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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.

36 of 418 comments (clear)

  1. It's Worse Than You think! by eldavojohn · · Score: 5, Insightful
    Do you know that the servers the government purchased to run these have memor that's ... made in Taiwan! Where the average annual income for a factory worker is a paltry US$1,150.00 annually! And don't even get me started on where the plastic casings came for the keyboards, servers and mice that comprise these servers!

    I have this weird feeling that had they gone with American services for building these websites at 10x the cost of using IdeaScale, the Slashdot summary would have read about the absurdly high spending that the Department of Labor is wasting our tax dollars on and would have something about a cursory glance finding tons of companies willing to fullfill the work order for 1/10 what they spent. Damned if you do, damned if you don't. They picked the route that most CEOs today are picking and they saved us from more tax dollar expenditures. Pick your poison.

    And don't tell anybody but I think Obama's coffee mugs are ... MADE IN CHINA! Just like yours and mine! The horror!

    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.

    So because IdeaScale built an application to spec for the White House (who shouldn't have paid for it if it didn't meet requirements) and a bunch of pothead hippies turned up in full force to get their message out loud and clear on it, it's IdeaScale's fault? I think you'd be better off blaming the concept of democracy or the buzzword 'crowd-sourcing' as this is just kind of evidence of a technology-based bias of the voices.

    You criticize the White House for doing something we all do then you blame the wonderful effects of democracy on a web application?

    --
    My work here is dung.
    1. Re:It's Worse Than You think! by aengblom · · Score: 3, Insightful

      Thread over in one, good job.

      --


      So close and yet so far from the world's perfect ID number
    2. Re:It's Worse Than You think! by rotide · · Score: 5, Insightful

      I agree with most of what you said, but legalizing marijuana is not an idea only supported by "pothead hippies".

      I've never smoked _anything_, nor done any illegal drug in my life and I'm in full support of legalizing marijuana. I believe I'm not the only one out there either.

      Resources - Hemp is an awesome product all around (Paper, fabric, etc).
      Save money - Stop jailing people for negligible amounts of recreational marijuana (read: not for distribution).
      Save more money - Stop most of the ridiculous "war on drugs" and the exorbitant spending and manpower on the marijuana aspect of it.
      Make money - Taxation on marijuana just like cigarettes.

      Those are just a few tangible benefits.

      Only hippies support it indeed.

    3. Re:It's Worse Than You think! by Shadow+of+Eternity · · Score: 4, Informative

      Personally I'm in it if only for hemp jeans, those things are freakin indestructible compared to cotton.

      --
      A bullet may have your name on it but splash damage is addressed "To whom it may concern."
    4. Re:It's Worse Than You think! by pnewhook · · Score: 4, Informative

      Right on - awesome post.

      However the official white house coffee is Kona coffee grown and processed in Kona Hawaii. I've had some and it is amazingly good. At least something is still made in America.

      --
      Tesla was a genius. Edison however was a overrated hack who liked to torture puppies.
    5. Re:It's Worse Than You think! by Sebilrazen · · Score: 4, Funny

      If marijuana is ever legalized, I'm going to ensure I invest in any and all snack food company stocks I can.

      --
      "There are no facts, only interpretations." --Friedrich Nietzsche.
    6. Re:It's Worse Than You think! by CraftyJack · · Score: 5, Funny

      Thread over in one, good job.

      You'd have to be some sort of a Nazi to disagree.

    7. Re:It's Worse Than You think! by Monkeedude1212 · · Score: 3, Insightful

      You criticize the White House for doing something we all do then you blame the wonderful effects of democracy on a web application?

      It's the American Way. Shifting blame is pretty easy.

      Repeat after me. "I think its your fault".

      Now wasn't that fun?

    8. Re:It's Worse Than You think! by Jeeeb · · Score: 4, Informative

      Do you know that the servers the government purchased to run these have memor that's ... made in Taiwan! Where the average annual income for a factory worker [taipeitimes.com] is a paltry US$1,150.00 annually! And don't even get me started on where the plastic casings came for the keyboards, servers and mice that comprise these servers!

      Given Taiwan's status as almost a developed country $1150 annually seemed like a rather suspicious figure. So I read your linked article. It doesn't give a figure for factory workers but it puts the average worker at NT$36,564 per _month_. Or according to the first currency conversion site that came up on google about USD$1200 per month which is a hell of a lot higher than $1150 annually.

