Slashdot Mirror
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?
...so now I've got to listen to a European stoner when I call my bank :-(
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. --
Recently heard in downtown Mumbai: "Those damn foreigners are taking our jobs!!"
Q. What is Calvin's monster snowman called? A. The Torment Of Existence Weighed Against The Horror of Non Being
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
Maybe they'll drive salaries up over there and they'll be forced to outsource the jobs to the U.S.
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.
We've been trying to outsource lawyers for ages. No one else wants 'em.
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
If each country is going to be good at something in the global market, and everyone is carving out their niche, I say let India be the land of cubicles and tech support. More power to em.
I also would like to make a call now to solidify our position as the world leader in strippers.
Government Subsidize Gold Poles NOW!
There's nothing Intelligent about Intelligent Design.
Radiologists are getting outsourced because x-ray machines produce shitty images and there simply aren't enough radiologists being trained to meet demands in the US & Canada.
Invent a better x-ray machine and you could put radiologists out of business faster than you could break a leg.
Notice how dedicated radio operators have gone the way of the dodo? Telephone operators? People who add up bills manually? Some day radiologists will be in the same bucket as buggy whip manufacturers.
Most european countries have substantial socialist components to thier governments. This means that when these people quit working they'll have
-Free healthcare
-It won't be nearly as expensive (in most cases) for their children to attend university in europe
-In some countries, they'll be given a pension to live off of when they retire
In the U.S., things are a bit different. You have a retirement fund that you need to plug money into. You need to save for your kid's college education. You need health insurance. Now, you might be able to live quite well in India if work there, but the salary that you get is so small compared to what you recieve if you worked in the U.S., that you really won't be able to provide money for any of these things. I dunno, it might be a good experience for a couple of years, but as an American, I wouldn't plan on sticking around if I did it.
Aussies commonly take a year or two travel vacations during their lives. The popular ages are just after school and when the kids are gone.
Amerians are so hard up about working and consuming they miss the important things in life.
Great..... And you could have done that back in the 80's, too. I'm talking the 1880's.
What you're talking about is NOT "Globalization". You've only been hitting the 1st world countries.
Globalization is about exploiting the 3rd world countries. Go and live there for a few years and see if your attitude doesn't change.
The article talks about very few foreigners coming to India and taking up jobs in call centres. Just one or two isolated incidents really dont show that people from europe are actually migrating to India. Also call centres dont offer too high pays as compared to the Indian IT companies and the work experience gained is also of little value. Also one doesnt know for how much time call centres will be around in India, so they are really thought of as temporary sources of income which mainly students use as a source of pocket money.
If they are coming here and taking our jobs and we are going there and taking theirs... why dont we just work in our own countries. Article doesnt make any sense or would more aptly be titled "Westerners who like to travel take temporary jobs while wandering." rather than reverse immigration.
I was crazy back when being crazy really meant something. (Charles Manson)
Even if 'the company' is supposed to take care of your visa, it pays to follow up on your own. This advice courtesy the guy who left Ecuador at the unpleasant end of a gun because the company he was working for FUCKED UP!.
In addition to Ecuador, I've worked in China, Japan, Phillipines, Fiji, Tonga, Hong Kong, and Singapore. I hired on outside the USA. Most friends who are working or have worked expat. have hired on outside their home country.
Want an overseas job, take a vacation, get to know the place, visit the company you want to work for. Hang out in the right bars.
Now I'm the grandest Tiger in the Jungle!
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
This is a "work visa". Not citizenship.
The kids going over there are working for a salary and, eventually, will be sent back to their home country. It's easy to explain with two examples.
#1. Euro-kid goes to India and works for 2 years. He makes a "mediocre" wage (1/10th what he'd make back home). He banks it all and lives on cheap rice, curry and lentils. After 2 years he goes home with $X (or whatever his currency is). $X is 1/10 that he'd make in 2 years at home under the same conditions.
#2. Indian guy goes to the US and works for 2 years. He makes a "mediocre" wage for a US job (still 10x what he'd make back home). Banks it all, eats rice, curry and lentils. After 2 years he, goes home. He now has 10x the money he'd have after 2 years of working in India.
The effective difference is 100x between the two.
Work visas are only good for making money in a wealthy country and then going home to a poor country. They suck for working in a poor country and then going home to a wealthy country.
Right-O.
I'm certain that that expensive "Western"
college education that you borrowed money
to get can EASILY be paid off with the big
paycheck you're going to get from that Indian
IT company. And the storage company that you
trusted all of your worldly possessions with
will happily accept rupees, and a 1/10 of the
per month agreed to storage payment. Oh, and
God help you if you should get sick while over
there working in India -- most Western medical
plans will not cover your overseas "deployment".
(Well, you could rely on the herbal remedies
available locally -- just put enough money aside
to have your body shipped home to Mum and Pop.)
Thanks, but no thanks.
Of course.. You can eat snacks.. Stock options are only useful for after-snacking :-)
...you obviously haven't been watching the USD lately.
Shoot Pixels, Not People!
...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.
God help you if you should get sick while over
there working in India -- most Western medical
plans will not cover your overseas "deployment".
(Well, you could rely on the herbal remedies
available locally -- just put enough money aside
to have your body shipped home to Mum and Pop.)
