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Westerners Migrating to India for Jobs
shonagon53 writes "The BBC reports that quite a few young European tourists stick around in India to work for eSolutions companies who contract outsourced work from European companies. The salaries are mediocre, but you get free housing, great food, snacks à volonté and a free taxi ride to work each morning.
Is this the first wave of the much anticipated reverse-migration which will be a hallmark of the 21st century?"
So how does that work as far as work visas are concerned? Does the company also arrange for the correct visas or are the "tourists" technically working there illegally?
I've worked in the U.S., Japan, and now Germany. In a few years time, I hope to move to India to work for a little while, then head back to Australia to do what I can to build up the national market for technology
Globalization is a reality, folks. You can either:
a) pretend it doesn't exist,
b) complain about it, or
c) live in it, as a globalist individual
I chose c). If big-corp's are gonna go multi-national, so am I. The days of stick-dwelling are over
Move or die.
; -- the corruption of government starts with its secrets. a truly free people keep no secrets. --
You are so wrong. I work as a manager in a "cheaper" country of "unskilled monkeys" who are actually well trained, speak several languages fluently, work normal hours, develop IP instead of just taking outsourced work, win international awards for interesting products (two so far) and in no way do the "button pushing" you refer to. Frankly anyone who thinks like you is in for a big big shock in the next ten years.
Where do i sign up? Last summer I was looking for a consulting position to liason between India and the States. No luck, and I'm sure the biggest part of my flopped idea was not reaching the right people in India - I went through Monster.com's listings for positions in India. Any suggestions on how I would reach organizations looking for ppl who would be willing to travel between the two countries?
The only PT Boat Journal on the web: http://www.PT171.org
It's terribly biased, perhaps even racist to think that someone is unskilled just because he hails from a country like india.
IMO outsourcing is itself a marriage between the very technology that tech-jobs produce, and capitalist drive for maximum profits at minimum expense. The Internet has made telecommuting feasible, even across continents and as a result we end up with a rather unbalanced situation.
If anything, perhaps outsourcing will help the global economy attain a little bit more homogenity.
It just seems like a bunch of 20-something "kids" who are backpacking around the world and trying to stay solvent. It hardly seems any different from the fact that every youth hostel I stayed in during a brief trip to Australia was also staffed (nearly 100%) with non-Australians. Oddly, there was fairly little outcry about the loss of hostel-desk-clerk-jobs to those damn Europeans.
I doubt they're making a huge dent in the overall world of outsourcing. Here in Canada more than 10% of the company where I work is people from outside of Canada, but that's not considered odd. Why would it be considered odd for there to be foreigners working in India? There's probably a lot going for those Indian cities. And has anyone ever eaten out in Switzerland? The food alone would motivate me to leave the country. I like cheese, sure, but come on - a whole meal consisting of cheese? No wonder all those Swiss kids are going to India.
True story:
A friend of mine, a Rwandese educated at Harvard, worked for a US legal firm. One day he was asked to go on a long-term mission to Nigeria for an oil firm client. He balked, quoting Nigeria's reputation for danger. He was offered a nice bonus, travel costs, and so he went. When I visited him in Lagos, he had installed himself in a nice house, with a cook, driver, security guards. He played golf twice a week, spent the weekends at the beach, and too many evenings at the clubs in Victoria Island.
Every few months he would return to head office, and make a report. His report would inevitably end with remarks about the insecurity in Lagos, the need for constant armed protection, the power cuts and the lack of facilities. Since his work was bringing in lots of money, his firm inevitably gave him a pay rise and extended his mission.
Expatriates tend to suffer from diseases of luxury. They don't pay taxes, their savings go 10-100 times further, they get privileged positions, and if good, they are valued for their expertise and cultural baggage.
The only problem: they tend to die divorced and alcoholic. Decadence is too cheap in some places!
Sig for sale or rent. One previous user. Inquire within.
I've sugested on
I for one could go for a summerhouse in Kashmir.
As the article points out, raw salary isn't everything.
Now I'm the grandest Tiger in the Jungle!
I'll go whereever there's work. I can't seem to get a break around here (houston), so I'm ready to go anywhere I can get a piece of the pie. As of late I've been wanting to get out of the US anyways, not soley due to the election.
You're nothing; like me.
When I read Symbiosis on a stop-by at Kuala Lumpur Airport, see http://www.symbiosisonline.com/, I got the feeling that the Technology Park in KL is trying to attract Western Engineers by providing them with a luxurious working environment in regard to comfort, personal care and resources, even if the payment probably is mediocre. :-)
See also http://www.tpm.com.my/ .
If I had to choose between a stressful job/high payment and an offer from there, I could still easily be tempted to go to Malaysia
The large corporation I work for is currently outsourcing all UK development to India.
One interesting facet is that people whose roles are being relocated to India have the option of joining the Indian company involved. Their role would still be in India, and so they would be based there, but they would keep their UK salary.
