data by Federal agencies to better 
  measure and evaluate the outsourcing and off-shoring of public and 
            private sector business operations and services.

    Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of the 
United States of America in Congress assembled,

SECTION 1. SHORT TITLE; PURPOSE.

    (a) Short Title.--This Act may be cited as the ``Understanding Off-
shoring and Outsourcing Act of 2006''.
    (b) Purpose.--The purpose of this Act is to improve Federal 
government data collection for evaluating and measuring the outsourcing 
and off-shoring of public and private sector business operations and 
services.

SEC. 2. BUREAU OF ECONOMIC ANALYSIS DATA.

    Not later than 90 days after the date of enactment of this Act, the 
Bureau of Economic Analysis of the Department of Commerce shall revise 
its requirements for mandatory industry reporting of international 
services transactions. Such revisions shall lower by 50 percent the 
per-company monetary thresholds above which companies are required to 
report import and export services transactions.

SEC. 3. BUREAU OF LABOR STATISTICS DATA.

    Not later than 90 days after the date of enactment of this Act , 
the Bureau of Labor Statistics of the Department of Labor shall make 
the following revisions to the procedures and methodologies related to 
its collection and disaggregation of data relating to mass layoffs, 
relocations, and employment:
            (1) Reporting of smaller mass layoffs.--The Bureau shall 
        include in the collection of extended mass layoff statistics 
        any private sector nonfarm employers who indicate that 25 or 
        more workers were separated from their jobs for a period of at 
        least 31 days.
            (2) Domestic and overseas relocations.--The Bureau shall 
        disaggregate data relating to mass layoffs due to relocations 
        to provide separate statistics for domestic and overseas 
        relocations and shall publish subsets of such data 
        disaggregated by industry and region.
            (3) Occupational employment statistics.--The Bureau shall 
        make the changes it determines appropriate to its methodologies 
        for collecting and analyzing occupational employment data in 
        order to create time-series data on all 820 occupations in the 
        Standard Occupational Classification (SOC) by industry and 
        geographic area.

SEC. 4. JOINT STUDY ON COORDINATING DATA.

    (a) Study.--The Bureau of Labor Statistics of the Department of 
Labor and the Bureau of Economic Analysis of the Department of Commerce 
shall jointly conduct a study to determine whether linking or 
coordinating their independent data relating to mass layoffs and import 
and export services transactions would improve the quality of 
information available about outsourcing and off-shoring of private 
sector business operations and services.
    (b) Report.--Not later than 18 months after the date of enactment 
of this Act, Bureaus referred to in subsection (a) shall jointly 
transmit to Congress a report of the findings of the study.
    (c) Definitions.--For purposes of the study conducted pursuant to 
this section--
            (1) the term ``off-shoring'' refers to United States 
        businesses shifting service and manufacturing activities to 
        unaffiliated firms or their own affiliates in locations outside 
        the United States; and
            (2) the term ``outsourcing'' refers to the use, by a United 
        States business, of contracts with unaffiliated firms located 
        either domestically or in foreign countries for the provision 
        of services and manufacturing activities that were once 
        performed directly by that United States business.

SEC. 5. AUTHORIZATION OF APPROPRIATIONS.

    There is authorized to be appropriated $10,000,000 to carry out 
this Act.
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