109 HR 6279 IH: Understanding Off-shoring and U.S. House of Representatives 2006-09-29 text/xml EN Pursuant to Title 17 Section 105 of the United States Code, this file is not subject to copyright protection and is in the public domain.

I 109th CONGRESS 2d Session H. R. 6279 IN THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES September 29, 2006 Ms. DeLauro (for herself and Ms. Linda T. Sánchez 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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

5.

Authorization of Appropriations

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