Perhaps I should have clarified what I said, "non-employees, non-citizen offshore residents' and used the conjunction "and" rather than a comma. This would have clearly stated a contractor working in a foreign country. My apologies on the slip-up.

As in my example, there are many non-Western countries that are unstable. Just because they are cheap sources of labor, doesn't make for a good mix with mission-critical data in belonging to Western firms. The accountability just isn't there. If a person from one of the non-stable countries becomes hostile, serious harm could be done and the person could disappear from their criminal justice system. Seeking indemnity from their civil system would probably be fruitless.

From my experience, sensitive positions such as DBAs (as opposed to say, web developers), onshore contracting typically involve a certain balance between the contracting firm and the enterprise. I didn't see a small contracting firm running critical systems for a large enterprise (it might happen, I just didn't see it). Again, it would be a matter of accountability. The small firm could not compensate a large firm for a catastrophe they might cause unless they posted a very large bond.