Why dont we have articles like this in the British press?

[Troll]

Firstly, this article is tulip, the clumsy political bias would shame both the Guardian and Daily Mail. Notice the loaded words "local", "multinational" and the overt racism where it is taken as a given that Indians can't do computers as well as we white people can.

I thought the article was about an Indian being replaced by Indians

The bimbo

Sexist

Since she's a witless arts graduate she takes at face value the idea that at 21, calling yourself a "software developer" is fraudulent. Really ?
It's the sort of arrogance I had at 21, indeed I first called myself a programmer in my teens and I bet many of you did the same thing.

Ageist

Most of us can't easily visualise a million billion, but we can visualise blue which is the vaguely frequency of visible light. Because she's an arts grad, she sees any number above 12 as a sort of colour or other adjective.

Sexist

When I pitched up on ContractorUK and asked if anyone had anything I ought to know, most of what I got was abuse.

Welcome!

[Troll]

General is where we come for our daily dose of sado/masochistic abuse.

You lurve it bytch

[cojak]

Thanks for explaining this Dominic.

For all of our indignant posts (and loyalty to CUK), El Reg does have a bigger readership than us. We'll have to see how it Spiceworks does it, that's all..

[lilelvis2000]

I suppose I should not mention that I am out sourcing work to Indonesia then eh?

[Lockhouse]

I feel the same way about the "Indian invasion" as I do when watching England play Italy on the telly. All those Italians rolling about in agony when they get the smallest nudge, getting our players booked and sent off for no good reason. We'd call it cheating, they see it as part of the game.

You can get angry and shout at the telly which accomplishes absolutely nothing or you train harder and raise your game so there can be no comparison.

When I was a younger contractor, I was kept on my toes by lots of young graduates coming up who were quicker on the draw than I was. Then for a long time this didn't happen, and I got complacent. Now it's happened again but these graduates are from India and are cheaper rather than better but the premise is the same. I have to differentiate my services from theirs and prove that I'm value for money.

The only real issue I have is that I'm earning the same money that I did 12 years ago, but it's still quite decent money thanks very much.

[Mich the Tester]

I feel the same way about the "Indian invasion" as I do when watching England play Italy on the telly. All those Italians rolling about in agony when they get the smallest nudge, getting our players booked and sent off for no good reason. We'd call it cheating, they see it as part of the game.

You can get angry and shout at the telly which accomplishes absolutely nothing or you train harder and raise your game so there can be no comparison.

When I was a younger contractor, I was kept on my toes by lots of young graduates coming up who were quicker on the draw than I was. Then for a long time this didn't happen, and I got complacent. Now it's happened again but these graduates are from India and are cheaper rather than better but the premise is the same. I have to differentiate my services from theirs and prove that I'm value for money.

The only real issue I have is that I'm earning the same money that I did 12 years ago, but it's still quite decent money thanks very much.

whs

[vetran]

Dominic I would have thought there is enough information in the publicly released figures to identify the worst offenders?

There must be a way of calculating what salaries could have been if the ICT abuses had not happened?

What is the average wage paid to the ICT's how does that compare with current UK equivalents?

Interestingly when it happened to me 13 years ago the third party was desperate to get their hands on my CV but no action after that. (It wasn't just my CV 30 other people had the same experience) so I suspect a variation of my CV is now being used by an Indian chap/ess (just so I don't get accused of sexism).

Every job I have advertised in the last 10 years a large percentage were after a Visa. I can't believe your applicants are any different.

The tax benefits are always missed, the 6 month cycle avoiding tax and the use of expenses are a massive tax hole.

I suspect the style of abuse has changed so it will be less obvious but there must be some clues publicly available.

I would be interested to know the ethnic make up of companies such as TCS & Wipro and what they are doing to make their workforce resemble the UK ethnic makeup?

profits per head / consultant different to traditional consultancies with the tax man making up the difference. Why choose Wipro/TCS when you could have Capita, IBM or HP? What should traditional consultancies do to keep up?


ok a few random ideas and not one insult in there, I can hardly believe I'm posting in General.

[CoolCat]

Dear Dominic Connor,

Some things don't need any evidence, they are a matter of public record. For example

1 Indian nationals here on ICT visas get to work the first 12 months free of employers and employees national insurance, not very hard to undercut Brits with this regime in place is it?

2 Indian nationals get to count lots as "expenses" which a Brit working far away from home within the UK cannot, so if I live in London but work in Glasgow I am at a significant disadvantage to someone working in Glasgow from India - why?

3 If you think the tax avoidance of Amazon, Google, Starbucks justify questions try having a look at the tax affairs of Cognizant, Infosys, Tata, et al.

4 Any idea how many people are on the UK payroll of Cognizant, Infosys, Wipro, etc ? Any idea what percentage are ICT visa holder (or holders of indefinite leave to remain or British passports given simply for working here a while?) Any idea how many are subcontracted onto other organisations and not really working for their parent company (in the spirit Intra Company Visas were actually designed for).

5 any idea how many Indian owners of Indian IT outsourcing outfits are on Camerons "business advisory committee"? Compare and contrast to the number of British IT leaders?

6 Looked through the answers to various freedom of information request questions made to the Home Office re ICT visas? Not spotted any obvious stories for the press if this stuff was more widely known?

etc

[Dominic Connor]

> I would have thought there is enough information in the publicly released figures to identify the worst offenders?
Are you talking about getting an FOIA from the Home office ?

