By Paul McDougall

Despite President Obama's pledge to retain more hi-tech jobs in the U.S., a federal agency run by a hand-picked Obama appointee has launched a $36 million program to train workers, including 3,000 specialists in IT and related functions, in South Asia.

Following their training, the tech workers will be placed with outsourcing vendors in the region that provide offshore IT and business services to American companies looking to take advantage of the Asian subcontinent's low labor costs.

Under director Rajiv Shah, the United States Agency for International Development will partner with private outsourcers in Sri Lanka to teach workers there advanced IT skills like Enterprise Java (Java EE) programming, as well as skills in business process outsourcing and call center support. USAID will also help the trainees brush up on their English language proficiency.

Article continues...

* * * * *

I'm glad to see Sri Lankans getting their piece of the pie. When my friends and I all lost our IT jobs, the jobs went to India. The company that did that to us was later gobbled up by a  larger company. I kind of like to think that all our old cost- conscious executives had their jobs out-sourced to Bulgaria or someplace like that.

I wonder if the Tamil Tigers are specializing in "guerilla coding"? We spent a lot of nights and weekends cranking it out. Always expected some kind of recognition or reward. Guess the coffee mugs and paper-weights were it.

I'm glad to have all the spare time now. Gives me a chance to keep up this web site, and to get to the shooting range frequently to sharpen my marksmanship.