GCI, the largest telecommunications provider in the state, is closing down its call center jobs in Anchorage and moving the work to a contractor in the Philippines. It joins a growing list of U.S. companies outsourcing their customer service jobs overseas.

The fact that GCI is one of many U.S. businesses to send work out of the country doesn't make it right, nor does it make it wrong. But it is another example of job and economic loss in a state that already is suffering from outmigration. More people have left Alaska than have moved here each of the past eight years.

GCI sells cable TV, inter...