Has anyone considered the effects of recruiting IT personnel from other countries. ?

I live and work in Holland. Over the last year there has been a large influx of IT staff from South Africa. They are being recruited there with promises of much higher wages than they can possibly earn in their own land and it's true, they earn about 3.5 to 4 times as much here as they can in South Africa (I asked). So every month there is an additional group of programmers that arrive in Holland. Good for them and good for the company that arranges the work for them.

I am sure that there was also a shortage of IT staff in SA, just as there was (is) in every country that I have heard about. So what is this extra drain on the small pool of available people doing to the Y2K efforts in SA ?

-- Ian Phillips (iphillip@solair1.inter.nl.net), April 07, 1999

Answers

Ian, I'd say if the South African companies want to retain their employees, they'll up the ante either by higher wages and/or better benefits. You don't suppose these programmers are laaving the country because it's no longer quite as hospitable as it was, do you?

I know that India is importing Y2K work from the US--I wonder why South African companies haven't done the same? They'd be able to pay higher wages that way.

-- Old Git (anon@spamproblems.com), April 07, 1999.