Slashdot Mirror
Need a Job? Move to India
WhoDaresWins writes "As U.S. jobs move abroad, more Americans are willing to work overseas like in India as per a CNN.com story. The story talks about many Americans and also Indians who are American citizens moving to India for work. This story should be an eye opener to people who feel Americans cannot work in India. With a booming economy there is a need for skilled professionals with years of experience in a western enconomy and industry. Best of all, job listings are available online." Thomas Friedman has a piece called The secret to India's success.
You could just stay at home and earn Indian wages
The Slashdot Paradox: "100% Overrated"
Last time I saw an article like this on Slashdot, someone described the visa and immigration laws there...
I believe it was the other way around - without being hired, you can't get a visa.
Its not that simple to get a visa to India
It works both ways. Its not simple to get a visa to get here too. A guy who sits next to me and has come here from China has a lot of interesting stories to tell about the hoops that you have to jump/go through to get the visa.
Without a visa you can't get hired.
You got it exactly the opposite way. You cannot get a visa if you are not hired. (Unless of course you want a visiting visa that would not allow you to work). For someone to start working in US, the first thing that they would need is for an employer to approve the hire part. You go about applying for the visa after you have the proof that you are eligible to work in the country.
Free XBox, PS2
Every job hit I got was in the US unless Philadelphia and Illinois have been annexed by India...
So, I can get a job in India - but I don't have to go there?
Sounds like this article was posted by a headhunter.
Fair trade is about opportunity, not privilege. The original OP had complaints about "less pay". That makes as much sense as an Indian middle-class worker complaining about living below the poverty line ($14000)
...the excess people can work at the local Chut-Nee-Mart. Just imagine Johnny American saying "Thank you, come again." Maybe he has a degree from CalTech (not Calcutta Technical Institute, in this case).
Seriously, though, this seems like a bad idea. Someone above mentioned the earnings differential. Sure, you'll be okay in India, but you'll have nothing if you come back stateside. Also, it seems like bad news to go where
a) there are already tons of hard-working programmers readily available from pretty good (and more importantly, rigorous) schools like the various IIT's in India and
b) the jobs are right now (what happens if India realy DOES get saturated?).
I do like the idea of simply cutting people's wages here and hiring domestic workers. I know if I were at risk of being laid off, I'd be willing to take a sizable paycut to avoid unemployment.
You need a job first. The only visa you can get for the US (same as other countries) without a job is a tourist visa, and it's illegal to work with that.
Trust me on this. You can't drink the water. The pollution is overwhelming and you'd never be able to afford to move back to the US, since you'll be making a fraction of the amount of money. Also, imagine working in Mumbai or Hydreabad (if it's still standing) and dealing with approximately 10x the amount of people and unregulated traffic than NYC or LA. On top of that, you have a third world country emergency system (good luck if you get sick or injured).
;-)
I know Indians will find my post possibly offensive, but I've been there. It's like being on another planet and if you want major culture shock, go ahead. The poverty and pollution will make you jump on a plane back to the US in a minute.
Besides, all the programmers and engineers will be smarter than you anyway, so why bother.
Food, clothing, entertainment and services are much cheaper. Method of transportation depends upon location. And with the job, you'd be middle class or higher. You'd definitely afford laptops and internet access. The range between the poor and rich is huge in India. But you would be on the higher end, so I don't think you'd have to worry.
In times like these, it is helpful to remember that there have always been times like these. - Paul Harvey
FUD. No country in the world will allow people to just stroll jauntily in like they are visiting Mom. Do you think it is any different for the US? Try getting a visa to the US telling the consular officer that you want to emigrate and see just how fast you are laughed out of the office. You need to show a purpose to move to any country - and emigration is just not good enough for any country.
The H1B work cvisa is just that - a work visa. You *need* to have a *job* before the *employer* applies for a H1B on your behalf. Learn how the system works before digging up crap on the Net.
I believe it was the other way around - without being hired, you can't get a visa.
That's right (you can get a tourist visa but can't work on it), and it's the same in every other country I know of including the US. Just recently I heard of a German (a senior 70-year-old professor from a well-known university) who did not realise he needed a work visa for a short (under 3 month) teaching stint, and tried to enter under the visa waiver programme showing his invitation papers; he was arrested, kept in night for a jail and deported. Now that's barbaric. Ironically if he hadn't shown the papers they'd probably have let him in, it's just that his hosts couldn't have paid him then.
They had a lot of pressure from their parents and family to return and the availability of jobs finally convinced them.
In addition, to the higher standard of living in Indian, they had the opportunity to buy a house (impossible in Britain on their wages) and a family. One of the fellows had an arranged marriage waiting for him when he returned.
These fellows are not software sweat-shop or call-center detritus. They are gifted database developers who left Britain to return to India. They were a real asset to the company.
This country made it difficult for them to stay and the change in Indian economy made it easy for them to return.
Sorry to break it to you, but your proposal is what I liken to a 'death spiral' to the economy here.
I am a software developer. I ALREADY have an engineering degree(Aerospace), I have 15 years experience in rockets, hardware and software of all kinds. Exactly HOW much MORE education do I need???
People already ARE NOT seeing a return on investment for expensive college degrees NOW. Your answer is to spend MORE? Thats insane and consumers are not going to buy that, literally.
So as all our high paying white collar jobs leave, so does TAX revenue, with no TAX revenue, DARPA type RESEARCH simply is not going to happen. Less research, less innovation (except for M$). Less innovation, less jobs, less TAX revenue and less consumer spending.