We're all currently discussing:
- how good your standard of living would be in India on a UK salary
- how long it would take for the Indian company to make you redundant (currently guess: 4 hours)
- what the Indian employment laws are like
All good fun,
~Cederic
...beyond work if you live a life as a "nomad"? That's crap! It's the 21st century man! Communications technology makes physical location nearly irrelevant. Many of my family members and friends travel extensively and have made good friends with fellow nomads all over the world. IM and email are good for keeping in touch--you should try using them sometimes. My girlfriend's brother met an Aussie nomad in Vancouver, now ehty arte engaged to be married in Australia. They both have friends and family on three continents. All my more nomadic friends manage to stay in touch and some even meet up several times a year--sometimes in locations that are neither person's "home"!
A nomadic lifestyle isn't for everyone, so if you prefer to put down roots somewhere there is always telecommuting--that is essentially what workers in India, Ireland, Canada and other outsourcing hotspots are doing for their parent companies anyways.
The Aussie is right--this is an era of globalisation and you'd better get used to it. It is sad that the US, a country historically known for its pioneering spirit and innovation, has become more whiny, inward-looking and reactionary than the average country with respect to immigration. The US got where it is today beause of immigration from all over the world. It seems selfish in this day and age to expect the rest of the world shouldn't be able to benefit from immigration as well.
Hey, if Darwin's theory works in nature expect it in the economy as well. The US will adapt or die. India and other developing nations have been closer to death and have simply started adapting faster. In the end it'll all even out--unless of course politics unduly interferes and fouls up the balance of things.
Here are some more information based on people I know:
I had 2 coworkers go back to their home country (China) because they find the opportunities are better there now. They both had green cards and stable employment here yet choose to go.
I had 1 coworker who wanted to leve computer programming field because be belived the reward to work ratio was too low compared to many other professions.
I know one guy who is in college and came with his parents and now has a green card. Yet the only computer science internship he could find was back in his home country for the summer.
Another person who became a citizen here had an offer from work to start offshore office in his home country at roughly the same salary as here. Otherwise he could stay here and travel a lot. He choose to stay here are the rest of his family is accustomed to living here.
I guess what we are seeing here is a kind of equilibrium mechanism. At one time all the good jobs were in the US (or "Western" contries in general) so there was a mad rush for people to get here. Now things have been shifting to be more equal and the migration is trickling the other way.
I'm presently on the move from Alberta to British Columbia for work, so yes, migration can also happen without leaving your own country. There has always been a place for mobile professionals in the world -- in the 1800s they were explorers, fur traders and mercenaries, in the 1900s they were generally business men, and in the 2000s they are engineers and exotic dancers.
-AD
And Buddhists are worse than Mormons, Scientologists, or Jehovah's Witnesses? I can't recall the last time a Buddhist knocked on my door trying to save my soul from reincarnation as a worm, a bird, or some other lower form of life like, say, you.
Actually, an Indian engineer gets about $20K starting salary. Given the prices of things in India, that's about the equivalent of a $50K salary. You can't buy a hummer on that salary, but you wouldn't WANT one in Indian city traffic. My friend Sumit has a tiny little car, and even so, one of us had to get out to STOP TRAFFIC so we could get through.
Don't piss off The Angry Economist
From what I can tell, this is just call center stuff for the 20-somethings, not an opportunity for middle age coders, sysadmins, and DBAs. Too bad, I'd love to go to India.
"Who are in control, they are not in control of anything - they don't even control themselves!" - Glen Beck
I can't see India being some big party place with women with loose morals.
From which we can deduce you've never been to India.
Where life is cheap, hard and poor, but there are also the fabulously wealthy, is always a big party place with women with loose morals.
If you don't believe me you can test this hypothesis without ever leaving the good ol' US of A.
Just visit Detroit.
KFG
do the chicks there put out for white, geeky american guys? if so, then i'd consider a career in India.
"hey, could you pass me a paper towel? er.. I mean... DEPLOY ABSORBTION PANEL!"
I would have to say that Americans have a stronger sense of family than other countries
Sorry, but unless you can back this up I'm gonna have to disagree, having lived in America and Europe. Thanksgiving is actually proof of a weak sense of family - it says they need a national holiday as excuse before they can do something together. For the rest of year, people pretty live individually, most noticable in the fact that many American families don't even eat dinner together.
I have quite the involved family here in Belgium. If I'm at home, I'll eat with my family (which is every weekend). I'll stop by at one uncle's for breakfast, then spend the evening at another's place. We have two family reunions every year, and my grandparents regularly have big dinner parties, especially if it's their birthday.
If I don't see a family member for two weeks, that's already a long time...
I got nothing against the Americans - hell, I'm moving back there next year - but they do not have a strong sense of family at all, due to the individualistic culture.
