Blinder, now an economics professor at Princeton University, told the House Science and Technology Committee that American jobs in science, technology and engineering are most vulnerable to offshoring.

Blinder testified during a hearing on the offshoring of U.S. technology jobs. Committee Chairman Bart Gordon (D-Tenn.) last year successfully pressed the Bush administration to release a controversial 2004 Commerce Department report on offshoring. The report singled out chip design as one of the next U.S. technology sectors likely headed overseas.

Leading-edge design work has not moved offshore, but U.S. design engineers "are facing stiff competition from designers in India who work for lower wages and whose experience and quality [are] quickly improving," the report warned.

"The message of that report," Gordon said during Tuesday''s hearing," is that offshoring is happening at significant levels in some industrial sectors and the phenomenon will continue and is likely to accelerate."