Employment

While serving as a guest lecturer at a local university last year I noted for the students that India was being overlooked by the "gold rush" to China. At the time I blogged on this subject by stating that for the USA India was a much better trading partner due to -- both countries are representative democracies, both countries speak our own versions of the English language, and both countries use the Common Law system inherited from our British overlords.

China faces a real challenge in terms of bringing development and wealth to its poor, rural, low skilled populations just like India does today as their economies modernize and open up to the global economy. But here comes some an exciting news from India in the form of a new company created by a former employee of Microsoft Research -- Sean Olin Blagsvedt -- which is named:

http://www.babajob.com/

"Babajob.com and babalife.com are a combined effort to provide the best social networking and job site in India and eventually worldwide. It’s based on the simple idea that everyone deserves to get a better job – even if you can’t read English and work in another’s home. Most people find jobs through people they know – namely their extended social network – and most employers – particularly when hiring employees that work in the home, would like to hire a person who someone they trust can vouch for."

BabaJob and BabaLife combine the worlds of social networking with online job searches but Baba's focus is on poor, unskilled workers which from my perspective makes this service so unique. Baba uses an incentive system that pays people for successful referrals once job applicants are hired which is perhaps an incentive system the USA's various social services/welfare workers should have implemented into their salary structures. One final observation is perhaps an obvious one -- creating job mobility and promotions for India's unskilled workers creates future middle class (potentially of course) consumers which is important news for both of our nations.

Keep up the good work Mr. Blagsvedt,

Todd