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 seems this would be something that would have been up and coming. With so many tech jobs being outsourced to India. Hopefully their booming economy will help give us a run for our money. Historically good things seem to happen when we have competition. At least I hope it will be friendlier and with at least as comparable results as the technology boosts during WWII and The Cold War. :)
( o ) one could say I'm rather baked
Good to see that particular myth busted. The reality seems to be that India is simply embracing software development, and given the lower cost of living over there, are making huge gains in that sector - in the end software is just bits, and it's very easy to ship them anywhere in the world.
If you don't fancy working in India, just pick somewhere else with a lower cost of living than the US, and set up shop there. You could try New Zealand or Australia - both fairly western countries with a notably lower cost of living (depending on where you go) than the US. Still not as low as India, but then it would provide less of a language barrier (depending on exactly how uninterpretable you consider the austrialian accent), which many here claim is a significant problem with Indian outsourcing.
So, why not set up your own outsourcing company?
Jedidiah
Craft Beer Programming T-shirts
I think anything that gets more people out of their own territories and out into a different part of the world where they have the opportunity to see what it's like in other places can only help in the long run. Sure, a fluid labor force is a "good thing", but people who have experienced different cultures, laws, religions, biases and viewpoints is even more valuable.
Unless someone wants to move to India forever, it doesnt make financial sense. Indian software companies are not going to pay more for an American working in India just because he is American (or whatever country he comes from). And so people moving there will have to work at the going salaries of that market. And with those salaries, you cant retire very comfortably in the United States, for example. So, anyone interested in a permanent move?
This is pretty clearly a PR puff piece. An obvious part of the trend of the Indian IT lobby to stem the growing US backlash.
This is just my opinion and all, but I don't think people from the US should have to go to India in order to chase jobs that emigrated from here.
I know that's against the principles of free trade and all, but we invented this technology, we are the ones who built it, we supported it, and now the corporations we built it for are selling our jobs for pennies on the dollar to third world countries.
What I'm doing is changing my field, after around 14 years, because the way technical people in this country have been treated is utterly reprehensible.
Intolerance for ambiguity is the mark of the authoritarian personality.
This is exactly the problem w/ free trade. Conservatives want it for obvious reasons and progressives want it since they mistakenly believe it will bring up the standards of living in the target countries. Although it does (bring up the std of living), it does so through achieving equilibrium. The problem with that is to achieve equilibrium, two sides need to meet in the middle and that means decrease in the std of living for the higher income group. To prevent this it requires a smart plan, one which is sorely lacking in this case. In the absence of this plan, the only people who benefit from free trade are the really rich as they income gap increases.
The facts bear out the assertion that the rich are benefitting from this arrangement since both the US and Mexico have seen a shrinking of their middle class and a growth in the income gap between top and bottom. Also, in the absence of a smart plan for implementing free trade, it allows the corporations to continue to support corrupt regimes with total impunity, with no control by any authority.
Welcome to the new world...
Who are you? The new #2 Who is #1? You are #617565. I am not a number, I am a free man! Muhahaha.
What happens when you want to move back to the UK? You've spend a better part of your best wage-earning years making Indian wages. When you sell your Indian home and convert it to pounds, what kind of home can you buy when you move back to London?
I can see people working in India for very short periods of time, but moving from a 1st world nation to a 2nd or 3rd world nation (at least in terms of wages) does not have the same benefits as the reverse situation does.
For now, I take articles like this as anecdotal at best. Certainly it is not indicative of a viable trend for the majority of people.
-- You see, there would be these conclusions that you could jump to
Won't argue with the job opportunities available in places like India and China, but careers aside, are those really suitable places to live for people who've grown up in western environments like the US?
Last I heard India is still a developing country in many aspects. How may are prepared to share the road with not only automobiles and pedestrians but elephants, sacred bovines, and pack animals which all produce fair shares of manure? Depending on where in india one might relocate to, problems with roaming bands of monkeys and the ocassional wild tiger, rare as they are, would still be unsettling for one who only see beasts in zoos.
