NEW YORK (CNN/Money) - The CEOs of the top 50 U.S. companies that sent service jobs overseas pulled down far more pay than their counterparts at other large companies last year, according to a study released Tuesday.

Sarah Anderson from the Institute for Policy Studies talks about a new study showing that some CEOs are being financially rewarded for outsourcing jobs. Play video (Real or Windows Media)

The top executives at the firms that use outsourcing the most got a 46 percent pay increase. By contrast, the average CEO, including those at outsourcing companies, saw their pay rise 9 percent, according to a study by the Institute for Policy Studies and United for a Fair Economy, two left-leaning think tanks.

"[These CEOs] are rewarded for decisions that may help the corporate bottom line, but at the same time are very costly for U.S. workers and communities," Sarah Anderson, director at the Institute for Policy Studies, told CNNfn Tuesday.

However, some companies mentioned in the study contend that they are some of the world's largest employers, and a growing overseas workforce cannot simply be labeled as offshoring.

"Our U.S. workforce has remained steady for the last 10 years," said Peter Stack, spokesperson for General Electric, which was number 14 on the study's list. "In many instances, our overseas workforce is a function of where we operate."

Outsourcing jobs has become a politically sensitive issue as the presidential election approaches in November.

The Democratic nominee, John Kerry, has pledged to create incentives to keep U.S. jobs from going overseas, while some members of the Bush administration have claimed outsourcing makes companies more efficient, thus improving the broader economy.

The think tanks conceded that outsourcing boosts corporate efficiency and can boost profits by lowering labor costs, but "firms appear to be channeling their outsourcing profits not into U.S. jobs, but rather into the pockets of chief executives," the groups said in the report.

In addition, the groups reported that the gap between CEO and worker pay widened in 2003, after narrowing for the previous two years, with the top executive making 301 times more than the average worker.

Officials at the Labor Department and the U.S. Chamber of Commerce did not return calls for comment.

Top outsourcing firms with highest CEO pay. Company  CEO pay  United Technologies  $70.4 million  Citigroup  $54 million  Oracle  $40.6 million  Bank of America  $37.9 million  Cognizant Technology Solutions  $27 million   *2003 pay totals  Source: Institute for Policy Studies

A CEO at the outsourcing companies tracked earned $10.4 million last year, on average, while all CEOs took home an average of $8.1 million in 2003, according to the study.

The groups said they formed their outsourcing list from the 50 companies the Washington Alliance of Technology Workers, a unit of the Communications Workers of America, had estimated as having the largest number of offshored jobs.

Despite ranking as some of the largest U.S. outsourcing companies, the offshoring list includes some of the largest employers in the world, and on a percentage basis, the number of outsourced jobs is relatively small to their U.S. and worldwide workforces.

For example, General Electric (GE: Research, Estimates) has a U.S. workforce of about 160,000 employees, according to its spokesman Stack. The Washington Alliance estimates GE has outsourced 14,000 jobs, or about 8.7 percent of its U.S. workforce.

GE employs about 305,000 employees worldwide.

In terms of setting up facilities in lower-paying countries, GE's Stack said its most recent research facility was opened in Munich, Germany, which has wages on a par with the United States.

The company also has research centers in Shanghai, China, Bangalore, India and Niskayuna, New York, he noted.

Not all the CEOs who outsourced automatically got paid more for it.

Of the 50 in the survey, 19 saw their pay fall last year from 2002, with First Data Corp.'s (FDC: Research, Estimates) Charles Fote posting the biggest loss, an 89 percent drop, the study found.

Cisco Corp.'s (CSCO: Research, Estimates) CEO John Chambers was the only CEO on the top 50 list who did not receive a salary in 2003.

At the top of the list of outsourcing companies with the highest paid CEOs is United Technologies (UTX: Research, Estimates), which has software development centers in Pune and Bangalore, India. It is also in the process of shipping 80 percent of its software application development and support to India, according to the report.

The manufacturing and defense contracting firm's CEO George David earned $70.4 million in compensation in 2003, up 629 percent from the year earlier, the study found.

A spokesman for United Technologies was unavailable for comment.

Time Warner (TWX: Research, Estimates), the parent company of CNN/Money, came in 13th on the list.