in the economic sense, as a form of outsourcing, attested by 1988, from off-shore.
Entries linking to offshoring
off-shore adv., adj.
also offshore, 1720, "in a direction away from the shore," from off (prep.) + shore (n.). As an adjective in 19c., "carried on more than three miles from shore." American English use for "other than the U.S." is from 1948 and the Marshall Plan.