Though China has come a long way from the 60s and 70's, My parents still carry lasting scars from the exesses of the Cultural Revolution. There are still many things that should/could not be addressed in public without considerable risks to the speaker and the listeners. Despite the incredable westernization/commercialization of the general population, China is still very ethnocentric in some regards. In short, American $$$$$ == good, dragonboats, home-grown rockets & national astronauts == better. I'm optimistic about the direction China is headed but I highly doubt it is a suitable place for a western job seeker unless (s)he is willing to make considerable lifestyle and mental adjustments.
just my 2 cents.
Stay sentient. Don't drink bad milk.
I would imagine they would be hiring Westerners for precisely the same reasons that American or European companies hire Chinese, Japanese or Indian people: To help them do business with Chinese, Japanese and Indian companies/countries.
There would certainly be an advantage for an Indian company that does business with an American company to have Americans on the inside schooling them on how things work.
-- You see, there would be these conclusions that you could jump to
Perhaps you could visit a school you're interested in and see whether a lot of Indians and Chinese are in the program you're considering. If so, it's a good bet those countries are taking interest in the field. To me it seems that China, at least, is coming on strong in all technical fields, if a few years behind India in computer programming.
As a datapoint, apparently Intel's Pentium-M chip (the best CPU for laptops at the moment) was done in Israel and was the first chip Intel ever finished on time.
Major in what you would like to do--not what you think other people would like you to do. You'll have plenty of chances to explore different areas once you enter a university.
" The other part that makes it exciting is they might get nuked by the Pakistanis at any time."
As opposed to the US, hated by 2/3 of the world's population, & obvious target # 1 for more minor excitements like, um, 9/11..
Do we really want this?
Do we want our lives to be traded as commodities to be moved and shuffled about at the whim of the free market? I'm just going to state a few opinions here. Markets should serve people, not the other way around. When freedom of choice (in this case, where to live), is superceded by the freedom of markets we have a problem. Markets are in theory, supposed to maximize freedom. I don't see how forcing a bunch of people to travel across the world just to eat is an example of "freedom". Instead, it's the commoditizing of humanity. I'd be curious, if we were to interview these travelling workers, what their response would be if they were given a choice between working that job over in India vs America. I'd imagine that they would choose to work closer to home. Imagine if we had a choice, any at all. Imagine if democracy (in other words, allowing those who are affected most by a decision, to make that decision) were placed above capitalism. Instead, what we have is the market being rigged to serve a priveledged few, at the expense of everyone else. There is nothing "free" about being forced to transplant oneself every few years just to eat. Freedom from means nothing without freedom to.
Electrical engineering is a lot of physics whereas compsci is a lot discrete math. If you're not interested in physics, then don't go for an EE degree. For example, in EE you'll learn how semi-conductors work and such; in comp sci you'll learn ways to traverse graphs, etc. Though there's certainly overlap in the fields. EE's need to know what they're designing for, and a comp sci that know's what's going on under the hood is typically better off than one who doesn't when doing anything practical.
If you pick a major based on future job prospects you'll probably end up choosing a degree that doesn't suit your particular interests and wasting a lot of time doing something you don't like, and, odds are, if you don't like something you won't excel at it.
Rather, choose the degree that most enjoy and run with it. If you're a talented computer scientist you'll have no trouble finding a job no matter what the economy is like. Personally, I think the EE degree is more versatile than a compsci degree, but that's just me.
The choice also depends on the school you're planning to attend; the quality of each major with respect to the other will vary significantly between each school. You could also consider computer engineering, which lies somewhere between EE and compsci.
Good luck
Just goes to show the /. community is no different than any other community. We're just as greedy and racist as the rest of the world. Generally speaking, of course. Pointing that out will get me modded down, but as we say, "Ni modo".
What?
