[lbo-talk] tech jobs abound - in India

[Brad DeLong]

>Doug posted (from Reuters) "Jobs Abound in India's
>Booming Tech Sector"
>
>**********
>
>
>
>Yes, it's 1998 for the sector of the Indian population
>that has the right skillset.
>
>Meanwhile, in America...  Well, we all know that
>story.
>
>
>But here's what occurs to me just now about the
>so-called "Indian tech boom" -
>
>For so many Indian techies to be devoted to providing
>services to American and European firms suggests that
>there is an insufficient domestic infrastructure to
>absorb this kind of labor.
>
>The Indian tech boom is the services version of the
>effective durable goods export strategy of Japan, S.
>Korea, Taiwan and so forth.
>
>If I'm remembering the history of this correctly,
>these nations developed industries for export while
>doing little (at first) to nurture domestic
>consumption.  So it's true that S. Koreans, for
>example, are now buying the much nicer Hyundais on the
>market but this wasn't always the case.
>
>The export of "knowledge work", made possible by the
>Internet among other techno/social factors appears to
>be the computer age equivalent of those earlier
>triumphs.
>
>The question is, can India and the rest of the
>'service export tigers' (far from an excellent turn of
>phrase but servicable) turn all this outwardly
>directed software and hardware engineering talent into
>something of value to the wider society as the East
>Asians did with manufacturing, machine tools and high
>tech.
>
>DRM

Well, we all very much hope so...

Brad DeLong