    9. Re:It's Worse Than You think! by mooingyak · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Save more money - Stop most of the ridiculous "war on drugs" and the exorbitant spending and manpower on the marijuana aspect of it.

      Not just the marijuana aspect. All aspects. Legalization would bring the price down by a hefty percentage, which would make marijuana even more attractive compared to the other choices. Plus, it's often argued that marijuana is a gateway drug... which I actually agree with. But why? It has a reputation as a relatively harmless substance. People are willing to buy it off of just about anyone. So you find a guy, you buy from him a few times, and when he's always delivered decent goods you start to have some faith in his products. You feel like trying something else, you go to the same guy who's been supplying marijuana to you. Now if you legalize that first guy stops being a dealer and instead is a corner deli that won't carry anything illegal. The dealer has lost a major trust building product. Of course this won't completely eliminate drug traffic (IMO, nothing ever will), but it'll make a bigger dent than anything else we could possibly do.

      --
      William of Ockham had no beard. The most likely explanation is that it was chewed off by squirrels every morning.
    10. Re:It's Worse Than You think! by PitaBred · · Score: 4, Insightful

      "Have you ever tried simply turning off the TV, sitting down with your children, and hitting them?" - Bender

      --
      My blog. Good stuff (when I remember to update it). Read it.
    11. Re:It's Worse Than You think! by Zero__Kelvin · · Score: 4, Insightful

      "If marijuana is ever legalized, I'm going to ensure I invest in any and all snack food company stocks I can."

      Maybe you were going for funny, but there are a surprising number of people who think that the law is what keeps people from smoking pot, shooting heroin, etc. They really believe that if the government suddenly legalizes heroin there will be a run for the pharmacy. It apparently never occurs to the that they aren't about to do so, and they are not "special" [ at least not in that way ;-) ], or that the people who are likely to do heroin are already doing it, law be damned.

      --
      Guns don't kill people; Physics kills people! - John Lithgow as Dick Solomon on Third Rock From The Sun
    12. Re:It's Worse Than You think! by ibbie · · Score: 3, Insightful

      Everyone I speak with agrees that pot should be legalised just like in the Netherlands. That way you can keep much better control over it.

      I agree that it should be legalized (pursuit of happiness and all that) but I'm not so sure that I buy the "you can keep much better control over it" line. When I was a kid I had no problems getting my hands on booze or tobacco and both of those products are legal. We always knew which store we could go to that wouldn't card us, which 21+ sibling of a friend would make a straw purchase and whose parents were too lazy to lock up the liquor cabinet.

      So no, I don't buy that legalizing pot would make it harder for the kiddies to get their hands on it. The only thing that will do that is parental involvement but I heard that went out of fashion a long time ago and the current trend is to rely on the TV and internet to raise your kids.....

      Keep in mind that "better control over it" isn't limited to keeping it away from under-age users. It also means the application of agricultural and consumer protection laws that we enjoy in regard to our legal vices.

      --
      The wise follow a damned path, for to know is to be forsaken.
  2. Increase American employment through outsourcing by caller9 · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Yeah, job one for creating American jobs is farming jobs out to India. Nice.

  3. Don't Worry... by cgenman · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Don't worry. I'm sure they'll be billed back to the Dept. of Labor at 100k per year, +20% finder's fee.

    --
    The ______ Agenda
  4. 200000 or 300000 in India is very low by middlemen · · Score: 5, Informative

    Rs. 200,000 or Rs. 300,000 is a very low salary in India. Junior programmers generally get paid at least Rs.500,000 to Rs.700,000

  5. When it comes to programming by Monkeedude1212 · · Score: 3, Insightful

    You get what you pay for.

    A lot of people tend to think that just because the person is over in India they'll be willing to work for a sub-average wage. Which, given regular circumstances, is generally true. Coding is another thing all together. If you live in a poverish state, you can't be expected to know C++. In fact it might be a stretch to say you know how to operate a computer. Those people who get hired for "Tech Support" aren't guru's by any means (and I think we all knew that). But they have been trained how to handle with customers, the basics of operating a computer, and are given a good list of responses. Programming is not something you can train "on the job". You need previous knowledge on the basics of computers. Then you need to learn a bit of program theory, how it all works. Lastly you need to learn the Syntax of various languages. A lot of people drop out when they can't deal with the Syntax. Some people drop out when they can't get the theory. Some people just don't like computers. You can't hire someone off the street and think that within a short time they'll be able to pick up all of those skills.