>There must be a way of calculating what salaries could have been if the ICT abuses had not happened?
Nope.
I've actually studied economics and did work on price formation and can state as a fact that you have a choice between honesty and precision here.
It might be possible to work out what the effect of an increase in supply does to price, though I would need convincing. The problem is that the supply of skilled IT people available to the UK has a positive effect on the demand. The short version is that the location for many types of business is affected by the supply as well as the price of labour, if they can't get the staff that business may set up elsewhere or move.

The obvious example is banking, but there are fair sized film FX and video game industries in the UK, without access to labour or at too high a price demand would be much lower. Note I say "access to labour", since the UK and India are English speaking it means that an operation that mixes UK and Indian staff may work better than German and Indian.
I'm not saying that is the whole story but it is a big factor and countries that cut themselves off from the global labour market do badly.

>What is the average wage paid to the ICT's how does that compare with current UK equivalents?
Don't know, I'll fish for some stats, but I do know that Indian wage inflation is vastly higher than UK or European levels, the gap is narrowing fast.

>Every job I have advertised in the last 10 years a large percentage were after a Visa. I can't believe your applicants are any different.
A smaller % than you possibly because of the type of people I work with, but yes they want Visas, I'd rather have them in the UK paying UK taxes and helping UK firms than in India (or wherever) helping their firms and paying their taxes.

>The tax benefits are always missed, the 6 month cycle avoiding tax and the use of expenses are a massive tax hole.
Thanks for that, good point, Yes, that is an abuse, as it happens a mildly senior Tory politician is a decades old friend of mine and I shall whisper that in his ear, politically popular, makes a bit of cash for HM Treasury.

>I suspect the style of abuse has changed so it will be less obvious but there must be some clues publicly available.
Clues and anecdotes yes, patterns require a lot of work, so any you see I'm interested in.

>I would be interested to know the ethnic make up of companies such as TCS & Wipro and what they are doing to make their workforce resemble the UK ethnic makeup?

I'm not sure they have those figures even themselves, though they might have some on castes.
But I'd bet money their sales and marketing people are heavy in locals in each area they do business.

>profits per head / consultant different to traditional consultancies with the tax man making up the difference. Why choose Wipro/TCS when you could have Capita, IBM or HP?

Having dealt with IBM Global Services, I would not ever do business with them, Capita are a running joke and I have deep concerns about the stability of HP. Profits per head of most firms can be got from their annual reports and of course there is tax engineering in stated profits. Charge out rates per head vary more than simple market forces would suggest.

>What should traditional consultancies do to keep up?
My economics education points me at discount rates. When people choose a trade off between how much of something they get and when they get it they often discount for time at a far higher rate than you might think. Offshoring and outsourcing bring forward the time that benefits are observed.

Take as a worked example
Xyz PLC spends 20 Meg a year on IT.

Option 1
Over the next 5 years good management means that 750K per year is knocked off the cost.

Option 2
Sign an out/off deal that "promises" 500K per year saving

If this is your own money, that's a no brainer, but there's a deliciously cynical part of economics called "agency theory", basically it models how incentives affect executive behaviour.

A CIO who takes option B will get the credit for the deal and will often pick that in spite of the savings being lower and may choose to ignore the risks.

So a UK based consultancy would get more business by setting up deals where the savings can be recognised earlier.

The next thing is to train your senior tech guys with a smidgen of soft skills.
The business end of firms is vastly more IT literate these days and in my experience hate empty sales people, they'd rather talk to techies. Harder for Indian based firms to do that.

Next do some bloody marketing.
As a write for The Reg, I get a stream of press releases, nearly all from non-UK firms.

Cooperative marketing is a gig rarely exploited by UK consultancies or the UK IT industry at all.

Get together a bunch of firms that on complementary activities and get the punters in, some decent speakers, a bit of food and drink and you will get a bunch of leads.

[vetran]

Thanks for replying Dominic

who's winning in ICT Visas sweepstakes

Two thirds of intra-company transfer visas go to IT staff | Information Age


This might give you a good reference

They don't pay much tax:

House of Commons - Home Affairs Committee - Written Evidence

The tax side particularly caught my attention as it appears that intra-company transferees pay little income tax in the UK, yet consume public services like the NHS and schools.

Its not reciprocal:

The biggest users of tier 2 ICT visas tend to use Indian workers, and the Indian government actively opposes any restrictions on Indian professionals working in other countries. However India itself has a restrictive employment visa policy (see the Indian Ministry of Home Affairs website):

http://www.mha.nic.in/pdfs/work_visa_faq.pdf
14. In summary, India has a cap on companies employing foreign professional workers of 1% of their workforce (to a maximum of 20 foreigners). IT workers are not included in the cap provided they are paid at least $25,000, which is 30 times the average Indian salary and twice the average Indian IT worker's salary. Indian missions abroad also have the right to deny an employment visa if they think a qualified Indian worker would be available. India has a zero cap on employment visas for non-professional workers.

Computer weekly have managed to do a series on it

India won't miss UK aid because intra company transfers are as charitable as can be. - Inside Outsourcing


Graph is staggering!

British companies bypass immigration cap on skilled migrants | UK news | The Guardian

splits

TCS's UK workforce is reducing as UK business grows - Inside Outsourcing



your example of the savings now just about covers it, but the cost long term is fewer UK people in IT (a vary enlightened employer, I have seen more ethnic minorities in a powerful position in IT than in almost any other area.) Degree applications falling and economic losses.

future
Comment: UK Big Business exploits visa loophole to decimate IT jobs - Onshoring abuse continues as Cameron ponders immigration cap | TechEye

Many say just man up and retrain but like the steel / Coal & ship building industry once we lose it then it will be hard to get back.