I have read it and if you read what I wrote, you will see I was talking about the execution of a specific trade policy, not about generic and ideal trade theory. There is no such thing as a perfect market since there is no such thing as perfect information. Ideal markets do not, and will never exist. So the focus has to be on the trade policy and how that policy has been implemented. My suggestion is that the execution of this specific trade policy has been set up to benefit one group over another.
Who are you? The new #2 Who is #1? You are #617565. I am not a number, I am a free man! Muhahaha.
But isn't the current trend to move the offshore jobs from India to even crappier places in South America? It's not like the people in a lot of these jobs actually have to speak English, that's just a nicety. As long as a few local management are bilingual everything generally works out. Sure, India will keep the tech support jobs. Until computer voice recognition can run down the scripts then tell you it's someone else's fault.
Top that with the cost of relocation, the fact that the Indian market already provides fairly ample amounts of trained labor, and the fact that as an American you are going to be at a significant disadvantage trying to work within the social framework there, and you've got a very unattractive option. Oh, and don't forget that you won't be earning enough to ever move back and not be pitifully poor.
I think using my master's degree to shill cars for a living in the States sounds a tad better.
With $40k you could live like a king for far longer than 2 years in most parts of India. In fact you can live damn well on that $8k salary.
As for coming back in a couple of years, you will have more work experience in your profession combined with multicultural and foreign experience. Very healthy things to have on your resume.
Finally, upon arriving back in the United States you will find that the standard of living will have only dropped further and the cost of living is less than when you left.
Why do you think that only a year ago so many economists - not to mention Federal Reserve Governors - were sitting on a brick about "deflation". Why do you think US interest rates remain so low despite the fact that there is obvious inflation in some of the commodities? Answer: because there is NO bloody inflation in wages, nor has lower rates increased job creation, at least in the US.
Remember, the whole point of this global trade is to even things out. That means the US drops and the developing world rises. Most westerners don't have a clue what is in store for them. They think outsourcing is something that happens to textile and call center workers.
Leave the gun, take the cannolis.
You can sleep well at night knowing if you are a crack addict the government will pay your way through rehab
this is obviously a Bad Idea. it should be the goal of the government to ensure there are as many untreated crack heads roaming around the streets as possible.
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.
We keep throwing away American tax dollars at foreign nations only to be the most hated country in the world
are you counting the cost of cluster bombs as a foreign aid expense?
seriously. do you know who the single biggest recipient of us foreign aid is? israel. thirty per cent of foreign aid goes to that nation - and they are not you enemy.
of course, the us doesn't hand out foreign aid for free. packages often come with spending restrictions that are geared towards ingratiating the recipient country to the donor and then there are saps - structural adjustment policies - whereby aid is conditional upon economic reforms in the recipient country that are beneficial to the us corporate sector.
hint: learn something about how foreign aid works and what it does before commenting on it.
They should raise their nations taxes by several billion a year and take over babbysiting the rest of the world then
all the countries of the world that take part in un peacekeeping missions find your suggestion ludicrous and insulting.
2 1337 4 u!
Its a book.
Remarkably prophetic in many ways.
I'd recommend it in light of this thread.
In the free world the media isn't government run; the government is media run.
Think about it. Let's imagine that it gets to the point that there are so few good jobs in the U.S., that large numbers of Americans decide to emigate to India to get a call center job answering tech support questions for Dell customers in the U.S. Clearly that couldn't happen, because there wouldn't be anyone left in the U.S. who could afford a Dell at U.S. prices anymore. Before any significant number of worker emigrate to India for jobs, the U.S. economy would have to drop to India's level. If the only jobs in the U.S. were at McDonald's, then the U.S. would no longer be a rich country, and we wouldn't be able to afford to outsorce jobs to India anymore.
Bush is a fuckwad.
-Yes, I was born in the US (and still live here)
-Yes, I follow politics and international relations (degree in History)
-No, I am not a "liberal" (Whether you agree or not would depend on where YOU are on the spectrum, I guess.)
