BANGALORE: Dismissing the current outsourcing controversy in the West as a short term "pain" before the long term benefits of IT sourcing are realized in the US, Monster Inc.'s founder and chief Jeff Taylor predicted tremendous employment opportunities for Indian IT in the coming years.

"Right now, there are half-a million Indian IT professionals working on US projects. I expect the number to touch three to four million by 2008," he said. He predicts that by 2010, the US would issue H1B visas to a massive number of Indians to stem its yawning labor shortfall.

Tracing the industry trends in the US, he said, "It is predicted that the US would face the worst ever labor shortage in 2008, largely because the baby boomer generation which makes up for around 60 million of the US population, would retire by then. The number of entry-level workers would also be low at around 25 million."

Addressing his first Indian meet since his company acquired Indian online recruitment firm Jobsahead.com for $9.6 million in June this year, Taylor said that the Internet could be used as a catalyst for driving change and addressing the skills shortage.
Stressing India's employment potential, he said, "India produces three times as many college graduates as the US. We need to educate people about the long-term benefits of a India-US relationship."
Added to these labor woes in the US, is the spiraling increase of customer care job salaries. "Over the next 10 years, call center jobs in the US are going to dry up because they cannot afford to keep these employees. The industry would have to tap India's tremendous cost advantage."
Given this scenario, Monster expects to play a significant role in filling in the recruitment needs with the Jobsahead acquisition. The coming together of both companies has brought the total number of resumes to 2.7 million and membership clients to 4,000. He urged companies to use technology and the Internet effectively for retooling systems and increasing effectiveness.