    That's not to say there aren't educated programmers that come from developing countries. Every once in a while a hard working family will be able to afford an education, and once they have that education, they usually fly stateside to make more money. They know that with their education they can be making way more money than 4400 USD a year. So they go and tack an extra digit to that paycheck, keep half and the other half is more than enough to either fly the family to the States or support them in India.

    Basically what it boils down to, they're going to get some guy who can talk the talk but not walk the walk. He'll agree to $4400 a year for as long as he can hold the job since he was only make $1000 a year back at his old job. Because anyone who knows what they're doing knows they are worth more.

  6. Fixed that for myself by Taedirk · · Score: 3, Funny

    US Department of Labor

    For some reason, I read this as Department of DAY Labor..

  7. Why So Flamebait, Chums? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

    What's with all the anti-administration flamebait recently? Yesterday, submitted as fact, were a set very dubious allegations that turned out to be false, surprising almost no-one. Today, we're supposed to get upset because an American company that also hires workers in India gets a contract to hire workers in America, and reprise the anger we felt when fratards overwhelmed a lackluster public response to an Obama administration suggestion box with their gormless suggestion to 'save the economy' by legalizing a plant that grows like a weed. What gives?

  8. 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?

    --
    I swear to God...I swear to God! That is NOT how you treat your human!
  9. full-time? really? by Lord+Ender · · Score: 5, Informative

    I have friends in India. I discussed IT salary differences with them. I said "this web page says you can get software engineers for $5k/year in India. Is that for real?"

    I was told that that's bullshit and that Indian professionals actually earn in excess of $20,000 per year. $5k/year would only buy interns with no education and no experience, from what my friends in Bangalore tell me.

    --
    A slashdotter who didn't build his own computer is like a Jedi who didn't build his own lightsaber.
    1. Re:full-time? really? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Insightful

      $20,000 in India only buys you slightly older developers with undergraduate degrees, five years experience and about the same quality of work. One enormous (really enormous, like freight train enormous...) American heartland transportation company found that every hour of time worked by an Indian subcontractor required at least 20 minutes of stateside integration and clean-up of the code, as well as correction of wrong logic in the unit tests. With 200 foreign contractors working 8 hours a day, the company needed 66 full-time local IT employees just to keep up with integration.

      When asked by an employee (a former foreign contractor herself who had naturalized) if he was concerned about the quality of the code coming from the contractors in Hyperbad, the CTO of the company gave a short and surprising answer (really short, like the length of a railroad spike, short). He said, "I don't care about the quality of the code. Do you know how much money we're saving?"

      It sounds to me like this company is in for a long ride (really long, like the length of a railroad track, long).

  10. Re:Increase American employment through outsourcin by batquux · · Score: 4, Funny

    In all fairness, America did intercept all the trade Europe was going to attempt with India back in Columbus' day.

  11. 4000/year ? youll only get college kids by unity100 · · Score: 5, Informative

    or script kiddies.

    4000/year is too low for getting even an average quality indian coder. i have to compete with indians in web development, i know how ridiculously low rates they pull sometimes, but these rates generally are placed in projects that can be somehow gobbled up from premade code. i dont think with 400/month you are going to get quality ppl. youll probably get some college kids in a high turnover sweat shop.

    --
    Read radical news here
  12. Call or e-mail your Congress-Person by catherder_finleyd · · Score: 4, Informative

    I would urge US slashdotters to call or e-mail your Congress-Person. If this is really true, it is a violation of US Federal Contracting standards. Generally, Federal IT contracts specify all workers on the contract to be either US Citizens or Permanent Residents.

  13. 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.

  14. The Inconvenient Truth by Concern · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Hey, I'm in the US, and it's obviously true. It's just inconveniently true.

    Our anti-pot drug policies eliminate any possibility of salutary tax revenue from an industry that's worth billions even as a black market. In addition to that, we have to catch, try and incarcerate pot growers, sellers, and users at staggering expense (also billions, when all is said and done).

    Pot is basically as harmless as alcohol, but since we force our educators and police to demonize it even while half of them use it themselves, we undercut the entire credibility of our anti-drug programs (which are important for helping kids avoid drugs that are actually dangerous). So not only do we get no tax on billions, but we spend billions, and we contribute to actual drug problems (at what additional cost I hesitate to guess).

