Delivery managers at WITCH (Wipro, Infy, TCS, CTS, HCL) outsourcing firms are paid based on how much they can earn from every account. So, this drives them do many things. One of the consequences is the perception of the said discrimination.
Delivery managers prefer a cheaper resource to an expensive resource. They also practice this in India: that's why every team in India is filled with 80% freshers or those who get paid $5k per annum in India.
In the states, they look for the cheapest resource to fill a position. Often times, they find spots that just require warm bodies to add billable hours. Guess, who would they go for? They will hire some H4 EAD who asks $65K per annum in NJ. These people are happy to get some job and experience.
In old days, companies used to have lots of people coasting in their jobs. Now, WITCH companies have captured that profit in a two prong process: offshore to India and charge the client $30 per hour per person, then pay some desperate college grad in India $3 per hour. And capture that $27 per hour.
This is similar to outsourcing the manufacturing, as the middle layers capture the profit, by paying peanuts in China and by getting rid of expensive employees in India.
Edit: basically, these companies are making money off of outsourcing lots of bullshit jobs. They are NOT eliminating bs jobs. In fact, most of WITCH company onsite people are project managers pretending to be super smart workers.
I think it's unfair to blame it all on the Indians. There is another side to it, in the form of extremely demanding customers. The Indian companies resort to using cheap resources because the customer has x amount of budget, and they want things done within that budget. I knew one American product company (who is/was number one in the world in what they do) demanding that they will pay only x amount per hour for a person and make all these Indian as well as American consultancies compete with each other to find the lowest paid person. My Indian employer didn't even want to sent people there because they wouldn't make much profit while providing a decent salary.
I am not blaming Indians, any more than Foxconn workers. Just showing how these companies operate and capture profits, while screwing everyone else in America/India/China.
>Just showing how these companies operate and capture profits, while screwing everyone else in America/India/China.
That is 100% true. Also, you forgot another group - sales guys. I think they also play a big role in exploiting Indians by paying peanuts while charging the customer $25-30 per hour.
What you said would've been true in maybe 2002. However, the wages at these companies have been stagnant for the last two decades. They haven't even kept up with inflation. So no, $5k per annum isn't "market wages" for software developers in India. These are the lowest of the low. New grads in India often take these jobs as a last resort if they have absolutely no other option.
This was something that shocked me. These companies are paying the same salary to new graduates as 12 years ago. Inflation in India was high during this period, especially the last few years. I think the reason is customers still want to pay $25-30 per hour. So these companies don't want to pay more. They can't ask more because customers will find some other country. Also, there are too many graduates they can take advantage of.
A teacher in a government school gets paid more than a IT worker these days, and they have guaranteed job till 55. Since IT job is primarily based on low wages, job opportunities become drastically less once they have 10+ years experience (please tell me I am wrong on this).
These days, govt employees make more than entry level workers in WITCH companies. That's why many so-called engineering grads also apply for jobs like bank clerk, police constable, etc.
Around 2004, many south Indian governments provided free tuition fees for engineering. So, thousands of engineering colleges were opened just to grab the fees by admitting more students. Now, the new minimum for students is: Bachelor of Technology.
This is India, where 1.3 billion people live. Unemployment is extremely high. So, even 3 lack rupees ~ $4k per annum is better than not having a job. If you want to call it a market wage, that's fine. It is like $15 per hour in the bay area is market wage, just because people have some jobs.
Inflation in India more than doubled in the last 15 years. 15 years, the base salary was $7k per annum. Now the same is paying $4k. (In other words, 300,000 rupees was 2004 salary , even today it is 300,000 for freshers). Basically, WITCH shops want warm bodies for their billable hours.
You're basically encouraging the exploitation of a country's labor force because they happen to have a lot of workers and not many opportunities for them. So yeah, its market wages by definition, but it doesn't make the practice OK.
