The New Workplace Challenges
Tara Murphy, 05.14.04, 7:00 AM ET

NEW YORK - It's no wonder that the participants at the sixth annual Forbes Executive Women's Forum spoke optimistically about 2004: Economic growth is gaining momentum, the fallout from corporate scandals is abating and companies are posting higher profits.

Yet there is a whole new set of challenges facing the global marketplace, with offshoring being No. 1. The belief that offshoring is robbing jobs from the U.S. labor market is causing talk about protectionist policies, and historically the argument coincides with debate during U.S. presidential campaigns about the loss of manufacturing jobs, says Betsy Bernard, former AT&T (nyse: T - news - people ) president and a director at Principal Financial Group (nyse: PFG - news - people ) and United Technologies (nyse: UTX - news - people ).