Well, Amy's post seemed to be mostly referring to engineering. Microsoft and Oracle are US companies but engineering is offshore, therefore I am calling them offshore companies.
The problem at least with software is cost not quality of US workers. CEOs are trying to frame it as an issue of quality to justify their decisions to the US government, that is just wrong, at least for software. So if you want to do battle with this threat, it isn't a matter of "training" imho. The issue is payroll taxes and other cost related matters, as well as US government not caring when they grant offshore firms like JNPR huge US based engineering deals.
I think had microsoft and oracle not started this trend, which was purely motivated by greed and their inability to deal with various competitive threats (as well as their desire to keep their pay at 90s levels), then we wouldn't have a problem. It is US companies competing with other US companies in India, not US companies competing against Indian companies- yet. (I'm sure we will be competing with indian companies soon enough since Gates and Ellison have opened this can of worms though).
Such opportunities for the Valley's Indians flow both ways. Hundreds have returned to India since 2000 to start businesses or help expand R&D labs for the likes of Oracle (ORCL ), Cisco Systems (CSCO ), and Intel (INTC ). The downturn -- and Washington's decision to issue fewer temporary work visas -- accelerated the trend. At a Nov. 6 tech job fair in Santa Clara, hundreds of engineers lined up, résumés in hand, for Indian openings offered by companies from Microsoft Corp. (MSFT ) to Juniper Networks Inc. (JNPR ). "The real development and design jobs are in India," says Indian-born job-seeker Jay Venkat, 24, a University of Alabama electrical engineering grad. |