    We could still try the tired argument that pot really is dangerous. We have to hope not, since a huge portion of the population admits to using it in studies. The Netherlands notwithstanding, three of our last three presidents have admitted to using various illegal drugs and got elected anyway.

    The open government brainstorming application worked perfectly. It distilled a set of great ideas directly from citizen activists with less lobbying, filtering and political BS.

    Legalizing pot would be a great idea. It would cut waste, generate revenue, empty prisons, improve the health and safety of the nation's youth. It's too bad Obama absolutely cannot and will not do it. It would be political suicide. And that gets us into analyzing the particular hues that the fascinating kaleidoscope of American politics puts over reality...

    Either way, you can't blame the app, or the app's developer for doing an unusually good job, just because the truth is embarrassing for the "national psyche."

    --
    Tired of Political Trolls? Opt Out!
    1. Re:The Inconvenient Truth by Concern · · Score: 4, Informative

      People always lump in users with sellers that are "thrown in jail" and I just don't believe it. I haven't heard of a person in the US going to Jail for just having a small amount of pot or smoking a joint. Unless you are a dealer, the cops and the feds don't even bother.

      First google result:

      "BJS officials also estimated that 42% of state "marijuana only" prisoners and 23% of federal "marijuana only" prisoners were incarcerated for possession, not "trafficking."[7] ("Trafficking" includes "possession with intent to distribute.") Applied to the previously calculated estimates, as adjusted for the June 1998 prisoner counts, there would be 7,400 state prisoners and 2,300 federal prisoners incarcerated for marijuana possession only, for a total of 9,700 prisoners."

      BJS is "Bureau of Justice Statistics." I found this at the first link in a Google search, something I presume you are capable of doing yourself.

      I'll skip the rest... unless you'd rather we go on?

      Try harder next time.

      --
      Tired of Political Trolls? Opt Out!
  15. You are off by a factor of 12 by dreadlord76 · · Score: 4, Informative

    The article you quoted states:

    >The average worker in Taiwan earns a monthly salary of NT$36,564, a slight increase from the same >period two years ago, a recent survey released by the Council of Labor Affairs (CLA) showed.

    That's $1142 USD a Month, not annually. That's comparable to the US minimum wage, but in a country you can have lunch for 1-2$ US. Compared with cost of living, it's not really a bad deal.

    Oh, and for folks working at Foxconn or Taiwan Semiconductor, their annual bonus this year is expected to be 6 month of salary. Any US tech companies giving out 6 months of bonus this year?

  16. Am I reading this right? by dwiget001 · · Score: 4, Funny

    The U.S. Government is essentially paying non-U.S. citizens to maintain a web-site for Americans seeking employment?

    Sorry, but my Irony Meter (TM) just pegged and is now completely non-functional.

  17. The whole article is a confusing non sequitur... by clone53421 · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Good god, that’s hard to follow. There are so many links I can’t tell which one is the main article, there are acronyms that I don’t recognise, and it’s not tied together at all. The flow of information just jumps from one thing to another with little apparent connection between them. It’s also incorrect.

    Let me see if I’m understanding this, and make it easier to follow...

    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.

    According to the Federal Register (PDF), an OMB (Office of Management and Budget) Emergency Review was requested to launch the “Jobs for America’s Job Seekers Challenge”, a joint initiative by the DOL, White House, and IdeaScale to help out unemployed US workers.

    Now we hit the first non sequitur... how is the development and maintenance of ideascale.com related to the Jobs for America’s Job Seekers Challenge?

    A Monster.com ad (cached) seeks candidates to work on the development and maintenance of ideascale.com — in India at an annual salary of Rs. 200,000 to 300,000 ($4,4000 to $6,600 US).

    The connection is – apparently – that the same people developing and maintaining the IdeaScale website will presumably also be designing the platform to “allow toolmakers and developers to present their free online job tools to workforce development experts and jobseekers for discussion, rating, and voting”. That’s a bit of a stretch, but okay. (As kdawson correctly pointed out, “There’s no guarantee that Indian workers recruited by that Monster.com ad would work on US Department of Labor projects.” Wait a second... did kdawson actually get something right? At any rate that still doesn’t make up for posting this atrocity to begin with.)

