Nearly 1.4 million back-office jobs will be lost at the world's largest companies between 2008-2010, according to a new study from The Hackett Group. These losses are just part of a longer-term trend that started in 2001 and will result in nearly 3.6 million general and administrative (G&A) jobs being eliminated by 2014.

According to Hackett, more than 630,000 G&A jobs are expected to be lost in 2009 alone, over three times the average number of jobs lost annually from 2000 to 2007. This dramatic spike is likely to lead to an extended jobless recovery in IT, Finance, Procurement, HR, and other G&A areas. Hackett's research found that the increase in job losses is being driven by a number of factors, including: the lack of economic growth, deep cuts in response to budget pressures, improvements in productivity and automation, and the increased use of offshore labor resources.

The scope of this Hackett study included 4,000 global companies in North America and Europe, all with over $1bn in revenue. 

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