Insee Analyses · December 2024 · n° 100

Between 2018 and 2020, companies reshored low-skilled activities while offshoring skilled activities

Between January 2018 and December 2020, 2.8% of companies with more than 50 employees in France reorganized part of their value chain: 1.7% offshored at least one activity, while 1.2% reshored.

The typical company reorganizing its global value chain is a multinational in the manufacturing sector, characterized by a high reliance on skilled labor. Offshored activities tend to be intensive in skilled labor, unlike reshored activities, which are intensive in low-skilled labor.

When a company offshores, the more productive it is, the more it tends to favor subcontracting. However, if its activities are intensive in intangible capital and rich in expertise, it transfers them to its foreign subsidiaries.

Offshoring primarily targets European countries, and for activities intensive in skilled labor, India.