India faces talent shortage

[OhioChick]

Posted online: Tuesday, November 14, 2006 at 1344 hours IST
Updated: Tuesday, November 14, 2006 at 1546 hours IST

NEW DELHI, NOVEMBER 14: A makeshift poster in a run-down part of New Delhi's business district reads: Wanted urgently, salesmen, call before 4 p.m. Assured employment for candidate with right skills.

The poster exemplifies India's booming job market but also highlights its biggest problem -- a shortage of skilled workers.

Talk of a talent shortage in a country with a billion-plus population sounds odd, but India has too many unskilled workers.

With Asia's fourth-largest economy set for a fourth straight year of 8 per cent growth, employers from technology firms to financial services complain of talent shortages, rising vacancies and an increasing wage bill.
http://www.financialexpress.com/latest_full_story.php?content_id=146471

~snip~ "Clearly the quantity of labour is not an issue in India, but the quality of labour is."

[LiberalEsto]

1. All those missing skilled Indian workers

are here in the U.S., taking away the jobs of skilled American workers

[The Backlash Cometh]

4. And we can thank Michael Moore for pointing out that irony.

Remember that Chinese blessing, "May you live in interesting times?" Well, I think we are truly blessed.

[OhioChick]

5. I didn't understand what you were

talking about regarding MM, at first. Upon reading, I had no idea that he outsourced his web site design and servers to non-American companies. For shame!

[The Backlash Cometh]

7. Ooops, there is a whole rail left out to follow my train of thought.

I was thinking about the irony of the whole picture. Michael Moore pointed out early that our jobs were being outsourced, and of course, India has been a primary recepient. And now, India is experiencing a shortage of skilled workers, presumably because they come over here to take advantage of better paying jobs.

The irony.

[0rganism]

11. I'd far rather Indians take U.S. jobs here in the U.S. than remotely from India

"Offshoring" hurts our economy even more than domestic outsourcing to "guest workers". At the very least, we can be sure that
(a) the "guest worker" is receiving American pay and benefits, in American labor and environmental conditions
(b) the "guest worker" is spending a high percentage of their salary in the US, recirculating much of the money locally
(c) when the "guest worker" returns to India or wherever, s/he will remember (a) and take some of that into account in looking for work or setting up a business there

I've worked with a lot of Indians on H1B visas at <large high-tech company>, those guys are very smart and good at what they do. It's ridiculous to try to shut them out of the workplace; bringing them in as "guest workers" is the best-case solution.

[LiberalEsto]

12. There are many loopholes where they earn less

Many companies lay off their IT people and bring in Indian workers as consultants. This is a loophole that enables the hiring company to pay them less and avoid paying benefits, including health insurance entirely.

It is not fair to lay off qualified, productive American IT workers who may have invested years in education and training, by bringing in cheap foreign labor.

Any American company that enjoys any sort of property tax breaks or other subsidies while laying off American workers and replacing them with foreign labor, deserves to lose all theyr tax breaks and subsidies.

Why should American taxpayers subsidize the loss of American jobs?

[lcordero2]

2. They are probably pulling the same thing that was pulled

over here

They are probably asking for every single skillset under the sun and offering something like $2 an hour with no benefits over there.

[crikkett]

3. now that's new. n/t

[brokensymmetry]

6. So, maybe they'll start outsourcing their work...

to the U.S.

Perhaps they can even get in a "how low can you go"
game over wages, with the winning CEO getting a
billion dollar bonus.

Pathetic, isn't it?

[Lucky Luciano]

8. Eventually an equilibrium has to be reached with people coming here

and outsourcing over there.

[happyslug]

9. I read the Article, English is mentioned only once.

And I suspect it is the Skill of Speaking ENGLISH that is in the greatest Shortage. You can only go so far up in Indian Society without the ability to speak English. The greatest growth market (The last time I read about it a few months ago) in India was in "Customer Support" where the greatest need was NOT the knowledge of a technical nature but the ability to Speak English over the Phone. That middle and high end executives (Who tend to be English Speakers) are the greatest risk of leaving one firm for another also implies ot me the real Skill in Shortage is English.

[Ezlivin]

10. They are doing all they can