Worst paid Jobs!!!

A recent survey from Mercer says that IT Managers in India are amongst the worst paid in the world. The average salary in India is around 25,000 USD, faring better than only a few countries like Vietnam, Bulgaria and Philippines. While ET and other newspapers were quick to jump to the news they failed to highlight the difference in Purchasing Power Parity between the top paying countries and India, creating an impression that those in IT are highly underpaid.
Now if we assume the PPP between India and US to be roughly between 6 to 8 times then the salary figure turns out to be roughly between 150,000 and 200,000 USD, much more than the average IT salary in US (USD 107,500 as per the survey). If we take the Big Mac Index however the figures dont look that flattering however. The Big Mac Index as per Rashmi Bansal's article would be around 2.64 . That would mean roughly a figure of around 66,000 USD for Indian IT managers. However considering that the Economists itself omits India from the Big Mac Index, I wouldnt put too much faith in the figure.
The survey is however interesting in other aspects, especially when comparing Europe vis a vis N America for IT employees working on a short-medium term basis (in which case the PPP I guess wudnt matter that much). US and Canada are ranked 6th and 8th as per the report while the figures for Switzerland at the top of the table are around 141,000 USD (around 30% more than US). The next 4 slots are occupied by Denmark,Belgium,UK and Ireland, all pointing to the fact that Europe seems to be better destination for IT guys compared to US, at least as far as pay is concerned. Also with the falling rates of USD, Europe seems to be a better bet in the future too.
Another interesting finding in the survey is that the gap between the pay of Junior staff in India is comparably higher than US and Europe. The reason I guess is the huge number of graduates being hired by It companies at lower levels. Having relatively low skills and the necessity of imparting heavy trainings at this level, without which there is very low chance of them jumping ship, allows firms to retain them at low wages. However once they gain considerable work experience in 2-3 years it becomes relatively tough to hold them and that is when their Sals start rising rapidly. Consider this, a person with 4-5 years of experience in most IT firm earns 2.5 to 3 times more than the entry level sals today (which itself is higher than what they started out with). This is something relatively rare in other mature industries like manufacturing for example.However with the huge hirings taken place in the last 2-3 years, i guess the IT industry would also be in sync with other industries pretty soon.