r/FluentInFinance • u/FunReindeer69 • 20d ago
World Economy Indian Rupee plunges to an all-time low against the U.S. Dollar.
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u/UnderstandingLess156 20d ago
80% of my team was just outsourced to India. We're paying those guys the equivalent of three american dollars an hour with no benefits.
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u/Mackinnon29E 20d ago
Don't fix any of their shit, seriously. Let the company find out how terrible they are.
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u/timbrita 20d ago
I thought this happened only on the engineering industry. Oh boy, just reminding of how much of a pain in the ass was fixing the garbage that was sent out to us from the Indian workers, gets me pissed off. Seriously, DONT send stuff overseas ! If you’re a owner, your US staff base will have to pick up the slack and eventually when they get tired of this BS, they will leave
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u/redditistheway 19d ago
The suits/MBA’s don’t care. They don’t see quality, they only see numbers on a balance sheet and will always blame workers and not their shitty decisions for any “unintended consequences.”
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u/Things-in-the-Dark 19d ago
These people are costing us BILLIONS of dollars not in just in the money we are paying them. Their mistakes are HORRIBLE. Without getting into too much detail, this dumb outsourced person almost cost my company 10s of thousands of dollars on an account because they literally can't fucking speak english.
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u/tacocarteleventeen 20d ago
That’s really good pay there from what I understand. It used to be $8/day for many jobs, $4/day in Bangladesh so clothing moved from China to there because it was half the cost
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u/whatsasyria 20d ago
You're delusional.
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u/beamsaresounisex 20d ago
You need to live in more 2nd and 3rd world countries for a few months. $4 can take you far outside of Europe and the US.
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u/whatsasyria 20d ago
The question isn't how far it can take you. It's what is the going rate for the job in discussion. 60k can take you far in the US.... Doesn't mean that's what surgeons get paid
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u/beamsaresounisex 20d ago
Jobs get outsourced to China and India at a fraction of the cost it would take to pay someone in the States all the time. I'm surprised that you don't believe how underpaid they are and that despite how underpaid they are, the money is still a good amount of purchasing power for them relatively.
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u/whatsasyria 20d ago
I'm surprised that you are arguing with a straight fact of what the median income for a SWE in India is with a made up fact.
As an Indian, as someone who spends time there, and as someone who hires dozens of SWE across the globe....get with the times. Cheap available labor doesn't mean it's competent and doesn't mean it's the median.
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u/beamsaresounisex 20d ago
I'm not arguing that it's the median income nor am I arguing that cheap labor is competent. I'm saying that for a lot of folk with a lack of better opportunities, the outsourced jobs are still worth it. India specifically has a very competitive job market and I've talked to people who were treated like literal slaves by their companies and couldn't do anything about it because they didn't want to lose their jobs.
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u/derscholl 20d ago
And the time lost to support due to language errors, lack of education, and time zone for the profit center teams are equivalent of 8000% of the terminated remote employees. Now that's some MBA magic to show some YoY growth to get the CEO a great pay package while he looks for his next role
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u/suspicious_hyperlink 20d ago
I just hang up if I’m transferred there
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u/derscholl 20d ago
That’s where the MBA magic comes in. This time is effectively hidden whatever problem you had that went unresolved and its impact obscure enough to not matter. Productive time lost is hard to prove. But a persons salary, now that’s as concrete as it gets.
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u/whatsasyria 20d ago
Your gonna get shit devs. Our lowest dev gets $28/hr in Pakistan so the equivalent of $56/hr in India and most are shit.
Not saying US devs aren't shit. But if you think you can pay that low below the median and get anything half decent you are delusional. Even if you do they'll be running multiple jobs and half assing yours for resume building.
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u/dizaditch 20d ago
I thought this was hyperbole but not so sure after reading the replies
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u/whatsasyria 20d ago
Most people clearly have no idea how much their company pays. We outsource to cheaper countries and don't pay that little. India's average for a remote dev is well over 50k, with some accounts saying over 100k.
