Indian Workers Returning Home

[ChromeFoundry]

Source: Baseline Magazine

U.S. companies may face a serious case of brain drain as the majority of technology professionals from India plan to return home, according to a recent survey from Corp-Corp.com, a tech-job portal. Even some workers who have earned U.S. citizenship are ready to leave, taking their skills and reputation for work ethic with them. Why? Some reasons are predictable, such as longing to reunite with family members and loved ones. But other motivating factors may surprise – including the impression that career opportunities are brighter in the homeland. Employers here may need to accommodate these valued professionals as much as possible, or face negative consequences on the IT talent front. "The results are very important for American businesses because they may face challenges in filling the gap of these resources," says Prabakaran Murugaiah, CEO of Corp-Corp.com. "Businesses cannot replace an experienced workforce overnight." More than 1,000 IT workers originally from India took part in the survey. To access complete results, http://www.corp-corp.com/blog/return-to-india-survey/">click here.


Survey Highlights:

Over half of Indian IT professionals may return to India – Survey

• 50.1% of the people said that they will be returning to India soon.


• 6.4% of them have already returned to India and


• 43% do not have plan to return.

The survey participants includes permanent residents, citizens and Visa holders. The survey results shows 69% of visa holders and 57% permanent residents or citizens are intend to return.

Motivation to Return to India:

• The primary reason (51%) for the return is rejoining their family members in India.


• 26% of responded that better opportunities in India are the reason for their return.


• Only 3% says they are returning due to job loss which is consistent with low unemployment of around 6% in the IT sector even though the generic unemployment is over 8%.


• Around 10% are planning their return as they believe better education for their kids in India.

Read more: http://www.baselinemag.com/c/a/Intelligence/Indian-Workers-Returning-Home-811457/

[Name removed]

1. Deleted message

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[BIGFOOTSDADDY333]

2. they are leaving cause that's where all the jobs have gone.....nt

[The Backlash Cometh]

18. This migration pattern has been a big issue with all this globalist bullshit.

Take NAFTA for instance. Jobs in manufacturing are great in Guatemala, until the factory moves to Honduras because the co. can find a labor force that will do things for cheaper.

See the pattern?

[w4rma]

3. Good. Although it exposes a decline in our own infrastructure. (nt)

[LiberalEsto]

4. So long, farewell, auf wiedersehen, goodbye

Thanks (sarcasm) for lowering the prevailing wages for IT workers and taking the jobs of tens of thousands of American IT workers. And getting untold numbers of American high school students to give up the idea of studying computer science in college.

I realize that the Indian IT workers are just as much victims of Corporate America as American IT workers, and I can't blame them for wanting better-paying jobs here. If it wasn't people from India, it would be people from somewhere else willing to work cheap.

But damn it, WHY doesn't Congress do anything to protect the jobs of American citizens? Rhetorical question. Too many of our congresspeople are beholden to the corporations and do their bidding.

My brother-in-law has been out of work for over 3 years and is working part time at UPS to barely survive because he can't find IT work in New Jersey. He can't relocate because he wants to stay close to his teenage sons.

[LittleGirl]

5. +2

your post states exactly why I am a 50+ yr old with 20 yrs of IT experience that has been unemployed. When these so called 'brain drain' folks go back to their home countries, people like me will be filling the jobs they left. We must strive to remove the loopholes that allow corporations to hire foreign workers and give these jobs back to the Americans.

[LynneSin]

7. H1-B Visas were suppose to be used for special cases

but instead I see it being used for all kinds of positions that folks here in the states could do too.

[LynneSin]

6. I know alot of good people who lost their jobs here in the states...

to contracting companies that only employee overseas H1-B Visa people. It's because those contracting companies could bring these people in at a cheaper price but many times they were just overworked and underappreciated.

Personally - let them go home. We have a 9% unemployment rate and we have the skillsets here in the USA.

[Moostache]

10. Sadly we DO NOT have the skill sets in the USA...

One of the many tragedies of 21st century Jeebusistan is the disrepair of our educational system and the caste system its spiraling costs are establishing here in the USA...universal rights should include health care and a university level education for ALL citizens who qualify and complete one. Sadly, even as bad as our health care system is broken, our education system is WORSE.

[LynneSin]

12. As someone who has worked with alot of these H1-B visas

they were doing stuff that could easily be taught to someone here in the states. That unemployment list has alot of qualified people on it. I do respect that the fact that the state of our educational system does suck, but that list has alot of people 30-60 years old who are very well qualified to do these jobs.

[SemperEadem]

19. this has nothing to do with skill sets, but with cheap labor

plenty of 99ers who used to be in IT but were laid off in order for their company to get cheap labor here have the skill sets.

[LittleGirl]

20. Wrong!

There are so many IT skilled people doing retail work and anything else they can get. I know a few PhD's that are not doing research! I know a few with MBAs that are not doing management work. And the only reason is because the CORPORATIONS WANT CHEAP LABOR. Walmart priced employees who take cuts in pay because they are freaking desperate.

