Everyone has heard stories about people losing jobs because of outsourcing to India. Some American workers are now outsourcing themselves to India to find tech jobs. There are 130,000 Americans working overseas according to Forrester Research and this number is expected to soar to 3.5 million by 2015. An NBC News article discusses one Indian company that is recruiting American expertise.
"We don't think doing things in India is a loss to the U.S.," said N.R. Narayana Murthy, co-founder and chairman of Infosys Technologies Ltd., an industry leader in outsourced software services. Nor, he said, does he think doing things in the United States is a loss for India. Almost two-thirds of Infosys' revenue is generated in the U.S. market.
Murthy, 59, is lobbying students at the Stanford Business School, where he is a member of the advisory council, to come east - way east - to Bangalore, India's Silicon Valley. With its Microsoft-like campus, Infosys provides support to big U.S. companies like Best Buy, Circuit City and even Microsoft. (Microsoft is a parent company of MSNBC.com.)
"To add significant value to corporations from a country like India is an exciting opportunity," Murthy said, "and to be part of that opportunity is one of a kind."
Infosys' profits are three times those of its U.S. competitors. One of the main reasons is salaries. The employees here - the software engineers - make about a quarter of the salary of someone doing the same job in the United States.
These overseas jobs available to Americans don't make up up for the number of jobs America is outsourcing to India but the numbers of Americans taking job overseas is growing. NBC News says that 100 U.S. graduates will start work at Infosys' offices in Bangalore this Summer and this number is expect to climb to 200 by the end of 2006. Overseas jobs may be worth a look if you are willing to travel.
