Slashdot Mirror
India Becoming a Major Hub for Western Job Seekers
MaximusTheGreat writes: "IHT and Financial Express report that many qualified Western professionals are moving to India for jobs. Two of the most common reasons mentioned are adding the Indian experience to the CV and search of better opportunities in a booming Indian economy. According to a Mumbai based head hunting firm, "A lot of the highly qualified talent has traditionally been mobile and attracted to centers of excellence globally. This was true of the US in the early 80s when top flight talent from India migrated in search of better opportunities. Today, the same is happening to economies such as India and China" This should also bust the myth that foreigners are not allowed work in India."
It will all balance out in the end.
*Foreigners desiring to work in India are welcome only if they locate in Andhra Pradesh .
(Source: HotJobs.com)
-- @rjamestaylor on Ello
Were you by any chance raised by wolves?
You know, what they get paid in India is relatively speaking most likely very nice amount? Purchasing parity is nice; one can live like a king there... so in some ways they'll be better off there. One can not really afford servants with programmer salary in USA; but can most definitely do that in India. It's not like they go there to starve; quite the opposite. It's even possible that the salaries are getting closer to those of, say, southern Europe ones; and trend is likely to continue. In couple of years high quartile of programmers in India earn more than low quartile in, say, mid-west.
Furthermore, the article did mention that it may be considered a good career move; working in India helps in managing teams in India, even if one works in USA (assuming there'll be managing jobs remaining in USA). So, it can also be thought of as sort of extreme internship. :-)
I like paying taxes. With them I buy civilization -- Oliver Wendell Holmes
Good to see that particular myth busted.
It hasn't been busted, because it's not a myth. You have to immigrate to india, there's no work visa program.
I'm not going become an Indian citizen just to find work.. that's just unacceptable.
From ny experience, 20 years ago inflation in Mexico was running about 125% a year, but everything seemed to remain affordable. Now with NAFTA, inflation may be down, but the prices are almost as high as in the states, but the wages are nowhere near that. Prices still do climb, but wages appears stagnant. Gasoline, electricity, milk, toilet paper, etc. are actually more expensive than in the states. I don't know how the people tolerate it. But they do.
What?
Not likely seeing how the 'Father' of Pakistan's nuclear program has just been fired for illegally selling nuclear secrets to Libya and Iran.
It should be noted that the Indian jobs starting to be filled by foreigners are middle- and upper-level management jobs--not software or hardware engineers!
HCG 50a = 2MASX J11170638+5455016
11h17m06.4s +54d55m02s
Yes there is, if you've got a letter from an Indian company.
A deep unwavering belief is a sure sign you're missing something...
Calafornia isn't the only place tech jobs are available, they it certianly is one of the most expensive. There are plenty of other states with tech industries, many on the rise, where cost of living is much lower. Now with this generally comes lower pay, but it tends to balance out.
An economist could explain it better, but to me it seems that cost of living and standard of living aren't directly correlated. (I know it's not exactly what you're saying, but it's worth adding.) Lower quality of living may be true for India, but it isn't true everywhere. If it was, I might be able to travel from New Zealand to the US without paying twice as much for everything once I arrived.
In short, we have a relatively western culture here. There's good employment doing information-sector types of work, good quality education (although there's now a student loan scheme to get people through higher education), relatively good health care (probably better than the US if what I hear is correct), and so on.
It's expensive to travel away from here considering a good starting IT wage might be equivalent to about US$30,000, and IT wages are on the high side. It would have been much less than that a year ago, except US currency is doing so much worse on international markets at the moment. That starting amount will get you a reasonable quality of life here, though.
The lower cost of living and higher quality of education and living is one of the big reasons that, for example, it was so economical for Newline to have the Lord of the Rings films made here, because it's cheap yet there's enough of a technical infrastructure to support it. The other big export industry is tourism, because it's comparitively so cheap for people from high cost-of-living countries to travel here.
If concern about quality of life is more of an issue than saving up money to take back to the US, then there are other options around the world besides India.
"Financial Express"?
whois financialexpress.com displays:
Registrant:
The Indian Express Online Media Ltd (JYXCIDMQMD)
Express Towers, 2nd Floor,
Nariman Point
Mumbai, Maharashtra 400021
IN
Domain Name: FINANCIALEXPRESS.COM
Administrative Contact, Technical Contact:
The Indian Express Online Media Ltd (KYYHDIAZUO) hostmaster@bombaybiz.com
Express Towers, 2nd Floor,
Nariman Point
Mumbai, Maharashtra 400021
IN
91-022-22884113 fax: 91-022-22044654
Record expires on 03-Jan-2005.
Record created on 02-Jan-1998.
Database last updated on 31-Jan-2004 23:31:58 EST.
Domain servers in listed order:
NS1.RILINFO.NET 202.138.96.2
NS2.RILINFO.NET 202.138.103.100
surely their views must be impartial!
It seems like every second week there's a story on the rise of India in the global economy and its cost to us in the Western world. But I am worried that our thinking is being dominated by anecdotal evidence as opposed to solid data. I'm no expert but in the last hour I spent looking at the situation I've found some things that give me reason to be skeptical.