Just find out how much old age security Indian government provides to people above 60yrs who have not gotten from their employer or have savings. It is less than 5 dollars per month. It is about same amount that an IT guy can spent on a single meal few times per week in India. So by any standard it is not even half decent amount.
When you say this does not make it okay, it seems you simply have no clue the level of disparity most people in India are dealing with. Unless someone magically make every one earn >10K dollars per annum, 5K is lot of money in country where median income is about 600 dollars yearly.
> You're basically encouraging the exploitation of a country's labor force
Who is 'you', exactly? I assume it's some hypothetical 'you' and not me specifically, given that I've only asked a clarifying question.
> So yeah, its market wages by definition, but it doesn't make the practice OK.
No, it doesn't make the practice ok, but it's important to identify the right problem if you want to solve it. "The market affords better opportunities for these workers but they are being forced to work below market" is a different problem with different solutions than "Better opportunities do not exist because the market is very competitive".
In the US, a company I worked for hired TCS to provide developers and QA to our project. Most of them were offshore in India but a few moved to the US because we needed people on site.
I feel really sorry for them. One of the project managers lived in a rented bedroom of another Indian family with his wife and daughter because he couldn't afford a place of his own. Another guy, single, lived in a shared 2BR house with 8 other people for the same reason. And there were more people in the same situation.
This was in NY where housing is not cheap but either way, the way I see it they were being exploited. Probably should blame the company I was working for as well, or perhaps just the VP that pushed to replace Infosys with Tata because he had a history with them and they were cheaper.
> I feel really sorry for them. One of the project managers lived in a rented bedroom of another Indian family with his wife and daughter because he couldn't afford a place of his own. Another guy, single, lived in a shared 2BR house with 8 other people for the same reason. And there were more people in the same situation.
I see your point and in no way do I advocate for people being treated that way in US. But the viewpoint of many of the workers who accept these arrangements is that its better than what they had back home, or some variation of that argument. I'm not sure how to argue with that.
> Another guy, single, lived in a shared 2BR house with 8 other people for the same reason.
Its not so black and white, if that person is living in the US temporarily then his main motivation is to save a lot of money when in the US and then use that to buy a house back in India.
Some of them make enough money to live alone comfortably but why do that when your main objective is to save so you share with others who have the same mindset.
That guy specifically was transfered and had plans to stay. He actually brought his wife and newborn daughter some time later but was still living in a shared home (not the same with 8 other people, but still).
Well in some cases its because some people initially like to live in a shared home with someone who speaks their language, get more comfortable in the new land and then move out or it could be just be that guy was being paid less and wanted to save money.
In 2014-15, I did a rough calculation of salaries based primarily on Indian government inflation figures. What I found was that 12k USD inflated adjusted was same as 5k USD in 2007.
Today, 5 years later, this figure is surely even more inflated. But if you talk to graduate engineers from these companies they still pay 5k USD. So, I don't know if we can safely say there is no exploitation here.
The counter point obviously here is that there is a large young population joining the workforce each year. So, ensuring everyone gets an IT job as well as paid well is a challenge.
What I found was that 12k USD inflated adjusted was same as 5k USD in 2007
No, $5.000 in 2007 dollars would be $5.060 in 2012 dollars[0]. You are off by over 2 orders of magnitude when speaking in "USD inflated adjusted" terms.
Not true for the past 7 years. A Uber or Ola driver or a construction worker can make Rs.30000 per month which is the same a fresher software engineer makes at WITCH.Bit ofcourse the working conditions and future growth is very bad for a driver or a labour where as a s/w engineer has a huge opportunity provided he works hard.
> I think they also play a big role in exploiting Indians by paying peanuts
Exploiting is pretty loaded word, we are not talking about sweatshops. These IT companies provide jobs to many people directly and indirectly. The good people who are paid peanuts then move to greener pastures.
blame the management ivy league MBA harvard,yale,oxford graduates who are the decision makers for the multinational companies based in USA...they only worry about the bottom line ...nope,let's blame the investors they force the management to profit maximise.....nope,let's blame the bankers who fund the investors,they move the money around.....nope,let's blame the money printer,that's more appropriate..