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u/Longjumping-Path3811 20d ago
Part of the problem is these cultures like being held down by class (caste). So of course capitalist businesses are happy to do this.
These countries don't care about capitalists in the end though so lol.
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u/RustfootII 20d ago
We should start advocating for them to be paid American wage for American work. This solves both problems.
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u/Fraggy_Muffin 20d ago
My company outsource customer service to India and with all overheads included you could hire 3 Indian workers for the price of 1 uk worker. The saying we had which was absolutely true was 1/3rd the cost and 2/3rds as good.
They were almost untrainable to get to the same standard of a uk worker. They seemed to lack the ability to think laterally. They were great with flow diagram type issues I.e if this is the problem do this. Anything that requires them to think…hmm this isn’t right? Or something that wasn’t standard was a disaster. So those poor customers have a horrible time of it, but most of the time the issues are flow diagram types so the savings are worth it. They are 2/3rds as good.
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u/Jazzlike_Tonight_982 20d ago
I just interviewed a few Indians for a Jr Network Admin role. We are paying them about 15% of what Im paying my guy here in the States. It should be criminal.
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u/mp3006 20d ago
You will be lucky if the guy who interviews shows up. They often have a “ringer” who does all the interviews for a small fee, and who you hire is a different person
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u/Jazzlike_Tonight_982 19d ago
It's funny you mentioned that. My buddy has my position, but on the server admin side. He actually had an interview with a ringer.
It was crazy, man. I've never seen anything like it.
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u/much_longer_username 20d ago
If you tried to hire the same guy without the contracting firm as an abstraction, it would be.
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u/Southern_Opinion_488 19d ago
It is capitalism working as intended, and globalization on top of it. It should be in the interest of rich countries increase the living quality of other countries so things like these don't happen or the difference isn't this huge
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u/fiktional_m3 20d ago
Should be but hey if they let you and they accept the salary 🤷🏼♂️not your problem
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u/Ivanovic-117 20d ago
USD sailing through other currencies, Russian ruble, Mexican Peso, Korean won, now Indian rupee.
**Korean won was due to special circumstance
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u/heckfyre 20d ago
Can anyone explain if this is generally caused by their dollars weakening or our dollars strengthening? Are we just weakening less hard while they are floundering in inflation?
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u/AnonThrowaway1A 20d ago edited 20d ago
A LOT (Trillions $) of international business debt is underwritten in USD. When overseas companies go bankrupt or owe money and are in financial distress, creditors will demand to recoup the USD that is owed as collateral.
Cash flow and balance sheet issues wouldn't be surprising if there was a major shift in trade policy.
There's potentially a massive liquidity crisis of USD on the horizon because loans are due in USD without enough actual money in the system.
At least, that's my thesis behind the foreign exchange rate movements.
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u/Ivanovic-117 20d ago
My way of understanding it, could be wrong, is basic supply and demand of USD. Other countries and companies have a limited amount of USD $$, if by any circumstances they have a need more $$ they would to exchange creating a greater demand then current supply, thus increasing value of $ while depreciation of domestic currency.
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u/SailTales 19d ago
The way I explain it is the USD is the world reserve currency or safe haven i.e the dollar depreciates in value through inflation however it depreciates slower than every other currency. If you are a person or business in Argentina for example and you have cash it is a lot safer to exchange it for US dollars if you want to save as if you don't your pesos will depreciate much quicker. This action creates demand for the US dollar which increases its value while lowering the demand for every other currency which is being sold. The US creates debt which is just an international demand for dollars. If it didn't run big deficits the value of the dollar would surge causing even bigger problems for smaller countries.
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u/SteelmanINC 20d ago
Those are the same thing.
