The outsourcing agreements are part of the company's "competitive growth initiatives" announced in 2005. The broad goal of the initiative is to "improve our cost efficiency, cost competitiveness" as well as accelerate growth, Dickson said.

Kimberly-Clark is a global company but has a major presence in Neenah, Wis. Jim Schlies, vice president of economic development at the Fox Cities Chamber of Commerce, which includes Neenah, said the company has about 4,300 employees in the area. Schlies said he would not be surprised if the outsourcing agreements, as well as other actions taken by the paper products maker to cut costs, reduces total employment in the area to about 3,000.

Schlies said he was uncertain how many IT employees will be affected in his area, but said Kimberly-Clark's Neenah-area operations are largely administrative. Kimberly-Clark has some 57,000 employees worldwide, with sales of about US$16 billion annually.

Neenah Mayor George Scherck said the company has announced major staff cuts, both current and planned, over the past six months. Those cuts will affect employees in IT and engineering, but "we don't know the numbers in any category." Kimberly-Clark, which makes products such as Kleenex tissues and Huggies disposable diapers, was founded in Neenah and until recently was its largest employer.

Asked for his opinion on outsourcing, Scherck said that "in an ideal world, you would like to see every job stay in America, because every job that's lost has an impact on our community, on our tax base, on all kinds of things," he said.