-No, I am not a conservative (see caveat above)
I state, for the record... George Bush, the President of the United States of America is a fuckwad.
(BTW.. Dick Cheney, the actual leader of the US government, is a fuckwad too.)
It's Rubic's Cube. Rubic was the name of the man who invented it.
Sorry about your misfortune. I had a similar one in the early nineties when the cold war ended just in time to eliminate almost all demand for my major in Aerospace Engineering. However I disagree with your recommendation that people don't enter EE or CS. If the current lack of demand causes this country to stop producing graduates in those programs then there could never ever be an upswing here in that industry. The manpower wouldn't exist to even try to compete with China and India.
People should study whatever they are interested in and excel at. If that is CS then good for them. We will need them in the future. Keep in mind that all new technologies will intersect with computer technology. If someone invented a transporter or a holodeck tomorrow, you can be damn sure that it would be controlled by computers. Want to outsource those too?
And cheer up, since the economy is starting to warm up again and the H1B visas have dropped back to their pre-2k levels, you may get a chance to use that fancy degree of yours before long.
With the current situation in the Tech industry, it is more important now than ever to broaden your field of expertise. Don't do just "programming", but get more training in a field that needs programmers and researchers. For example, I just graduated with my Comp Sci BA, and am now getting my Masters. Except now I'm specializing my degree in bioinformatics (a highly growing field). General programmers are a dime-a-dozen right now, so make yourself marketable.
>>No other country could get away with that.
Germany. 1938. Walked all over Austria, Poland, France. It wasn't until they started intruding on American interests (e.g. commerce with a newly recognized USSR ) that the US got involved. Of course, this quickly changed to a policy of non-agression. In fact, the US never declared war on Germany. It was actually Germany (and Italy) that declared war on the US in response to the US' declaration of war on Japan. This, of course, was in response to the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor. The US Congress didn't declare war on Germany and Italy, instead merely "recognizing" that a state of war existed.
The point is, Germany went largely unchallenged for 5 years before the US got involved. Same thing with Japan. They conquered and expanded throughout Southeast Asia while the US maintained a position of isolation and apathy - even after a US gunboat was attacked by Japan off of the coast of China while providing aid to the Chinese. In fact, Japan attacked the US because America would not acquiesce to their plan for Asian domination. Realizing that war between Japan and the US was inevitable, Japan decided to strike first.
Eventually, the rest of the world will get fed up with our antics and stand up to us. Here's hoping that our leaders wise up and stop killing America before that happens.
Ryosen
One man's "Troll, +1" is another man's "Insightful, +1".
Where the fuck do you guys get those stories from? I happen to have been born in a pretty inexpensive country (Eastern Europe). Yes some things are cheaper over there BUT my salary back home would have been an equivalent of $16,000US. A three bedroom house there costs $150,000. A new car costs $25,000. A meal in a restaurant runs up around $30. Yeah. so it's cheaper than the US. By about 20%. Except salaries (even for programmers) are about 70% lower. Stop daydreaming you are not going to live a lavish life if you move to an Indian IT sweatshop to be a code monkey for da man. However many rupees they'll pay you is definitely not going to make your life more comfortable than an average American can afford. There is a reason why US has the highest PER CAPITA Gross Domestic Product in the world.
Your pizza just the way you ought to have it.
Reading your post made me think. Although we may have national minimum wage, the percentage of folks working for minimum wage varies greatly from state to state. Also employment rules are different in each state (look at Virginia for a sad example). Since there's a national minimum wage, Wal Mart doesn't get to exploit people any further than it already does. Setup a distribution center in the poorest part of Kentucky or wherever, charge a crap wage, and people will flock. If national minimum wage wasn't in effect, do you think any large company would feel compelled to pay people the same? Doubtful.
Thank god that most states now have no state tax. Some of the worst states like Oklahoma still live off the fat of their constituents, but Texas does not. Oklahoma is thankfully in the minority when it comes to state income tax. You can live better in Texas with an Oklahoma wage than you can with that same money in OK.