[aquart]

23. Pasture pastry.

[SomeGuyInEagan]

26. I don't think that is accurate ...

I work in an area in which I am in contact with a number of engineering and IT professionals in industry as well as students in undergrad and graduate science and engineering programs.

Most of the international students I ask tell me that their plan is to eventually return home, that they are here because of the higher education opportunities, so I think we are doing well in that area. The common story I hear is that they need to stay here to work for a few years (at a higher wage that they can earn in their home country) to make enough money to pay back their private sponsor. While many/most of the American students I know of are working while taking classes (in addition to taking out loans and grants), the international students I have talked with tell me that aside from TA/GA/RA university work, they do not and would not consider working because they want to wrap up the degree as fast as possible so they can start repaying their debt and then get home.

Secondly, I know that there are a lot of under-employed IT people out there who got dropped because they cost more than companies want to pay (I don't hear about that so much in engineering fields, however). The skills are here and have been for decades. This is all about the companies going cheap.

[LiberalEsto]

31. Nonsense!

My brother-in-law is a graduate of Chubb Institute, one of the better schools in the industry. My husband, who has worked in IT for 30 years, is also a Chubb grad. Fortunately he's been able to hang on to his job, but at the moment he is just about the only non-Indian in his group.

My husband knows a LOT of well-trained, knowledgeable computer people who are collecting unemployment, or whose unemployment benefits have run out, or who are working at McJobs. Don't try to tell me these people don't have "skill sets". That's one of the many excuses the Corporate Masters have given for not hiring or retaining American IT workers.

[DallasNE]

8. "Better Education For Their Kids"

This should be a wake-up call for America. A few years ago I was an IT consultant and one of my duties was interviewing perspective consultants from India. The one thing that jumped out was how much better the Indian candidates were in the fundamentals of programming and that directly relates to the quality of education received.

[pampango]

24. And their kids are some of our best students (at least in science).

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/05/24/immigrants-science_n_866321.html

Children of Immigrants Are America's Science Superstars

Adding fuel to the fiery debate over immigration policy, a study released Tuesday shows that top science achievers in the U.S. are overwhelmingly the children of immigrants.

The study, conducted by the National Foundation for American Policy, found that 70 percent of the finalists in the 2011 Intel Science Talent Search competition -- also known as the "Junior Nobel Prize" -- were the children of immigrants even though only 12 percent of the U.S. population is foreign-born.

In particular, debate continues over reforming H1-B visa -- a temporary 3- to 6-year visa for skilled foreign workers. According to the NFAP study, 24 of the 28 immigrant parents of 2011 Intel Science Talent Search winners started working in the United States on H-1B visas and later received an employer-sponsored green card.

Proponents of H1B visa reform, including both the White House and technology companies, say skilled workers should be incentivized to stay in the U.S. and not forced to leave after a certain time period, thereby encouraged to set up rival operations overseas.

[LiberalEsto]

35. They don't have to pay for college either

unlike our young people.

It's much easier to start an IT career when you don't have to worry about paying off huge student loans.

Americans who major in computer science usually wind up with huge monthly loan payments. Then they need to earn enough to survive and play off the loans.

[DallasNE]

36. There Are A Lot Of Reasons

That these Indians excel in IT. Not being burdened by huge loans is one, for sure. The population base also means that there is more cream of the crop to skim from. Their students come to school prepared to learn more so than ours. Better relative teachers pay. The list goes on and on.

[rug]

9. They're going where the jobs are.

[closeupready]

14. Correct. There are more and better opportunities in Asia today than in N. America.

I say that from seeing firsthand some of my naturalized friends go there for work.

[Sen. Walter Sobchak]

11. It has always been this way

Most of them are just passing through, since to break into the higher level positions or tap into venture capital back in India one really is expected to have worked in the west. And with the differential in the cost of living, once they break into those positions at home they can live like kings on the local salary.

[Larkspur]

13. Force them to stay until the retrain the Americans whose jobs they took

If Americans had to train Indians to take their jobs, the reverse can be true also.

[closeupready]

15. Sadly, this is a free country.

So, unfortunately, we can't force anyone to do anything. :sarcasm:

[La Lioness Priyanka]

21. yes, because there is nothing like indentured labor to really show the world

what a great nation this is

[entanglement]

38. Tough economic times breed nativism and xenophobia (witness the AZ anti-Mexican hate wave)

and these are especially bad times. However, the real culprit is the profit system which is set up to ensure that workers lose one way or another. Mexican or Chinese or immigrant workers aren't the enemy. The recession and the ruling class indifference to the misery it has caused are hardly the fault of Chinese or Indians or any working class person in the world. The global financial oligarchy and its lackeys are.

[OhioChick]

16. Best news I've heard all day n/t

[The Backlash Cometh]

17. For crying out loud! Are our American institutions that fuck all incompetent?

We're paying $40,000 to $50,000 a year for college education. How can that NOT provide an adequate education in math and science?