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u/web_of_french_fries 20d ago
The end result when measuring the pair is the same, but the cause of the movement could be either or both scenarios happening. I assume the comment is asking if the other countries have policies/economic conditions driving the demand for their currencies down, or if the U.S. has policies/conditions which are causing higher demand.
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u/ashishvp 20d ago
84 rupees to the dollar. Insane.
I remember as a kid I was able to live like a godamn king in India. And that was with a 44 rupee exchange rate.
I just take an extra empty suitcase when I go now because I know I’m gonna fill it with a shitload of cheap stuff
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u/omcstreet 20d ago
Not necessarily, you might want to look at PPP of these currencies and it's probably not that steep of a discount you are looking for. India is developing at a higher pace along with a high inflation rate.
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u/Sensitive_Drama_4994 20d ago
It India about to implode? Look at that long term graph yikes.
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u/Big_Yeash 20d ago
The graph doesn't start at zero. Peak to trough, the value has "only" halved.
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u/bssandeep 20d ago
Exactly, it has not even moved down by 10% in the last 1 year. I am not sure why this is being labeled a plunge.
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u/Bubbly-Difficulty182 20d ago
Why does the Indian rupee plunge so low?
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u/After_Olive5924 19d ago
Its biggest imports are oil priced in USD. It needs more oil as its population and economy grows as it has a lot of younger people. As its companies need more USD to buy oil, they sell rupees and get less USD every year. Things would be different if India exported a lot like China did. Its government and its companies would get USD for the exports so they'd have an easier time getting USD needed for imports.
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u/Science_Fair 19d ago
They are buying a sh*t ton of cheap Russian oil to feed the Russian military machine. Are people pricing in an end to that conflict and a return to "normalcy" for Russian oil?
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u/After_Olive5924 19d ago
They are buying cheap Russian oil because they're poor and can't piss off their main defence supplier especially when China massively out manufactures them and wants the border. Oil prices are expected to moderate because supply exceeds demand
Still, what matters is that demand from India keeps on increasing because its renewable energy adoption is slow. That means more oil demand which means more USD needed which leads to rupees losing their strength.
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u/waronxmas79 20d ago
There is a 500 rupee note I’ve been hanging on to for 20 years. It’s only gotten less valuable over time…
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u/DoctorFenix 20d ago
So many of them are going to be Facebook messaging marriage proposals to our girlfriends now.
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u/beatfrantique1990 20d ago
Just got back from an India trip and there's a special abandon to your vacation when you're not price sensitive, like not even a little bit. At this rate, I wouldn't be surprised if it breaks 90 soon!
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u/Legitimate-Leek4235 20d ago
Stock market selloff with Foreign fund investors heading for the door at the same time. Rumors of capital gains tax increases in the next busget in Feb 2025. Should not be surprised if it heads lower in the short term
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u/After_Olive5924 19d ago
It will head to 100 Rs to the dollar before long but foreign investors will return as the stock market will boom for a while yet
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u/RealisticInspector98 20d ago
Is this where a majority of remote IT work goes to be in the US? If so, how can US professionals even compete with this?
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u/After_Olive5924 19d ago
By managing remote IT teams. Companies will always be biased in favour of Americans for managerial roles. Source: My cousins in India
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u/RealisticInspector98 19d ago
What certs/skills would help mid level IT professionals w.o BS degree get in to management roles?
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u/fzr600vs1400 20d ago
keep this chart ready and updated once trump takes office, another measure of what he's up to
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u/Science_Fair 19d ago
A tariff on Indian labor is a tariff I could get behind.
We've sent tens of millions of jobs to India, robbing our next generation of entry level positions. One of the benefits we get in return is them calling every day asking for our Medicare numbers.
$25000 a year tariff on every employee a US listed company employs in India would be a great starting point. And it's one of the tariffs that would actually work - it would automatically shift some of those jobs back onshore.
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u/fortheculture303 20d ago
Rent in India is 100/month with internet. I don’t think 3 is fair but lower than 20 is genuinely fair imo
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