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Life on the Other End of the Tech Support Line

Posted by ryuzaki0 on from the better-than-some-gigs dept.

Ant writes to mention a PC World article about life on the other end of the tech support line. From the article: "According to interviewees, entry-level jobs at U.S. tech support firms pay about $7 an hour. Workers for a third-party tech support firm in New Delhi, India, make less than half that. Akanksha Chaand, who holds an advanced degree in computer science and had a job fielding calls for Hewlett-Packard at Business Processing Outsourcing in New Delhi, India, made the equivalent of $13,000 a year working in tech support--significantly more money than many less fortunate people in India earn. In contrast, a tech support pro who now lives in Arizona says she was barely scraping by on her $7-an-hour salary with no benefits. The rep, who asked that her name not be used, said it was only a bit better than her previous job--delivering pizzas. She said she received two weeks of training before taking calls from the public. "

2 of 337 comments (clear)

  1. Ofcourse... by GillBates0 · · Score: 4, Informative
    ...comparing salaries in absolute Dollar terms (as the article summary does) makes _no_ sense, really without taking into account the Purchasing Power Parity. In short, $1.00 would go significantly further in India than it would in the US.

    As a rough of comparison, a loaf of bread which costs $2.50 in the US costs a little less than 25 Indian Rupees ($0.50). US $13000 is a little less than 600k INR which by all means is quite a _comfortable_ if not princely salary to get by in India.

    --
    An Indian-American Hindu committed to non-violent thought/speech/action alarmed by the global explosion of radical Islam
  2. Link to the actual article by demongp · · Score: 5, Informative

    The blurb links to the Digg page for the story, not the actual article: http://www.pcworld.com/news/article/0,aid,125537,0 0.asp