A majority of job seekers don’t have access to the final client because of physical barriers. That led to mushrooming of middlemen (Bodyshoppers)

Trained computer professionals are abundant in India at low cost. Very few companies concentrate on developing the state-of-art tools. Most of the companies in India including BIG PLAYERS in today's market survive on Maintenance projects from abroad or junk work. Money getting from the domestic projects is very less.

Y2K was certainly a major boost for the s/w industry. DOT COM was a booming FUNDA.

OK...I don't want to write an essay on Bodyshopping..just to give you a vauge idea..some points to be noted..

1. You may not like the body shopping exploitation, but that it affords you a unique opportunity.
2. In most of the cases you need to work 50+ hours a week.
3. The first "body shoppers" arrived in Silicon Valley in 1987 and soon business was booming.
4. Body-shoppers don’t offer security
5. You are unable to utilize your academic knowledge in a proper way.

Read the following article from The Hindustan Times dated April 15, 2001.

LET’S ASSUME a company in Boston wants to hire 20 Indian software professionals for a project.

Step 1: He will get contact a body shop in Pittsburgh who in turn will get in touch with a placement consultant in Bangalore.

Step 2: The consultant will dig out some 200-odd resumes from his database and send them to this body shop.

Step 3: After shortlisting the resumes, the Boston firm will conduct telephonic interviews with some of the candidates.

Step 4: When the selection process is over, the body shop will confirm the list of candidates to the placement consultancy who will in turn make offers to the professionals.

Step 5: The professional would then give his documents including passport, education certificates etc to the consultant who will courier it to the body shop.

Step 6: The body shop will then apply to the Immigration and Naturalisation Services (INS) for validation and the allotment of H1- B visa.

Step 7: The H1-B visa will be sent back to the consultant or the candidate directly. The candidate will go to the US consulate in India for visa and immigration formalities.

Step 8: After completing the formalities, the candidate will fly down to the States and contact the body shop as they are the ones who hold the H1-B visa for the candidate. The candidate will be kept on the payrolls of the body shop on a project basis.

(Note – this is just one of the possible scenarios. Everything varies from one project to another)

Let’s assume the Boston firm suppose pays $70 per hour to the body shop. The candidate in turn will be paid approx $20-30 per hour. Which means, whenever there is no project, he is put on bench. That is when he software professional will not be billable to the body shop.

In other words, he would not be generating any income for the body shopper. Which is why the salaries on bench are much lower. As far as the placement consultant back home is concerned, he usually gets a commission of $1,500-2,000 per candidate.