    Now we hit the second non sequitur... what does IdeaScale’s other contest/survey have to do with this one, other than being hosted by the same company? Does the results of a previous survey on how to “strengthen our democracy and promote efficiency and effectiveness” have anything to do with this contest? They have no control over the results of the project: they’re just designing the system to take submissions and allow people to vote on them...

    Last May, in a similar White House-sponsored, IdeaScale-powered Open Government Brainstorm to “strengthen our democracy and promote efficiency and effectiveness”, legalizing marijuana was one of the highest-voted ideas.

    --
    Alexander Peter Kristopeit bought his basement from his mommy for one dollar.
  18. Alternatives by Hythlodaeus · · Score: 4, Funny

    Obama hires Indian code-slaves to make a website to help people find jobs.
    McBushcain would have given Haliburton $200 billion to maybe hire some more people, if they wanted to.
    Ron Paul would have left unemployment for the market to solve and hit the snooze button on his alarm.

    --
    For great justice.
  19. Good job? But he's wrong! by TheLink · · Score: 4, Informative

    Uh, but he's wrong! From his own link, the Taiwanese workers are earning about USD1150 per MONTH (which is actually not bad in the 3rd world country I'm in[1]).

    The _FIRST_ sentence says it: "The average worker in Taiwan earns a monthly salary of NT$36,564".

    Google says 36564 Taiwanese dollars is about USD1150 : http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&safe=off&num=100&q=36564+TWD+in+usd&btnG=Search&meta=

    If the average US person can't figure out the difference between years and months, or have poor reading comprehension, or can't be bothered to check stuff properly, it's no surprise US bosses are outsourcing to other countries.

    So what if those 3rd world workers are crap. No point paying far more for just as crap (or worse).

    And guess what, many of these "3rd world" workers aren't that crap.

    See: http://www.bunniestudios.com/blog/?p=185

    I've shown some kids these videos and told them that that's the sort of competition they'll be facing (more so as countries like Vietnam start getting into it as well).

    [1] FWIW, I'm a cheap worker (relative to the USA) in a 3rd world country. But hey at least I can read, spell and do basic math (with help from Google :) ). I can even write some simple perl and python code...

    --
    1. 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.

      --
    2. Re:Good job? But he's wrong! by Fulcrum+of+Evil · · Score: 4, Insightful

      I hear this is cultural - in india, you never say no to a request from a superior. Instead, you kiss ass, then rush to do what you can. Yes, it does hamper communication.

      --
      "We returned the General to El Salvador, or maybe Guatemala, it's difficult to tell from 10,000 feet"
  20. Yep, but what about the PE? by stonewolf · · Score: 3, Insightful

    You are right. But, I think you missed a major point about the overall lack of professionalism among programmers.

    I have an MSCS and have worked as a software engineer. My wife has a BSME. To graduate she had to pass the EIT. If she didn't pass the test she couldn't graduate. No matter that she earned honors at graduation. No EIT no degree. Ten years later she took and passed the Professional Engineer exam. She has a little stamp that lets her give the legal ability to approval designs. She is legally liable for what she approves. I didn't have to pass any kind of professional exam to get the job title "engineer". I have no little stamp. I can not approve designs.

    What does tht mean? I can write software that is used to design a dam. Any programmer no mater what their training and experience could have been hired to write that software. Lets say my software as a bug that causes it to give wrong answers for very large dams (used float when I should have used long double...) OTOH, only a PE can legally design a dam. If my wife uses my software and the dam bursts she is legally responsible, but I am not. Why is that?

    I used to work for a Canadian PE. He had this little steel ring. The steel was from a bridge that fell down. Canadian engineers are all given (and I believe they are required to wear) a ring made from the steel of that fallen bridge so that their responsibility is always in their minds. There are many examples of people dying from software bugs. The failure of the patriot missiles during the first gulf war and the hundred+ dead soldier that resulted from and idiot not knowing that there is no such thing as 0.1 (one tenth) in binary. Why aren't programmer required to carry around a bit of the combat boot taken from one of those dead soldiers? Or, at least a vial of sand from where they died?

    There are no professional standards for programmers or so called software engineers. There is no code of conduct or ethics for programmers. From the point of view of real engineers we are just a bunch of amateurs being allowed to play with dangerous toys.

    Stonewolf