The US will lose thousands of jobs to low-cost countries unless companies reduce soaring healthcare expenditure urgently, Craig Barrett, chairman of Intel, the chipmaker, warned on Thursday.

Mr Barrett said failure to curb the $2,000bn annual healthcare bill would compromise the global competitiveness of the US economy. “Healthcare is the Achilles heel of the US in terms of competitiveness,” said Mr Barrett in an interview with the Financial Times. He said healthcare costs for US companies were so high that it was cheaper for some to hire new employees in a low-cost country than to pay for healthcare benefits for American workers and their families.