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The odds of UCLA students finding white-collar jobs upon graduation are getting worse because, according to a recent study, millions of jobs are being sent overseas.

As a method of establishing lower production costs, jobs are being outsourced to other countries at an exceptionally high rate, the study reported.

Jobs in medical transcriptions services, customer service call-centers, payroll and other services where face-to-face interaction with the customers is not necessary are at the greatest risk of being outsourced, according to the study published by Ashok Deo Bardhan and Cynthia Kroll, researchers at the Fisher Center for Real Estate and Urban Economics at the University of California Berkeley.

The report shows these positions typically have a low set-up cost and are transferred to countries such as India, China, Russia and Israel, where labor wages are much lower.

“In India, wages for data processing or call centers can be one-tenth of that in the United States,” Kroll said.

Bardhan said there is a “media frenzy” in India right now due to the new wave of job availability.

Forrester Research, an independent technology research company, has estimated that 3.3 million jobs would be outsourced by 2015.

Bardhan and Kroll believe this is a conservative figure considering 25,000 to 30,000 jobs were outsourced to India in June 2003.

According to the researchers, major metropolitan areas like Los Angeles are vulnerable to outsourcing because of the high cost of labor and greater number of jobs.

Though Los Angeles may see its share of outsourcing jobs, it is not as vulnerable as San Francisco or New York City, which have higher wages and costs of living, Kroll said.

This recent economic trend may endanger students’ investments in their education.

As the mother of a freshman at Sonoma University, Kroll admits selecting a major as a student can be “worrisome” when jobs in certain fields are being outsourced.

Kroll suggested that college students find ways to diversify themselves – such as declaring a minor – in order to increase their marketability when searching for a job after graduation.

“Outsourcing shouldn’t discourage you from entering a particular field,” said Kroll.

Bhagwan Chowdhry, a professor at the UCLA Anderson School of Management, said large changes in technology and software have led to shifts in the job market, but that the economy always adjusts to such changes.

College students, he said, are also able to make these adjustments.

“Education prepares people for flexibility,” said Chowdhry. “The hardest hit will be the people who have been at a job for a long time and can’t change overnight.”