That increase is related to an unprecedented rise in bonuses over the last four years and also to the elimination of some lower-paying jobs because of outsourcing and computer improvements.
India is outsourcing outsourcing.
Amsterdam-based ABN Amro said in September that it would join the growing ranks of companies outsourcing much of their computer work to reduce costs.
The Chengdu Hi-Tech Industrial Development Zone has also attracted a number of other multinationals, including IBM, SAP, AMD and India's Wipro, drawn to its strength in computer software, outsourcing and integrated circuit design.
Among the many things that surprised Michael Jordan when he arrived at troubled tech giant EDS last year was a deep and puzzling irony: EDS invented the business of outsourcing, overhauling other firms' computer systems and running them far more efficiently, yet its own internal network was a haphazard and disjointed mess.
So besides funding health clinics and computer-filled primary schools in villages in their home state of Andhra Pradesh, they tried something new: outsourcing their outsourcing to villages.
L&H's shares were suspended a month ago after accounting errors had been reported; its two founders have both quit the company.Sema Group, an Anglo-French computer-services outsourcing company, issued a profits warning that sent its shares nosediving by 44%.
Palmisano's vision of utility computing builds on the outsourcing business, by which IBMbuys customers' computers back from them, hires away their techies and runs their computer centers under multiyear contracts, collecting a monthly fee.
Sema also said its outsourcing division -- which provides computer services on behalf of clients -- would earn 10percentt less in the second half of 2000 than in the period a year earlier.
After all, even computer programmers fear outsourcing these days, and recent raises for college graduates have been meager.