[bhikkhu]

22. Some of the kindest and smartest people I've known

I don't have any first hand experience of the IT industry, so nothing to add there one way or another, but the Indian nationals I've known have been universally good people.

They'll be an asset to any country they go to, and the US is a little narrower and smaller for treating good people with bigotry and hatred.

[Vehl]

25. Thank you

I really appreciate your post. We Indian Americans have been one of the least vocal and least demanding minorities in this nation and have to put up with a lot of negative stuff/comments(yes, even here in DU , where people would not dare make such comments about other ethnicities as they sometimes make about us) thrown at us.

I guess for some its always easier to demonize the "other" while extolling the virtues of a capitalistic system, which btw did/is doing exactly the same to other nations in the name of globalization, for half a century . All one heard those days was "This is globalization..and this is how things are"..but when things started changing a bit, all of a sudden the exact same practices American Multinationals have been using in other countries for decades are considered evil and anti-American. While I sympathize with those whose jobs might be endangered, one really did not see anyone protesting the predatory laws/methods American Multinationals (and directly supported by the American government) used to dominate businesses in foreign nations. And even now..instead of blaming the multinationals, Indians are used as scapegoats...with a casual "oh the multinationals too" thrown in as an afterthought.

Thank you for speaking up about your positive interactions with us. The overwhelming majority of Americans I have interacted with have always been welcoming and kind, and almost all my best buddies are Americans. Its a really diverse country and I love the multicultural environment.


:pals:

[Name removed]

30. Deleted message

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[krabigirl]

33. Great post,,you are so right about people not putting the blame where they should.

Which is at the foot of the exploitative corporations. It is always easier for people to blame other people, especially people who are from another country.

[Vehl]

39. Thank you nt

[Name removed]

34. Deleted sub-thread

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[JAnthony]

27. I would agree with that on a personal level, but on an ..

institutional level, we need to favor U.S. nationals in hiring and promotion in all industries.

This is not to slight the wonderfully kind and smart people who come here to work, but if we have people who are U.S. nationals, we should train and employ them.

These two concepts are not contradictory, in my mind. Those who have come here to work and become citizens are certainly welcome to stay and contribute. We all know they pull their weight and we should be thankful for their contribution.

We need to strive for an education and training system that probably won't be open to so many from other countries to find employment here. We have plenty of Americans who will need good jobs in the future.

[closeupready]

29. Some are, some aren't. I've met a number who were quite obnoxious, and

others who were delightful. Generalizations in either direction aren't useful, but I appreciate that anecdotally, you've enjoyed your encounters with them. I have mostly, as well. :) :hi:

[krabigirl]

32. Same here, I agree. Also, it's a bad sign if people want to leave.

Ie,our country is going to the crapper. Or it's already there.

Mind you, I also do not like the fact that corporations take advantage of workers and hire h1b's for a lower rate. But I would never actually blame the foreign workers themselves.

[KamaAina]

28. "they believe better education for their kids in India"

:wow:

Looks like a whole lot of American children are being left behind.

[OhioChick]

37. Only 25 % IT graduates readily employable: Nasscom

Apr 7, 2011, 07.21am IST

DELHI I BANGALORE: At 25, and with a computer science degree from one of the top regional engineering colleges , Sandesh Kumar considered himself to be the luckiest among all his batch mates when he was picked by Infosys Technologies last year. But within three months, Kumar realised the initial training at Infosys' sprawling Mysore campus was getting nowhere. "I actually sucked at everything — communications, language and understanding about some of the latest development tools," Kumar says. "The company was kind enough to flag early that I might face hurdles ahead and I decided to quit," he adds.

While Kumar's unemployability is an extreme case, of the 550,000 engineering graduates passing out every year, anywhere between 10% and 25% cannot be readily employed by any technology firm in the country . Software lobby Nasscom says only 25% of graduates working in IT are readily employable, while it is roughly 15% for back-office jobs. Growing gaps in skills needed for computer science graduates to start coding at the earliest is nothing new, but India Inc's modest progress in dealing with the problem is what marks the seriousness of the issue. India's $60-billion outsourcing industry is already spending almost $1 billion a year on readying these graduates, picked up from different campuses. But only marginal headway has been made with the percentage of employable engineering graduates moving up by just a per cent over the past six years to 25%.

"I did go to a private institute in Hyderabad for a three months refresher course, but they taught us more of the same. It didn't seem to help at all," agrees Kumar who joined a multinational tech support centre in Bangalore last month. While Nasscom believes a quarter of the engineering graduates are unemployable , consulting firm Aspiring Minds paints a gloomier picture. In an employability study conducted last August, the firm found that merely 4.22% of engineering graduates are employable in product companies and only 17% in IT services. On its part, Nasscom says India's large pool of engineers makes the employability percentage look even more daunting.



More: http://articles.economictimes.indiatimes.com/2011-04-07/news/29392668_1_engineering-colleges-employability-study-nasscom