College Grads With Engineering Degrees Start at $6,000 per year in India

Everyone knows it's cheaper to outsource technology jobs to India then to pay U.S. workers, but exactly how much cheaper is is to hire a well educated college graduate with a degree in software engineering?

A U.S. college grad with a software engineering degree starts at $46,000+, on average.

An Indian college grad with the same degree begins at $6,000, on average.

No wonder so many U.S. technology companies are outsourcing jobs to India. That includes Microsoft, who is being criticized for much of Windows 7 being developed by Indian workers. (which might not be such a bad thing, since every version of Windows has sucked.)

However, the San Francisco Chronicle says that the savings associated with outsourcing is quickly gobbled up by raises.

"A recent salary study from India's Business World magazine shows the IT industry in India had average raises of 20 percent. Companies like Sify say they often give new workers annual raises of 25 to 50 percent. Outsourcing giant Satyam tells me that workers on the "leadership" track can work their way up to six figures in five years. (Thing about this: This steep salary curve means all that cost-saving that India is famous for happens almost exclusively with entry-level employees. There is virtually no difference in mid-career wages.)"

And if there is no difference in mid-career wages, then the added cost of having to manage the business from India, shuttling workers back and forth, long distance communications, etc., not to mention the negative publicity and potential loss in sales that a U.S. company gets for laying off thousands of U.S. workers, means outsourcing isn't the money printing grab-all it's presented as.