India Looks to China for Techies

Seattle PI Article on India not being able to keep up with demand for IT workers.

Vigorous global demand -- revenue from India's information technology exports was $12.5 billion in the year ended in March, up 30 percent from the previous year -- has resulted in a 10 percent to 15 percent annual rise in wages in India's software and back-office services industry.

According to a KPMG study for the National Association of Software and Services Companies, an industry trade group in India, the country will face an acute shortage of technical employees by 2009, falling short by about 250,000 workers.

China has some 200,000 information technology workers -- compared with India's 850,000 -- in 6,000 local companies, according to some estimates. More than 50,000 Chinese software programmers are being added to this pool annually.

China also offers Indian outsourcing companies a low employee turnover rate. For instance, Tata Consultancy's staff turnover in China is less than 6 percent a year, compared with 15 percent in its Indian operations.