U.S. IT job loss may level off in coming years, but the likelihood that corporate IT will ever contribute to job creation again is minimal, according to a recent study by the Hackett Group. CIO.com talked to Hackett's lead researchers about what's driving IT jobs offshore, what roles will remain stateside, and why some American IT professionals may have to send their resumes to China.

The combination of more automation, increased offshoring, and better global IT infrastructure has taken its toll on the U.S. IT profession, resulting in a net loss of 1.5 million corporate IT jobs over the last decade, according to recent research from IT consultancy and benchmarking provider The Hackett Group.

The barely bright side for the American IT worker is that the total number of annual job losses will diminish slightly in the coming years, down from a high of 311,000 last year to around 115,000 a year through 2014, according to Hackett which based its research on internal IT benchmarking data and publicly available labor numbers. The really bad news? It's unlikely that IT will contribute to new job creation in the foreseeable future. "To succeed over the next five years, companies need to understand how to reposition existing talent; jettison or rationalize current jobs that have no place in the leveraged organization; and source, develop and retain still others to fill the need for new skills, both offshore and in retained onshore staff," reads the Hackett report, which itself was written in part by offshore researchers according to co-author and Hackett Chief Research Officer Michel Jannsen.