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.
END
