To be "Bangalored". Verb. Passive. To lose one's job to the outsourcing entrepreneurs of India, reports Haydn Shaughnessy

Do you feel you work too hard and too long? Be warned, as global outsourcing kicks in, there are millions of well-qualified, English speaking people queuing up to take your job, and to work longer hours for a fraction of your pay.

While the sub-continent of India is the global leader in attracting employment from western software companies, the range of jobs at risk from low-cost competitors is steadily expanding. And in addition to India, with its 350 million English speakers, China, Vietnam, Eastern Europe and the Philippines are all targeting the types of jobs that can be performed as easily at a distance as they can be in a Dublin office block.

Accounting, payroll, human resource planning, management consulting and journalism are among the jobs now performed offshore. The effect, say some experts, will be to increase working hours and undermine working conditions in countries such as Ireland.

People who already feel they work too many hours under too much stress take heed, says executive coach and industry observer Marshall Goldsmith. This is only the beginning.

Infosys, the global number two in software outsourcing told stock market analysts in New York recently that the company is moving away from software services into management consulting, with a view to capturing a substantial share of Europe's high salary, consulting jobs. It's beginning with a 40 per cent price advantage over its American and European competitors.

That advantage comes from migrating up to 60 per cent of consulting-related work offshore. And Infosys is confident the advantage can be sustained.

Steve Pratt who heads Infosys consulting told analysts: "We are going for the hungry and disenfranchised." In other words the ones who will work the hardest with least complaint.

The logic of immobile and expensive workforces in Western countries is that employers are stuck with only one solution. If they want to stay in business they have to work their people harder. "Infosys gets a thousand applicants for every vacancy it advertises," says Goldsmith who coaches senior Infosys executives.

"Let me tell you what that means. People working 80 hours a week for $20,000 a year."

Senior business figures, including former IBM chairman, Louis V. Gerstner writing recently in the New York Times, have begun to admit that transferring jobs to the "developing" world is not solely about the use of low-cost labour.

Today outsourcing is a search for the most skilled worker wherever he or she might be. That talent just happens to be available at an enticingly low cost in India, China, and Eastern Europe.

Awareness of these factors are not lost on Indian companies. In August Infosys launched a new education programme, Campus Connect, to expand its supply of market-ready graduates and "develop a pool of highly skilled talent with global aspirations".

Under Campus Connect university researchers and teachers spend extended periods at Infosys for training and awareness building. Once the academics see the business, they have a better idea of what students need to know. As a result the offshore skills base is improving.

SummitHR is an Indian temping agency with an ambition to dominate the global market for temporary staff.

Dutch telecommunications company Philips recently distributed its R&D (research and development) work away from Eindhoven to China and India. Earlier this year, it announced it was moving 150 accountancy services jobs from Leopardstown, Co Dublin to Poland.

Reuters, the global news agency, recently set up its first journalist outsourcing project in Bangalore, India. The now small team of 30 journalists reports on the activities of 2,000 small American firms that currently slip below the radar of the world's corporate analysts. Reuters has expanded its services in the information market because lower cost, educated labour is available.

Vietnam is the latest low-cost entrant to the job transfer market. With a strong tradition of teaching mathematics, the Vietnamese are targeting technical jobs in the West.

British architectural services company Atlas already employs 100 Vietnamese people to turn architectural drawings into construction blueprints. The cost of highly skilled graduate labour in Vietnam is $100 per month.

But the twist is that lower cost is now combined with much higher skill and that increases the threat to the young and talented in Ireland. The new EU states, from the Baltic countries specifically, use the Irish model of accelerated economic growth through investment in education as a model for their futures.

These new European states have become a battleground where Infosys and fellow Indian outsource giants WIPRO go head-to-head with global consultancies such as Accenture to establish low-cost outsourcing centres. The ambitions of countries such as Lithuania, Estonia and Latvia are being accelerated by the necessity of global companies to respond to the Indian threat, in turn posing risks to Irish jobs.

Marshall Goldsmith believes that by putting pressure on salaries, a global market for educated workers will reduce the surplus cash available for investing in the future. "The pension safety-net will not be there," he says, adding that the appropriate individual strategy is to seek out new ways of working.

"Competition in the labour market will force people to work 60 to 80 hours a week for less money. The savvy workers will get out of that and find a way to make a living that they enjoy and can do until death. They don't need to think of retirement."

The implications are that governments need to find ways to create opportunity later in life, effectively pitting the 50-year-old against the 18- or 21-year-old when it comes to handing out grants and creating career incentives.

"People are programmed to think this thing called retirement is out there, an entitlement that they can wait for. The delusion of entitlement has to be faced. It is absurd," says Goldsmith.

While governments and baby-boom 50-somethings agonise over how to fund pensions from existing financial resources, the world's reservoir of talented and low-paid software writers have been joined by accountants, human resource managers, business process consultants, and journalists, all queuing to replace their western counterparts, threatening in the process to leave a vacuum where the vibrant young workforce of countries such as Ireland should be.

The name of the game is competition in the market for skilled knowledgeable workers. The champion of the Infosys' Campus Connect programme, Dr Ravindra MP, says its role is to "give Indian students an edge over their global counterparts", an objective that the rush-hour driver in Dublin might reflect is being met with growing success.

China: American firms have found that China has a 40 per cent price advantage over India which in turn has a 40 per cent price advantage over the west. Currently China turns out 50,000 IT graduates a year, a number that could rise to 200,000. Ireland produces 5,000.

India: The cost of a graduate software engineer to outsourcing giants Infosys and WIPRO ranges from $5,000-$20,000 per year. Both companies provide excellent in-house training and liaise with universities to prepare graduates for the needs of the labour market. For employees the lifestyle might involve hard work but also plenty of adventure. WIPRO software engineers can expect to work anywhere in the world. New outsourcing projects are developing across the professions, in accounting, legal services, journalism, HR, and temp agencies.

Vietnam: With salaries as low as $100 per month for highly trained staff, Vietnam aims to be an outsourcing hotspot within five years. Current barriers are language and a lack of diversity in the skills' base.

Eastern Europe: Eastern Europe is becoming the destination of choice for traditional consulting firms looking to set up low-cost outsourcing facilities. Costs however are rising since those countries acceded to the EU. An enduring advantage for East Europeans will be their language skills, essential for the fragmented European market.

The Philippines: Like India a region with traditionally strong ties to the West and English language skills, the Philippines has the capacity to offer offshore labour in a variety of skill areas not limited to IT. Business processes, customer relationship management, e-mail management are among the Philippines notable offerings.