I do agree with your point about the federal government being too automatic now, but it's your fellow voter's fault. Voter apathy has led this government to where it now stands, and voter apathy will continue to let the fatcats in Washington do whatever they want. There's no accountability because nobody really cares. Plus you have media spin that makes issues magically disappear when a crisis erupts. Ultimately, we'll be worse than some Third World countries, corruption-wise.
I'll leave you with something I told my wife sometime. She's from Thailand and asked a very succinct question one day. "Why isn't the government here corrupt (compared to Thailand)?" My answer? "It is, it's just better at keeping it quiet."
er. reduced from what? last year? last century? i am talking about police protection levels lower than they are currently - hence the word "reduced". you are talking about... i'm not sure what.
subsidized education -- Subsidized by whom?
it's been a long time since i've been to the states... do they have cover charges for high school now?
general infrastructure -- The roads in SIlicon Valley are collapsing.
the roads in silicon valley exist. were they created on the sixth day by god?
unemployment and old age security -- Social Security is approaching insolvency.
and paying less tax will help this... how? social security exists. is this another "sixth day" creation? nope. taxes, my lad.
public safety (ie fda inspections) -- We had 9/11 and now mad cow. That's the kind of 'saftey' we get for our 50%.
thanks for bringing up mad cow. thanks to your tax dollars, the infected beef was caught at the distribution level and prevented from ever getting to market. is less tax worth dying of vCJD?
100% of all taxes collected in the U.S. go to pay the interest on the debt
well, looking at the wikipedia page on the the us national debt, i notice that it says "47% of personal income taxes" go to servicing the debt. no corporate taxes, no sales taxes, no "sin" taxes - just personal income taxes, and less than half at that.
now, that's still a huge debt-servicing cost, but it isn't, as you claim, "100% of all taxes collected in the U.S.".
Ha ha. Man are you the one who is ignorant:
back at you pal.
2 1337 4 u!
The point is, Germany went largely unchallenged for 5 years before the US got involved.
Way to fucking rewrite history. Britain, Frace, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, Norway and others were all actively at war with Germany way before the US got reluctantly dragged into the war in Europe. Britain, Australia and New Zealand also fought against Japan in Asia and the Pacific Rim.
Please, pick up a book or something every once in a while. The world doesn't revolve around the US.
"Accept that some days you are the pigeon, and some days you are the statue." - David Brent, Wernham Hogg
The problem with that is to achieve equilibrium, two sides need to meet in the middle and that means decrease in the std of living for the higher income group.
I don't see a problem with that. Some people (us) have been getting more than their fair share for a while. We should consider ourselves lucky to have had such good fortune for so long. It's not our right.
To prevent this it requires a smart plan, one which is sorely lacking in this case.
No, it requires a very simple plan: improve the average standard of living of the globe quickly enough so that it compensates for the decrease resulting from equillibration. Anything else wouldn't be a "plan", it would be a fraud.
Of course, free trade or not, the Western lifestyle will have to change: it simply isn't sustainable, and it can't be scaled up to the rest of the world. In particular, Americans will need to live in smaller, more energy-efficient houses, take public transportation, buy more energy efficient cars, recycle more, etc.
The facts bear out the assertion that the rich are benefitting from this arrangement since both the US and Mexico have seen a shrinking of their middle class and a growth in the income gap between top and bottom. Also, in the absence of a smart plan for implementing free trade, it allows the corporations to continue to support corrupt regimes with total impunity, with no control by any authority.
The US middle class has lots of serious, self-created problems; don't blame Mexico or free trade for that.
A decrease in the standard of living for the American (or $COUNTRY_X) programmers, because they can no longer charge such high prices as before. But programmers and software companies are in a tiny minority compared to the users of software and business which need to pay for it. The people who benefit from free trade are not just the Indian (or $COUNTRY_Y) programmers, but the Western businesses who are able to get what they need more cheaply, and the consumers who (assuming decent competition) get lower prices.
