How many people do you think Indian I.T. companies hired last year?
I bet you think it was a big number, perhaps even a very big number. Why do I think that? Because we've heard a lot about offshoring to India. We've seen a lot of stories about American jobs shipped overseas.
But it turns out that there is a limiting factor to the amount of work that India can take on. Simply put, India does not have enough people to do all the work that could be offshored from the U.S. The education system in India is terribly inefficient. While a small number of Indians get an elite, world-class education, many thousands are left to work their way through colleges that leave them unprepared for the workplace. Indian software giants like Infosys are spending enormous sums of money to build huge campuses -- one with a hotel bigger than a Las Vegas casino! -- just to train people in skills they should have gotten in college. It is highly inefficient and many minds are wasted in the process.
How inefficient is the Indian educational system? This country of a billion people with a booming software industry creates just 50 computer science PhD's a year. Half of the kids who make it to fifth grade can't solve a simple division problem.
India, it turns out, has a major shortage of skilled workers. There simply isn't a limitless supply of English-speaking, globally competitive talent sitting around in India. Remember those Indian I.T. companies? They hired 39,000 people last year, and they struggled to find them. On top of that, major employers like Infosys and TCS are forced to pay salary increases of 14% or so a year. That is simply not sustainable.
And Indian businesses know that. There is a lot of effort and planning going into solutions. Look for private entrepreneurs to fund their own universities. Expect to see more private training programs implemented. Internet applications are also being rolled out to meet the shortage.
All this means Americans don't have to fear an army of Indian workers that is ready to take our jobs right now. But in a country with a billion people, even small improvements in the quality of education will produce fairly large increases in the number of available skilled workers. That means the U.S. will have to act now to improve the skills of our own workforce if we want to stay competitive.
A final question: Who were the biggest employers of Indian I.T. talent last year? IBM, Accenture, and Cognizant hired 41,400 Indian I.T. employees -- 2,400 more than their top three Indian I.T. competitors.
Interested in learning more about India? Then check out the "India's Promise" home page.
Comments
I was looking for a more critical understanding of India's education system as it relates to India's growing economy, and not a patchwork of hurried interviews and images. An average American viewer would just remember the "exotic" roofless school from this report, and come out with virtually no appreciation of the complexities of India's education system. Also, it seems like most of the interviews in the report were carried out around the Delhi-Agra region. It would have been nice if the reporter would have visited other parts of India (East, West and South) to provide a more balanced and critical report. Also, the report should have provided more data and statistics, for example, the percentage of GDP that India spends on education -- has the % been increasing or decreasing as the Indian economy grows? Also, it is always a good idea to spend more time (at least 6-12 months) in India before coming up with a series of superficial reports. To summarize, a good report should go beyond the obvious. Unfortunately, this report did not quite meet the needs of the viewers.
Part 4 on Education was a very good report. So far at IT is concerned it is the failure of the IIT system in not producing more graduates in spite of a wealth of talent available. (see articles channel on www.indusscitech.net). With 12% growth in manufcturing sector we need other engineers too.Precious time was wasted in discussing the quota system for past 2-3 years. Short term measures are possible.