The race to the bottom: US programmers at overseas salaries.

[Dave Farber <dave () farber net>]

Delivered-To: dfarber+ () ux13 sp cs cmu edu
Date: Wed, 03 Dec 2003 12:54:10 -0500
From: "Trei, Peter" <ptrei () rsasecurity com>
Subject: The race to the bottom: US programmers at overseas salaries.
To: "'dave () farber net'" <dave () farber net>

For IP, if you wish

Peter Trei
---------------------------

http://biz.yahoo.com/bizwk/031203/sb20031228887_1.html

BusinessWeek Online
U.S. Programmers at Overseas Salaries
Wednesday December 3, 8:27 am ET
By David E. Gumpert

It's the great unanswered business-economic
question of our day: How do we replace the
hundreds of thousands of information-technology,
call-center, paralegal, and other jobs rapidly
exiting the U.S. for India, Russia, and other
low-wage countries?

[...]

And then Jon had a brainstorm. What if he offered
Americans the jobs at the same rate he would be
paying for Indian programmers? It seemed like a
long shot. But it also seemed worth the gamble.
So Jon placed some ads in The Boston Globe, offering
full-time contract programming work for $45,000
annually. [He had decided that it was worth adding
a $5,000 premium to what he'd pay the Indian workers
in exchange for having the programmers on site.]

The result? "We got flooded" with resumes, about
90 in total, many from highly qualified programmers
having trouble finding work in the down economy,
Jon says. His decision: "For $5,000 it was no
contest." Jon went American. And the outcome?
"I think I got the best of both worlds. I got
local people who came in for 10% more [than
Indians]. And I found really good ones."

[...]

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