Free trade is just bringing together those who have something to sell - the Indian programmers - and those who want to buy - American firms needing software written. I don't see any reason for a third group to whine about this just because they were previously able to get away with charging more.
This is especially hypocritical on a site such as Slashdot, where readers depend on a steady supply of computer hardware often built in countries with lower wages than the West. In stories about video cards or RAM I don't think I have _ever_ seen any complaint about free trade reducing the price of the hardware and the lost job opportunties for Americans caused by building it in the Far East. Or think of the constant RIAA stories - stop trying to get in the way of progress, stop trying to prop up a failing business model, you don't automatically have the right to keep on getting money just because you did in the past. I know this is partly the fallacy of assuming Slashdot readers speak with one voice, but it's still worth noting.
-- Ed Avis ed@membled.com
This is exactly what my opinion has always been, wouldnt it be so much easier if they just legalised everything, made it only available from pharmacies (so the quality could be regulated) and put a BIG sticker on it saying something to the effect of "take this and it will KILL you". I think if high schools actually provided some education on the actual effects (both good and bad) of so-called illicit drugs on a persons body rather than just shouting "JUST SAY NO TO DRUGS" any time the issue is raised then there would be less of a problem. Take away the mystique and illicit nature of drugs and they loose their appeal pretty quickly once people are able to weigh up the pros and cons for themselves.
This post seems to assume that people who aren't "talented" deserve to have high-end jobs in what's hot when they graduate?
Look, if you have brains and dedication and confidence in your capabilities, study whatever you want. Get the philosophy degree, have fun, and make sure that you're keeping an eye on something to make money with too. There's plenty of opportunity for part-time work in fields that will make money, and by trying lots of them out you will probably find one that captures your interest about the time that the "educational" system manages to grind the last ounce of passion out of philosophy for you.
If you don't have the brains and dedication, following the brass ring of what's hot now or in four years is a waste of everyone's time -- you're not going to make it through the interview, and if you do somehow get a job you'll still be the first one against the wall when times get tough. You might want to seek fulfillment in a less competitive arena.
"Nothing was broken, and it's been fixed." -- Jon Carroll
You seem to imply that a degree without a strong connection to a particular industry has no future, your example: philosophy. History, semiotics, etc. would also get lumped into this category of "useless" degrees. Sure, there isn't a huge market for "philosophers", but I imagine most philosophy majors don't expect to sit in an armchair and philosophize for a living. The critical thinking and writing skills can be easily transferred to law or business.
I would argue that if you're not talented at something you shouldn't pursue and expect financial rewards like a good job. Furthermore, a lot of people are looking for more than just money. I would say job satisfaction is critical to a happy life. You spend the majority of your life working, so you better enjoy it. A history major that ends up curating a small town musuem might not make the big bucks, but in the end he/she lives a happy life because they spend all day doing something he or she enjoys.
If you go into a field for the money, you'll end up living for your weekends and look back and realize you wasted a lot of time in pursuit of money, and, odds are you probably won't make big money anyway if you don't like what you do. Take the legions of people who went into computer science in the mid to late nineties because it was a supposedly an infinitely lucrative field: now they are working shitty jobs for much less money than they expected and hating it.
Finally, you mention medicine and biotech as fields rich in jobs. Getting into medicine is a huge committment, definitely not something that can be decided on a whim. And then, when you become a doctor, it continues to be a lot of work. Competition is also fierce for a limited number of biotech related jobs; if you're not talented you're going to end up as a low-paid lab technician or not have a job directly in the field. The benefits of the genome project and proteomics aren't coming to fruition as quickly as hoped and there isn't going to be a huge boom because of it.
If you want to just make money, consider taking up a trade. Tradespeople makes tonnes of cash, especially if you have any entreprenuerial sense to start your own business. Trades are going away any time soon.