Outsourcing is merely the first of many problems to come...
Outsourcing has become the largest problem for the IT industry since the dot-com bomb. However, it is not the last major shake-up we'll see in this industry, nor is it a sign of its eventual demise in the US. IT is just advancing along the same trend as every other form of technology throughout history. First there is the point where only masters and experts can participate, making these individuals very valuble, then slowly the number of people who can use/work with the technology increases as people want to work in a more profitable field, then eventually employment reaches a point where there are simply too many people trying to work on too little work, and you see a bust as people are laid off and/or work moves to a cheaper location. We've seen this with every tech industry throughout history. From printing presses, to watch and clock makers, to engineers and now computers. These two adjustments (the bust and then redistribution of the workforce to cheaper places) are just the first we'll see in the coming years.
The next adjustment is already taking place, it's the commoditization of computer technology. In the beginning, it was 1s and 0s, mainframes that took up entire buildings and dumb terminals where you would input a program. At first you needed to know how to program the computer at a very basic level to be able to do anything with it. Slowly, as components shrunk and became cheaper and the technology itself began to improve (faster, more memory etc) they were made easier and easier to use. Opening them up to an ever expanding audience. The introduction of the Personal Computer was the first step towards the eventual doom of the industry as a large, long-term employer. But even when they first came on the market, the C64, Amiga, Apple and IBM ventures were still obtuse and difficult to learn for the average person. Command Line Interfaces kept a majority of the populace away from PCs unless they were forced to use them for work or school. Computer geeks were still a necessary resource as no one could figure out what to do whenever they got a cryptic error message, or their word processor stopped working. The machines were counterintuitive for the common user to the extent that people avoided them at all costs if they could.
So, in an attempt to improve technology further, we created the Graphical User Interface, added the mouse and worked to continually refine the end-user experience. This extended to every aspect of computing, even to software development (those nice fancy IDEs) and system administration (RedHat and it's attempt to be extremely easy to setup as a robust server etc), the last bastions of the computer geek. Also, applications have been developed to automate many tasks so that the only real input required from a user is to set the initial configuration and click "go"
The drive now is to make everything as simple and intuitive as possible, and I'm not saying there's anything wrong with that, it's the natural progression of any end-user technology, since the reason for it's existence is to make life better for the people using it. Having a device that is cryptic, frustrating and clunky does not generally make anything better, it just pisses you off. However, that trend towards simple, easy to use, little configuration required tech is what will cause an increasingly large amount of job loss in IT over the next few decades.
Aside from your PC, how often does anything you use that has a computer at it's core break-down or crash? Does your VCR or DVD player pop up a blue screen of death? How often do you get an illegal operation error on your microwave, video game console or car? In most cases now, once something is configured, that's all that needs to be done. It used to be that continual maintenance and monitoring was required for any computer system, thus justifying the employment of a lot of computer workers. But with everything becoming sort of Fire-and-Forget, we don't need to employ as many people. Also, the general population is becoming better at dealing with technology. Everyone from your 2 year old niece to your 90 year old grandma is probably using computers now, surfing the web, playing games and is generally saavy to the basics, and in the case of children they'll only get better with age.
Add the increasing ease and simplicity of technology to a user base that is growing increasingly sophisticated and the end of the initial development burst and disemination, and you have a recipie for a constant and inevitable shrinking of the job market in this area. There will still be busts and bombs as new iterations of technology will come along that require businesses to retool their operations (currently middleware is the big thing). But unless there is some shocking new development that totally revolutionizes computing, we're going to see IT fade to the point where it is no more or less a major industry than any other field. We aren't going to be the industry where all the hot to trot jobs are going to be like we were in the 90s.
Does this mean all is lost, and we should all start looking for new jobs in other industries? Heck no! What is going to happen is all the people who joined into the field because they heard it paid well rather than because they have a love for computers and technology will sort out to move onto the next big money maker. Once that happens, it will be mostly the people who actually enjoy this stuff that are still around doing the work. Also, it's those who are really devoted to the stuff that will find new opportunities within the field, that will create and advance technology in new directions, creating additional work and more money. The good ones will make out better in the long-run, but it won't be easy going for the next few years.
This is not a field where you will find job security for some time, but those who stick it out and keep at it will likely benefit greatly and find it was worth the blood sweat and tears. It's just going to be hard to predict the next direction for the industry, and it'll be even harder to sucessfully weather the dips and busts that we're going to see in the next several years.
Outsourcing and the Dot Com bust are merely the first steps in the evolution of IT from a new to an established profession.