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$4,400/Yr. Coders May Work On Dept. of Labor Project

Posted by kdawson on from the living-wage dept.

theodp writes "To power the Tools for America's Job Seekers Challenge, the US Department of Labor tapped IdeaScale, a subsidiary of Survey Analytics, which is headquartered in Seattle with satellite offices in Nasik, India and Auckland, NZ (PDF). According to the Federal Register (PDF), an Emergency OMB Review was requested to launch the joint initiative of the DOL, White House, and IdeaScale to help out unemployed US workers. A cached Monster.com ad seeks candidates to work on the development and maintenance of ideascale.com, but in India at an annual salary of Rs. 200,000 to 300,000 ($4,4000 to $6,600 US). BTW, an earlier White House-sponsored, IdeaScale-powered Open Government Brainstorm identified legalizing marijuana as one of the best ways to 'strengthen our democracy and promote efficiency and effectiveness.'" There's no guarantee that Indian workers recruited by that Monster.com ad would work on US Department of Labor projects.

3 of 418 comments (clear)

  1. But, it's the Free Market, right? by GodfatherofSoul · · Score: 4, Interesting

    Sure, it might be driving down wages and benefits for Americans and allowing other nations to leverage our infrastructure for their profit, but isn't that just one of the perks of being a Friedmannite economy?

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    I swear to God...I swear to God! That is NOT how you treat your human!
  2. Fine, just make it fair by iamacat · · Score: 4, Interesting

    If I have to complete with $5K/year Indian programmers, I have a right to lower my living costs by outsourcing my yard maintenance to an $3/hour undocumented mexican gardener. Or by outsourcing my software purchases to $0/hour piratebay. I know there are good arguments about both of these pursuits, but then there are similar ones about skirting US labor laws by outsourcing. What's good for the goose is good for the gander.

  3. Re:Good job? But he's wrong! by TheLink · · Score: 3, Interesting

    I'm in a 3rd world country and the top bosses in my ex-company outsourced some work to India.

    A number of those guys were paid more or about the same as us, but most of them weren't very good at what we required them to do. They might have been much better at "VB/Java business apps".

    Our experience with them was they'd say "Yes" but too often it won't be true. Honesty is important when you are trying to get technical things done (diplomacy is important when you are trying to get political things done ;) ).

    FWIW their ex-chairman is now in prison for massive fraud.

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