JoeR
I've always wondered about people like you. What do you do to survive? I mean, obviously you're making do since you've been here for 20 years.
What do you do for work? Or how else do you manage to have a place to live and go to school at the same time? The only people I've seen live like that are wealthy.
I'm mostly curious because even being a normal working American is often very difficult to make do. I'm wondering if there is an easier way or something.
And let's start right here and now with getting our collective shit together:
Say it with me now, "lose."
You can be loose like pants or an oversized shirt
after you lose some weight.
Those of us in IT departments really need to get over the idea of being entitled to job security. Why is the "jobless recovery" jobless? Because of increased productivity, i.e., companies can do more with fewer people. Where does increased productivity come from? Many places, but one of the main places is from the automation that IT departments provide. We have been putting other folks out of jobs at a furious rate. We don't have typing pools or mailrooms or nearly as many administrative assistants and customer reps because of email, web sites, and other stuff that comes out of IT.
We rationalize it by saying those jobs sucked anyway...and it's probably true...but many people were depending on those sucky jobs to pay their bills and feed their families. If it's wrong for your boss to save money by exporting your job to India, then it's wrong for your boss to save money by replacing someone else's job with code that you wrote or an application that you administer. If you believe that the people that you helped to displace eventually found other, better jobs, then you have to believe that that is what you will have to do when the time comes.
I don't like this, I don't like saying it, and I don't like management, but it's totally hypocritical to expect mercy after we have acted as executioners for so many years.
And, finally, we don't even have a nuclear power on our southern border sending troops into disputed territories and claiming that parts of our country belongs to them.
Hey Mr. Geography, India's southern border is the Indian Ocean.
As for your other point, both Canada AND Mexico have sent troops into your country due to border disputes: please see the US-Mexico war, the war of Texas Independance and the war of 1812 (or the border dispute of the Alaskan pan-handle).
just = (My)Opinion.toCents();
10,000 Rs equal about 222 dollars not 2000 dollars. You may have rework your math and conclusions ...
(One $ buys about 45 rupees.)
So, you can't really save $3000. To save $3000 you would have to be saving Rs 135,000 every month. Some people make this kind of money, but not as many as you seem to believe.
.
To see a world in a grain of sand, and then to step back and see the beach where the sand lies
Yay! No more poverty, disease, or corruption! Thanks to some nebulous feel-good bullshit Friedman fervently believes, India is no longer "a synonym for massive poverty."
The good timing starts with India's decision in 1991 to shuck off decades of socialism and move toward a free-market economy with a focus on foreign trade. This made it possible for Indians who wanted to succeed at innovation to stay at home, not go to the West.
So, starting in 1991, "Indians who wanted to succeed at innovation" no longer had to leave India. Uh huh, cool. I always like how Friedman is able to ignore distracting facts and cut through the haze of reality to make his rhetorical points.
His conclusion:
As one Indian exec put it to me: The Americans' self-image that this tech thing was their private preserve is over. This is a "wake-up call" for U.S. workers to redouble their efforts at education and research. If they do that, he said, it will spur "a whole new cycle of innovation, and we'll both win. If we each pull down our shutters, we will both lose."
Empty bullshit pure as the driven snow.
UNIX Systems Administration Guru (4 positions) ...[more]
Unique opportunity for UNIX gurus to enhance and apply their sysadmin proficiency by working with a team of cutting-edge UNIX experts to manage world-wide enterprise class servers. Exposure to system
Career Level: Mid Career (2+ years of experience)
Education Level: Bachelor's Degree-Graduate Degree (BA, BSc, BCom)
Job Type: Employee
Job Status: Full Time
Salary: From 700,000.00 to 1,000,000.00 INR per year
I got all excited until I saw the conversion rate
Live mid-market rates as of 2004.03.12 18:21:57 GMT.
1,000,000.00 INR India Rupees = 22,104.33 USD United States Dollars
1 INR = 0.0221043 USD
1 USD = 45.2400 INR
DOH! Granted I could probably live well on 22k in India, but I'd miss good baseball and p0rn
Why worry? Each of us is wearing an unlicensed "nucular" accelerator on his back.
Sig changed for readability by G.W.
That's not barbarism! Try this on for size if you want to read about barbaric immigration practices.
http://talkleft.com/new_archives/000727.html
Be happy. Nothing else matters.
When Kerry gets elected this kind of crap will be put to an end. Stop exporting American jobs to India!!! Vote Kerry and get Bush the hell out of office!
Riiiight. Because no H1B's were ever issued when Clinton was in office.
God invented whiskey so the Irish would not rule the world.
Typically, the most senior or the oldest male is the person with the most authority.
Behave and dress in a low key and conservative manner - no bare shoulders or too-short skirts - and avoid the stereotype of Western women as aggressive and sexually forward. Since some Indians may be uncomfortable making physical contact with a woman, unless they offer to shake hands, it is better to stick to say "Hello" as a form of greeting.
Snippets from the the links on Monster.I think this Naomi Klein commentary ads a dimension to Friedman's commentary: http://rabble.ca/columnists_full.shtml?x=30806
Those people are technically correct: there's a rule enforced by the Securities and Exchange Commission saying that corporations MUST behave in a manner that optimizes value to shareholders. It would probably be GOOD if corporations existed to serve society, but that's not how corporate law is currently wired up. (Also, there'd probably be quite a bit of disagreement about what constitutes "serving" society.)
WWJD for a Klondike Bar?