Outsourcing & Part Time Work in India

• India has the second largest English-speaking technical workforce in the world. (2004)
  
• India is expected to build a $17 Billion web industry by 2008. (Source: Stylus, August 2004)
  
• India currently claims to control 85% of the web technologies market. (Source: Stylus, August 2004)
  
• India has a total population of just over 1.2 billion and has the largest English-speaking population outside if the United States. (Source: Stylus, August 2004)
  
• India's web professionals have grown from just over 2,000 in 1996 to more than a quarter million in 2002 and have continued growing exponentially. (Source: Stylus, August 2004)
  
• 55% of young Indians (India) are opting for careers in web-related activities (design, integration, web services, content writing, database integration, e-commerce etc). (Source: Stylus, August 2004)
  
• ECONOMY
  
  India's economy encompasses traditional village farming, modern agriculture, handicrafts, a wide range of modern industries, and a multitude of support services. About a quarter of the population is too poor to be able to afford an adequate diet. India's international payments position remained strong in 2001 with adequate foreign exchange reserves, and moderately depreciating nominal exchange rates. Growth in manufacturing output has slowed, and electricity shortages continue in many regions. India has large numbers of well-educated people skilled in English language; India is a major exporter of software services and software workers.
  GDP:
  purchasing power parity - $2.5 trillion (2001 est.)
  GDP - real growth rate:
  5% (2001 est.)
  GDP - per capita:
  purchasing power parity - $2,500 (2001 est.)
  GDP - composition by sector:
  Agriculture: 25% industry: 26% services: 49% (2001)
  
  
• Languages:
  
  English enjoys associate status but is the most important language for national, political, and commercial communication; Hindu is the national language and primary tongue of 30% of the people; there are 14 other official languages: Bengali, Telugu, Marathi, Tamil, Urdu, Gujarati, Malayalam, Kannada, Oriya, Punjabi, Assamese, Kashmiri, Sindhi, and Sanskrit; Hindustani is a popular variant of Hindi/Urdu spoken widely throughout northern India but is not an official language.
  Literacy:
  definition: age 15 and over can read and write total population: 52% male: 65.5% female: 37.7% (1995 est.)
  
• 3.3 million jobs are expected to be offshore outsourced to India and China over the next several years. (Source: Business Week, 2003)
  
• By the end of January 2003 more than 70% of laid-off technology workers had exhausted (used up) their unemployment benefits. Unemployment for technology workers has continued to rise, giving little hope for re-employment. (2004 January)
  
• India is the largest producer of movies in the world. Today, even movie production is being outsourced from Hollywood to Bollywood (yes Bollywood is a real place) in India. (2003)
  
• India's middle-class is estimated at only 0.35% of their total population (approximately 350 million out of 1 Billion). (2004)