Actually, India is becoming somewhat of a medical tourist destination, you probably won't have to worry about medical bills and health insurance so much if you "self-insure" -- the health insurance companies don't seem to have their claws in the system over there like they do in the US so medicine is still reasonably affordable, especially for someone with a decent (indian) job.
When information is power, privacy is freedom.
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
Many people live a fair distance from their families, myself included.. I'm willing to move for work but i'm not willing to traverse continents.. The further you live from Family the less you see them.. IM, emailing or talking on the phone isn't the same as being there with them. You miss out on ALOT of stuff.. If you don't agree with that then you don't have a sense of family or you haven't live away from them long enough to realize.
I've lived away from home for 7 years now.. and I miss it more and more each day... I've missed so much i'm afraid i'm going to regret it down the road.. i'm already starting to regret it now.
"Thanks to the remote control I have the attention span of a gerbil."
You are counting the 10X factor twice, and multiplying them. This is wrong.
Look at it from the point of view of one country or the other, not both.
Let's say the guy arrives back to India and compares his lot with the European, who is about to leave. He has saved 10 times as much as the European. End of story.
${YEAR+1} is going to be the year of Linux on the desktop!
He is not pushing for more illegal workers... He's just trying to get them to be treated as human beings.
As you might now southern U.S. states are very mexican-unfriendly even when a U.S. company sponsors a mexican or if a mexican wants to go shopping to the U.S. you get stupid comments by immigration people like: 'how's the crop this year?'
It just shows that no matter where you are from education means everything.
My penguin ate my sig
Very good points. The problem is that capitalism hasn't got any checks and balances. People, as a whole, are to short-sighted to realize what they are doing to themselves until it is to late.
Everyone wants cheaper stuff so companies find ways to make cheaper stuff which requires them either reduce the quality, reduce their own profit margins, or pay less to produce the same items. To some degree they do reduce the quality but that can only go so far before people don't want the items anymore. Those in charge can't reduce their profit margins because if they do they'll be removed from control of the company and someone else will be put in their place. That means they have to reduce the cost of producing the items. That means more automation and cutting back on the wages they are paying. So, to simplify, lower prices mean fewer jobs and lower wages. Sure, we can't all afford to buy a Porshe but you should think about the companies that make the products you buy when comparing products. The Walmart-economy will cut all our throats. You'll notice that they no longer mark everything at Walmart as 'Made in the USA.'. There is good reason for that. Demand more locally made products and demand that more of the companies you buy from pay fair wages to their employees. IMO it's okay if a product is made in India, if I can't get the same product made locally, but I want to know the people making that product are earning a comparable living wage to those that live in the US.
I think the US needs to boost it's education system too. Highschool degrees have become almost worthless because highschool graduates aren't required to know anything. We don't pay our teachers enough so we don't have enough teachers and many that we do have are not that well educated. Also I think that as long as highschool degrees are worthless for getting jobs that the government should make free public colleges for getting your Bachelors degree. There should be no extra paperwork or requirements - it should be as easy as signing up to highschool. We should make it easier for everyone to get advanced degrees also.
Without correcting those problems we're going to have our asses kicked by globalization. A lot of people think the US will always be a world power but that is just arrogance. It's all to easy to fall from greatness if you don't make an effort to maintain that position.
At what price learning? At what cost wisdom? The price is a man's peace of mind, and the cost is his life.
Nevermind that in Canada (land of free health care plagued by long wait times), people are starting to setup surgery-tourist packages to Indian hospitals, all-expenses paid including hotel, 1-month of follow up and a tour for something stupid like $5,000.
Apparently the hospitals that rich people in India go to are world-class and offer care at 1/10th the cost.
So I wouldn't rule out India's health care system so quickly.
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!"
Easiest way to avoid diarrhea is to cook your own, and cook it well. All you want to to is to kill bacteria and other germs in your food and water. Frying or boiling are the best ways to do this.
Or buy something takeaway and microwave it yourself. Microwave is a little unreliable unless you have the new inverter design ones which have stepless power adjustment. Long steady sterilization does it. 1 minute on full micro power may leave cool unsterilized pockets in your food. 1 min at 100% and 2 mins at 60% is better.
Always boil all of your water, even after buying that fancy ceramic water filter.
All of these simple lessons I've learn the hard way over the years in many countries, including developed ones.
If you need to eat out, take one strong aperitive before food, and one strong digestive after food. This may sound archaic to some but it really works wonders.
And chilling out after work in Holland really is second to none on this planet.
Actually, you call Dell.
Hallowed are the Ori
A lot of the jobs I've seen there were between US$2-$5/hr which sucks until you've been downsized here in the US and you're unemployment runs out. You could work for $5.75/hr or whatever minimum wage is here and be unable to pay for a house and food or you could move to India and work for a similar wage and have a house and food given to you. My rent for a small one bedroom apartment in Las Vegas is $1000/month. Having a comparable place for free would make the rest of my money go a lot further.
I'd be curious is to the quality of housing and food they have. My apartment is expensive IMO but it really isn't very nice. The buildings are cheap and probably don't even meet the legal standards of saftey. There isn't much space. Short of dirt floors and lots of bugs I doubt that the free places in India could be much worse.
At what price learning? At what cost wisdom? The price is a man's peace of mind, and the cost is his life.
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.
That the European welfare states are collapsing-- but they just keep plugging along.
But not as well as Britain after Britain made their economy more market-oriented.
Is Capitalism Good for the Poor?