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Jobs on farms, not abroad. High-tech companies are keeping jobs in the US by setting up offices in rural areas to cut costs.

In a crook of Clinch Valley in Lebanon, Va., there are no counterculture coffeehouses, no art museums, and the "ginger" salad dressing at the town’s only Japanese restaurant is really Thousand Island.

Despite its country couture, Lebanon (pop. 3,300), once betrothed to King Coal, is on the cutting edge of a new business trend. The farmshoring phenomenon, in which high-tech companies choose to open offices in rural America as opposed to India, China, or Mexico, is coming to this mid-Appalachian plateau.

Late last year, two major IT firms, CGI-AMS and Northrop-Grumman, announced they were bringing more than 700 technology jobs to Lebanon that pay around $50,000 a year. These positions are in the same class as the 112,000 IT jobs nationwide that were lost to overseas outsourcing in 2003, according to Global Insight in Boston.

By Patrik Jonsson | Staff writer of The Christian Science Monitor

Full Story: http://www.csmonitor.com/2006/0223/p02s01-usec.html?s=hns

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