For years, Asian countries, especially India and China, were seen as "cheap labor" countries. Though I never did concede with this concept, it was pretty much out there in the global market. The raw stats say that what can be done for a dollar in US is done for 1/4th the dollar in India. It was that cheap!

So India/China were seen as Offshoring/Outsourcing destinations. With cosy labor mandate, and emerging economy protocol, the Indians were more than thrilled to work in a global environment. Manufacturing was never our forte, so I touch the IT aspect of labor/workforce over here.

For past few years, India as moved up the value chain. Instead of just being a staff augment provider, we have foryed in Outsourced Product Development (OPD). Instead of just being a system integator, we have set up R & D shops for global companies and contributed to it. We have enhnaced our technical expertise over the time more than the US counter parts.

Now what effect it has had on the workforce? Well it has sent the labor in to a comfy made as we keep harping about the "demand-supply" gap. Consequently, the demands of professionals have sky-rocketd. As more and more profesionals amass disposable incomes, the inflation has shown an upward trend. Realty prices have zoomed out of a common man's limit. This has had an altered effect on other industries that are not paid that well like Manufacturing, Banking, etc. Seeing the prospect, people from non-IT have started shifting towards ever-enticing IT industry. This in turn has created an abysmal void of resources for former.

Would you still call India "cheap labor" country? I might have settled for "Affordable Labor" couple of years back. But today, we are expensive, not for ourselves only, but for the MNC's also.  We might lose on this aspect to our nearest rival: China. China is gaining fast on the IT front.

We need to pull our socks up and think , are we projecting "Brand India" right? Its true we need to come out of our image of "low-cost destination." But with the current picture we are going towards an image of "blow-cost" destination.

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