For example, if one looks at the ISI Highly Cited website we see that researchers from Western economies still dominate research journals. Suggesting that these countries will countinue to lead the world in technological development in the near future. This of course probably means jobs for those in the industry of researching and developing technology. Just how great the desparity is, is illustrated with a few numbers:
United States - 2830 highly cited researchers
United Kingdom - 306 highly cited researchers
Australia/New Zealand - 78 highly cited researchers
Switzerland - 60 highly cited researchers
India - 8 highly cited researchers
China - 5 highly cited researchers
Also if we look at the CIA World Fact Book we see Western Economies still appear to have a significantly greater GDP per capita which means there is more money to invest in industry:
United States - $36,300
Switzerland - $32,000
Australia - $26,900
United Kingdom - $25,500
China - $4,700
India - $2,600
Indeed, I can't help but feel that we're overemphasizing India. That they are really the IT sweat-shops of the 21st century and while they may be master code-monkeys the chief beneficiaries of their work will be the Western world. Who will get cheap labor and services but still carry out most of the research, design, marketing and retail. This article mentions specifically significantly reduced operating costs and 500,000 jobs moving overseas, but the latter statistic is useless unless we know how many other jobs are (or are not) going to crop up to replace them and where. My post isn't really an informed opinion on the matter, but what I hope it will do is encourage others to think critically about the situation instead of getting tied up in the tsunami of pessimistic articles posted on Slashdot.
"Many qualified Western professionals are moving to India for jobs." How many? Two articles; one of them has an anecdotal example, and the other mentions no numbers whatsoever. How can this be seriously accepted as a news item?
The IT jobs market in Australia isn't much better than the US. Go compete with someone else ;)
Saying that markets serve people is a meaningless statement. It's much more important to discuss how and on what basis markets serve people.
Markets are terrible vehicles by which to pursue an economy founded on human needs--more specifically, classlessness, equity, diversity of outcomes, efficiency, self-management and solidarity...
Markets are excellent, on the other hand, of maintaining class privilege and thwarting efficiency or consumer choice (or, even, the meaningful exercise of democratic freedoms) in favour of cycles of competition and wealth accrual.
The thing that makes market theory "work," from an economist's perspective, is a set of faulty deductive axioms that result in meaningless theories like the subjective theory of value.
Rand's work, and the work of her less radical compatriots, sells a good story -- perhaps one that's internally consistent, even -- but what's important are outcomes and in outcomes market theory is more fluff than substance.
There isn't a language barrier in India. India has maybe 8 major languages. Most people speak 2 or 3, but there's nothing universal. The most common - Hindi - was tried as a national language briefly. The Southerners reacted rather violently, trashing Hindi signs, etc. As a result, English ended up as the de facto national language. Anyone educated will speak English. Many uneducated people speak enough English that you can buy things at stores, etc. Your servents will definitely speak English (yes, in India, you will have several servants), and they will actually do most of the shopping for you. Also, Hindi, unlike most Oriental languages, is actually fairly easy to learn.
You will, however, run into a huge, huge cultural barrier. Cleaning your own toilet? Taboo. You hear stories where a manager drops some food on the ground, and no one picks it up until the cleaning people come by in the evening, since cleaning it would be degrading. The philosophy of the caste system is very much pervasive, and people have their roles in life, and refuse to go outside of those.
you are going to pay for society's drug problems one way or another. you can either pony up some tax to get crack heads off the street, into rehab and turn them into productive citizens... or you can ignore the problem and pay in lost economic productivity, increased policing costs and in one lump cash payment when that untreated crack head sticks you up for a fix.
Just thought I'd mention (I probably shouldn't but what the hell, I ain't afraid): here in Seattle, the people who control the crack control a lot of things. There is so much money in crack, they can afford to buy up businesses and bribe public officials. One rumor I heard was that the governor of the state was involved. There is a "Family" here (crackheads on the street greet each other with the term of endearment "Fam"). It is very extensive. They have "managers" and such. They use technology very extensively and widely to spy on things, organize gangs quickly via cellphone, etc. It is very hard to believe at first. But they thrive on not being visible, on everyone being afraid to speak out and say what is obvious and what everyone knows anyway.
Personally I say, legalize the fucking crack and take the power away from hardened criminals.
(Read my journal if you want to know more. Thanks.)
Business.
Learn all you can. Then learn plumbing. afer thet, start your own plumbing business. If you still want to program, do some work on OS.
If I had been spending the last 10 years as a plumber, I would be making at least twice what I currently make as a software developer.
The hour would be better, and I'd get to go to kick ass comventions in Vegas.
Believe me, these conventions are far superiour then comdex. Unles you actully go to comdex to learn about what might just be the next trend(but probably isn't).
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
It's been my theory that the U.S. government is particularly destructive to the economy because the population here is much more than, say, Canada.
Americans are getting ripped off... 15% wage taxes go striaght to Washington, D.C., for Social Security and Medicare (and that's not even the other income taxes, yet!). They tell you that your employer pays half and you pay half, but that's just a political game and anyone who has read an Econ 101 book knows it.
What are the chances that money actually comes back to the taxpayers in any meaningful way? With politicians so far removed from the people, and eveyone looking to the Federal government rather than the state government for all legislation, there is just no accountability any more.
Different states don't really matter much any more. There's no way to hold the politicians in Washington D.C. accountable, and they are the ones with all the power. Do we really need laws about education at the national level? Labor laws at the national level? National minimum wage? Have the states all pass different laws and then see which are successful. When your state does something wrong, you just kick the old guy out and elect a movie star, no problem.
Localize government! Move power from the feds to the state and from the state to the localities.
Social scientists are inspired by theories; scientists are humbled by facts.
Sorry, you're wrong on almost all counts. I know because I've done it. I showed up in New Zealand on vacation and had a job offer two weeks later. I went to immigration and walked out with a two-year work visa. I don't even have an IT degree. My wife is here full-term on a work visa that allows her to stay as long as I'm here. A year into it and I'm sitting in my own house in NZ right now. I can apply for long-term residency and probably get it.
Now, it wasn't a cake walk, but it was FAR from difficult. I work with a 20-year-old American that's here same as me, so it's not like I'm a special case. No huge sums of work experince and cash are required.
Nobody seems to be aware of the fact that you still have to pay US taxes if you work abroad. That is in addition to whatever taxes you pay in the host country.