Saturday, January 05, 2008

Devaluation ... of another kind ?

Few sectors have benefited from globalization as much as the IT sector. You go to any country in the world, one definitely stands a fair chance of getting into a similar kind of job profile, if it is in the IT sector. Of course, for some, even that is getting out of one’s comfort zone – getting adapted to a whole new work culture, process and manner of going about things.

But what if one works in a sector which is quite country-specific ?

Lets take for example – law. A lawyer in India with a reasonably significant work experience in India in his area of specialisation. What would he do in a similar sector for a living, say, if he wishes to move out of India - to New York ? or Uzbekistan ? Or Peru? Or South Africa? Its definitely not as easy as the IT sector, though perhaps do-able.

A lot has been spoken about globalization ushering in free movement of labour and capital from one part of the globe to another. But besides the IT industry, has it really made a significant difference to many other sectors ?

So should that devalue the other professions ? Because they don’t get posted to 'glamorous' locations, stay in developed nations and travel to often read about places ?

In my opinion, both IT and this travel humbug are overrated and hyped… quite out of their proportion!

And all this from a self-confessed travel humbug working for (not 'in') the IT sector !
ughh!

3 comments:

VenkatS said...

Sounds like sour grapes to me..

Sharan said...

Sounds like the inability to comprehend between 0 and 1!

Unknown said...

I agree that people from the IT sector are most mobile in this so called globalized world and definitely one can understand the pride from the sour grapes comment here.

But my dear friend its so unfortunate that all the IT professionals can think of is travelling... even when they know that they are breaking all immigration and labour norms of the world, being given second grade treatment. They fail to realize that they are a victim of labour arbitrage.

Well... who cares... as long as there is a $20 per diem.