Washington: Under increasing pressure to cut costs and build global networks, American corporate giants are planning to move about 3.3 million jobs, including highly-paid white-collar ones, to countries including India by 2015.

Forrester Research, a high-technology consulting group, estimates that the number of service sector jobs newly located overseas, will climb to 3.3 million in 2015 from about 400,000 this year, 'The New York Times' reported.

Two top IBM officials recently told their corporate colleagues around the world during a conference call that the company needs to speed up efforts to move white-collar jobs overseas even though that might create a backlash among politicians and its own employees, the paper said.

"Our competitors are doing it and we have to do it," Tom Lynch, IBM's director for global employee relations, said.

PTI