Jw
But US citizens, famously provincial, could benefit from living and working abroad. No, you won't earn as much money, and you may find it hard to keep up with the latest pensées of Bill O'Reilly, and you'll have to learn to be tolerant and respectful of other cultures; but that seems like a decent trade-off, especially if the new migration creates better world citizens who can bring a measure of insight back to their own society.
Probably it's too late for those in their 30s and 40s, who, having show determination to vote against their own economic interests, now face being relegated to lower-paying jobs and ultimately being forced out of the field by the very corporate interests who control their politicians. But the new generation coming along could try this. Remember, kids: buy your airline tickets before you're drafted. Better an adventure next Spring in New Delhi than in Fallujah.
Happy Thanksgiving!
If you look at the real ex-pat community, you find them in exotic but different places, where instead of earning less they earn much more than their "home" wages. Until recently that meant some wealthy arab emmerate where unless you lived in a company 50's style compound with you family your social life wasn't so great but after a few years you could return with ten years western wages saved.
The current analog for the western working class would be those folks from Mississippi or Liverpool working as a civilian contractors in Iraq. Not much of a life while they are there but if they survive, they will come home with several years wages in the bank.
Funny thing that family stuff.
I moved to Canada with my father and stepmom back in 1980 from Scotland, leaving behind my mother and a few siblings.
I haven't seen them since then, I have communicated with my mom a bit but we don't really keep in steady contact of any sort.
Of course this seperation not only from my real mom but also from the rest of our extended family has really left me with little sense of family life at all.
Right now I live in a different province than my dad, they are 1000km from me. I talk to them on the phone maybe every other month. They recently came to visit my wife and I, first time they had been here in 4 years. I have been to visit them once in the last 10 years.
My sense of family togetherness is all but gone, I spend little time with my wife's family too and they have a hard time understanding that it isn't them but me as I just don't get into family functions that much. Likely because I all but stopped having them at 13 when we moved here.
Do I miss it? Sure, but at the same time I realize life goes on, I realize I need to fend for myself through life anyway. Then again, my dad was never all that supportive, he was never the type I could turn to if I needed help financially, etc.
My wife's parents on the other hand are the complete opposite. They would help in an instant if we asked. She talks to them daily, etc.
A well-off USA-resident Indian sysadmin friend of mine, when back in India briefly two years ago (either ND or Mumbai), had to deal with obtaining proper medical care for her middle-class (or better) India-resident father.
He needed non-emergency corrective surgery related to a broken leg.
I can accept that the surgeons insisted on being paid cash, in advance.
But the hospital required that *she* personally make the trips between the hospital and the blood-bank to obtain and transport the (NOT rare) blood needed for his surgery.
I'll pass, thank you.
Interesting and relevant statistic;
it costs more to purchase a condom in india than a woman willing to use it with you.
I spent a month in India, I didn't bother to even look for that side of things, but some girl on the street kissed me on the cheek and ran away for no apparent reason, so they can't be all *that* stuck up I guess.
I only found out about the condom vs prostitute cost after leaving India, not that I would have taken advantage of said fact having had known it prior to this, however if you're the type of person who's idea of fun is getting drunk and fucking women with loose morals (and I'm not being down on you here, that's fine with me) then I assume the above information would mean you would be reasonably satisfied.
So why the heck you even bother to post? Why don't you leave us alone and do whatever heck you do. People like you should never be trusted. Don't tell what you just wrote to your own mother. Even she will not be able to digest what you have become. If Mahatma Gandhi had thought like you, just imagine where you would be now. I live in a western country. From past few years. But for me now I have two homes.
The problem with your argument is..
Maids in India always live in slums..
My mom has had like 40 maids in my lifetime (24 yrs) and they have always come from slums.
Trust me, if you think you are doing these women any favour by hiring them to clean and cook you are sadly mistaken. Currently my mom in india pays her maid @20$ a month which is the very high end in India. In my undergrad years I paid my cleaning maid 5$ (FIVE) a month.
In many cases their husbands are deserters drunkards and general losers who make their life difficult by beating, taking their money etc.My undergrad tution was 300$ a year. Plus books plus other expense.HOW do her children get educated, get 'proper' upbringing with a 50$ a month (600$ a year) salary?
All maids my mom had were illiterate. I remember one maids daughter got married somewhere at the age of 9-12 (I dont remember, but she was pretty young).
My mom-dad have tried to educate the maids children by paying for their Govt school (if you can call it a school) or tutoring them. But most of them are not interested in educating their children...they dont understand it.
There are many such people in India who live totally fucked lives. Yes, and I call this exploitation. I have no solution for this, but I can tell you that its totally wrong to say its somehow any good for these women (and men) to slave like this.
In fact, since coming to the US, I've come to very much appreciate the fact that many well off people will do their own laundry and cleaning and cooking... even I've learnt to cook after coming here.
Another thing for comparision...In the US, my former landlords spring cleaning maid came in a new SUV. My landords an average US midde class fellow by the way.