[A. Pole]

According to Forrester research, the average computer programmer in India earns roughly $10 per hour, compared with more than $60 per hour for the average American programmer.

"$60 per hour for the average American programmer."?! Why are they lying?

[neutrino]

"$60 per hour for the average American programmer."?! Why are they lying?

The free traitors lie about everything anyway - why shouldn't they lie about this as well?

[CasearianDaoist]

The rate in NYC is down to about $20 to $25.

[bvw]

They make their money on meta-changes. The wave of off-shoring is a meta-change. They make NO money on the status quo ante.

[Mears]

I hate to say it,but everybody lies.

It seems to have become the great American pastime.

Lie,get caught in the lie,apologize.

[Reeses]

$10 per hour, compared with more than $60 per hour

The $60 is total costs including benefits and employer paid taxes. India costs are now at about $30 per hour. The big difference is the $60 per hour American pays about $30 per hour in taxes, everything from sales, fuel, property taxes, etc. So companies are really saving money by cutting out Uncle Sam.

[Sender]

"$60 per hour for the average American programmer."?! Why are they lying?

For the same reasons they tell lies such as wars for oil, womens' reproductive health, and the meaning of the second amendment.

They assume, and hope, that most people are uninformed and will just accept it as fact.

[remember]

According to Forrester research, the average computer programmer in India earns roughly $10 per hour, compared with more than $60 per hour for the average American programmer.

"$60 per hour for the average American programmer."?! Why are they lying?

I suspect that they are lying so as to undercut any sympathy for American programmers and to promote the idea that the jobs are being outsourced because those programmers are grossly overpaid. In fact, the basic problem is that the cost of living in India is much lower that it is here. An American programmer could not survive on the wages being paid to Indian programmers. Hence, few of those jobs will be offered to American programmers, at any wage.

I hate to say it,but everybody lies.

It seems to have become the great American pastime.

Lie,get caught in the lie,apologize.

In fact, they will probably excuse the lie, claiming that the figure includes benefits and the employer's share of the FICA tax. Nevermind that they made no mention of this in their original statement. Hence, the correct description of their actions might be...

Mislead, get caught, give dishonest explanation, mislead again.

[ninenot]

Project managers will make around $75K, which is approx. $60./hour WITH BENEFIT LOADING--socsecurity, health, dental, vacations, holidays, etc.

Basic experience programmer should be about $50K, or around $40./hour with full bennies loading.

[DustyMoment]

. . . $60 per hour for the average American programmer.

Maybe in CA, but not anywhere else that I have seen. I think that number is BS. It is very much on the high side and may be the average for a very SR programmer.

[InABunkerUnderSF]

"$60 per hour for the average American programmer."?! Why are they lying?

$60 an hour? Not in most markets and if they do I think I'll start coding again.

However:

If a programmer makes $80,000 per year with three weeks vacation and ten paid holidays, that's about $41 an hour. On that basis, the company pays over $3 an hour for social security, company health insurance is about another $2 to $3 an hour. Throw in matching 401K and other bennies and bonuses and you may get over $50 per hour in company's cost. Add office space rent, utilities, phone costs, office supplies etc. and you probably get close to $60 an hour in terms of cost to the company - but not in employee salary.

If you are a manager attempting to cost justify your great new outsourcing plan you don't calculate in increased management costs for off-shore employees or increased telecom and data networking costs. And of course you don't ever want to address the issues of reduced productivity, frustrated internal customers, lost external customers and other "soft costs".

An important aspect to remember about outsourcing is that contract employees are a lot more disposable and easy to control than Americans.

I think in the long run outsourcing is more about control than about cost savings. A company can point at their outsourced IT department and say to their other employees "See, they were costing too much so we had to eliminate their jobs. You'd better not ask for a raise."