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One of his ex-staff was poached by a firm in New Jersey last November and was begging to come back to work for them in Manila last January. Basically, here's what happened to his staff:
- He was promised an $80k salary but on arrival found that this would only be paid if he was placed in a client.
- Otherwise, on the bench, he had to survive on $20 a day.
- Sharing a 2 bedroom apartment with 5 other Indians - in a dangerous, ghetto neighborhood.
Cary is based in the U.S. now and believes that the average Filipino IT worker doesn't understand the deteriorating reality of surviving in the US on even $80k a year. Perhaps it would be useful for them to know major expenses such as healthcare.
- Healthcare costs – a family of 4 with employer-provided health insurance can factor an annual spend of around $6,000 - $10,000 a year on basic healthcare needs due to (i) employee premium contributions (ii) co-pays and deductibles (iii) out-of-plan coverage and pre-existing conditions and (iv) insanely inflated medication costs.
- WITHOUT health insurance (cost = $7k per year) – you are literally gambling with your life and/or your kid’s lives.
- Education costs - Most middle class families send their kids to private education from 4yrs up at $10k a year – otherwise it's the public schools that has its own set of risks and challenges.
If an IT professional can make 90k + in Manila, they’d be mad to go to the US. But who can pay that much?
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Perhaps in our desire to have better lives, the immediate option is to get out of the country with the least difficult route as possible. As a result, some Filipinos have taken on job offers without going through the normal due process.
Time and again, we've seen that majority of those who encountered problems are the ones who didn't go through proper process.
Hi Janet,
ReplyDeleteThanks for this very wonderful article that you posted. It is yet another affirmation that leaving the Philippines and seeking opportunities outside will always have a better result.
But may i correct the portion about an IT professional earning a 90K here in the Philippines. Yes this is very possible, from where i work i know a lot of people are earning more than 90K in an IT industry and their positions are not yet managerial posts, i guess you just have to find the right company for your skills, that is the keyword here.
Thanks and more power to your blog.
Ouch,
ReplyDeleteMahirap talaga kapag padalos-dalos lang yung pagdedesisyon sa pagpunta ng abroad. The thing here though is that nakakahinayang yung H1-B visa dahil hindi kanais-nais. What if having that visa prevented someone with a legitimate, better paying job from leaving because slots ran out?
Point is, ang mga Pilipino, kapag andito sa Pilipinas, ang pili pili pili sa trabaho, pero once mapangakuan na ng abroad kahit ano na lang kukunin without batting an eyelash.
If you're looking for 90K/mo employers, there *are* employers paying that much in the local IT industry, but usually that corresponds to 5years + experience (which I believe is apt).
The problem with our local devs I think is that they have some "minimum wage" mentality, meaning they want to achieve a certain amount of salary for the highest possible pay, instead of enriching their own skillset constantly and relentlessly as to deserve a higher salary. Gusto nila mataas agad that's why abroad is so lucrative for them. Di nila alam magtiyaga lang sila ng ilang taon + develop their skills sa local IT industry they can skyrocket their salary ranges (although that might require changing employers once or twice, another "unsettling" idea for some employment-security oriented people).