Washington: Outsourcing of IT jobs, which is likely to continue to countries like India, has had an unexpected result-less demand for office space in the US and consequent slowing of American commercial real estate recovery, a media report said.

Big companies from Intel Corporation to Motorola Inc. to International Business Machines Corp. have been moving jobs abroad, and the trend is expected to continue, 'The Wall Street Journal' said.

The moves, coupled with still high national office vacancy rates, have kept outsourcing a hot topic of numerous real estate conferences and the subject of a flurry of research papers.

Research firm Reis Inc. expects absorption of space to fall from 26 per cent from its peak to an average 68.7 million square feet over the next three years, due "partly" to outsourcing, the paper said.