Thursday, March 14, 2013

Information-technology jobs growing in rural areas

Large corporations looking to outsource their information technology or software development services increasingly pass over India and the Philippines to find help in places like Nebraska, South Dakota and Iowa, Barbara Soderlin of the Omaha World-Herald notes in reporting the latest example of the concept, known as "rural sourcing."

Rural Sourcing Inc.,which provides information technology services, has grown an average of 150 percent annually over the last four years by developing software and supporting clients' technology at centers in Jonesboro, Ark., and Augusta, Ga., reports Dinah Wisenberg Brin of CNBC. Monty Hamilton, chief executive since 2009, sees a surge of interest in the U.S. as a destination point for IT outsourcing, she writes. RSI is one of several American companies offering outsourced software development services in small U.S. cities or rural areas.

Soderlin writes that on Wednesday Minneapolis-based rural sourcing firm Eagle Creek Software Services announced it would open a $10 million information-technology center in Vermillion, S.D. and will employ 200 IT consultants. Eagle Creek has pledged to add 1,000 jobs in South Dakota in the next three to five years, reports Dave Dreeszen of the Sioux City Journal. State and local officials said the initiative will provide students with the skills to compete for high-paying jobs in the world's growing technology sector.

An Atlanta-based firm, Xpanxion Technologies, now employs six in Loup City, Neb., 85 in Kearney, Neb. and 25 in Ames, Iowa, and has plans to open a Kansas office, Soderlin reports. The Rural Futures Institute, launched last fall by University of Nebraska President J.B. Milliken, earlier this year awarded a $125,000 grant to a group to build on the successes and strategies of rural sourcing to recruit University of Nebraska alumni back to the state in high-tech and other professional fields.

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