<p>Can IE jobs or OR jobs be outsourced to countries like India and China?
Is outsourcing possible in the IE field?</p>
<p>In theory, practically any job can be outsourced in one way or another. Even hands-on work can theoretically be outsourced. For example, some people have asserted that medicine can never be outsourced, conveniently ignoring the role of medical tourism (i.e. people flying to other countries in order to get elective or non-urgent medical procedures) or telemedicine (doctors performing prognoses or even surgery through videoconferencing and remote control). </p>
<p><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Medical_tourism%5B/url%5D">http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Medical_tourism</a>
<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Telemedicine%5B/url%5D">http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Telemedicine</a></p>
<p>However, in direct answer to your question, if an IEOR job basically involves sitting in an office and constructing optimization and simulation models, then sure, your job can be theoretically outsourced, as that job can be done in an office anywhere in the world. More broadly, if all your job is is shuffling papers around and drawing up spreadsheets or documents, then your job could be theoretically outsourced. That's not to say that it WILL be outsourced. It just means that it could be.</p>