>They will hire some H4 EAD who asks $65K per annum in NJ. These people are happy to get some job and experiences.
In my experience, these companies as well as the American consultancies were hiring Indian students who studied in US way way more than h4 eads. These students are desperate to get a visa, so they will settle for any job that will sponsor them. Over 100k Indian students alone come to US every year, so its no wonder there would be insane competition for the 80k visas.
I'm always in awe at big corps to build big projects with lots of warm bodies that in the end would probably take 3x less people if ""only"" (of course it's a big thing) it was managed in a better way, if the customer knew how to handle its own expectations well and overall it was less about turning the wheels than actually delivering a project.
Does it mean that South Asian employees are more productive and have better performance (output to expenses ratio) than US or other employees? And that there is no discrimination, the company just hires the best people fitting for the job?
Also, I wonder, if South Asia employees are so productive, why do they need an expensive US-based management reaping most of the profit? Why cannot they create their own company?
No rocket science here. They are productive in same sense mexican immigrants are productive in orange and tomato farming in States. Cheap and desperate to work even with demanding and exploitative employers because conditions back home are worse else they wouldn't have agreed to such arrangement.
South Asian employees (esp h1b, h4 ead, opt) bring in more profit for these companies. This has to do with wage arbitrage within the states. If they hire a citizen/gc, such a candidate won't put up with low wages, or with midnight conference calls with offshore everyday.
WITCH companies are reaping profit. TCS market cap is $100B today.
I would be stupid to say that "every Indian IT guy is incompetent". Every one is six human beings is Indian. So, you will find smart people everywhere.
Any comment can be criticized in two ways: (a) it is a generalization; (b) it is too specific or anecdata. Here, we are talking about HCL's preference for Indians.
Even in WITCH companies, there are smart people. If there are x percent of smart people in the world, then WITCH companies do have x percent of smart people.
The way WITCH companies send people onsite (USA, UK), depends NOT so much on how smart a candidate is, BUT on some kind of cronyism. At TCS, if someone wants to go onsite on H1, he needs to cozy up with all three levels above him, then this big boss recommends him to HR.
Even if someone comes onsite, he has to suck up to onsite managers to process I-140. If he doesn't suck up to these parasite managers onsite, he will be sent back to India.
Not many Americans know how these WITCH companies operate. That's what I am shedding light on.
American immigration laws are to be blamed for this not the companies themselves. Companies will always align themselves to those incentive structures. American companies exploit foreign laws in similar ways. So I feel it cuts both ways.
Since I am involved with lot of immigration advocacy I am familiar with the so called eb-1 abuse. It is not abuse at all. It is a sensible strategy where the companies follow the letter of the law. It is US Congress that is idiotic to put foreign managers and noble winners in the same group of immigrants.
I do feel hr1044 is a perfect solution to this coupled by increasing h1b cap significantly.
Delivery managers prefer a cheaper resource to an expensive resource. They also practice this in India: that's why every team in India is filled with 80% freshers or those who get paid $5k per annum in India.
In the states, they look for the cheapest resource to fill a position. Often times, they find spots that just require warm bodies to add billable hours. Guess, who would they go for? They will hire some H4 EAD who asks $65K per annum in NJ. These people are happy to get some job and experience.
In old days, companies used to have lots of people coasting in their jobs. Now, WITCH companies have captured that profit in a two prong process: offshore to India and charge the client $30 per hour per person, then pay some desperate college grad in India $3 per hour. And capture that $27 per hour.
This is similar to outsourcing the manufacturing, as the middle layers capture the profit, by paying peanuts in China and by getting rid of expensive employees in India.
Edit: basically, these companies are making money off of outsourcing lots of bullshit jobs. They are NOT eliminating bs jobs. In fact, most of WITCH company onsite people are project managers pretending to be super smart workers.