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June 16, 2005
We'd go to India, if we could get the right visa
A while back I read an article about one American's attempt to get their IT job back by moving to India (a quick search didn't pull it up, but I'll try again when I have more time; come to think of it, it may have been an editorial cartoon). Their main point was India was being unfairly competitive by excluding qualified individuals from their workforce. At the time I dismissed it by noting that we weren't exactly as liberal as we could have been with our own H-1B visas when demand for IT professionals was peaking in the 90s. The point, though, is an interesting one, especially when looked at in the broader context of labor in general. Open economies are successful in part because of free movement of labor. Labor, though, can't move across international borders as easily as, for example, capital can. How can globalization succeed in the long run if labor can not move with production?
Related to this subject is a post by Daniel Drezner on a new report projecting the demand for offshore labor. The short of it is the death of the American economy due to and unstoppable job drain has been greatly exaggerated. And really, to anyone who's been paying attention, this shouldn't be surprising. It slipped through the news pretty quickly last week, but India has an IT labor shortage.
Its easy to see thousands of jobs being outsourced to India at the peak (and, in particular, after the peak) of the IT boom and think there's no possible end to it. India has over a billion people. They can take every job in America three times over! Except, of course, for the fact that they don't have a billion college graduates who speak flawless English.
Yet. For now, though, the lesson is we should be focusing less on what jobs are being outsourced where and more on how we're building for our own future here in the US. That's a subject I hope to revisit again soon.
And as for the fellow who wrote that article I mentioned above, well, perhaps it's not too late to resubmit their visa application.
Posted by matt at June 16, 2005 06:59 PM
Comments
Talking to a friend of mine who has recently moved here from India, his impression is that the Indian Government is making it hard for Americans to move to India in retaliation against our restrictions on Indian's trying to get into the US.
He believes it's a lot like other countries have started fingerprinting visiting Americans, the same way we fingerprint them.
I'm not sure if it's true, but I thought it was an interesting take on the issue.
Posted by: Jon at June 26, 2005 11:07 AM