To support this, some anecdotal data. Back in 1997 somebody I knew with no programming experience who joined a big Indian Consultancy. They trained him on COB

To support this, some anecdotal data. Back in 1997 somebody I knew with no programming experience who joined a big Indian Consultancy. They trained him on COBOL and some other technologies that were in high demand for Y2K stuff in the US. He got placed in a lot of small towns where IT back-offices were located (not sure why, maybe because the servers were there?). His US salary was good, but not anything special compared to other developer salaries at the time. There were a lot of articles back then about how knowing COBOL was a ticket to a great job and salary, but it wasn't all that true back then even with Y2K getting closer. So you are basically learning a niche language that may or may not last and you may have to move to a less desirable (in terms of availability of tech jobs) place. The point is that even back then you could scour resumes from US based people or you could contract with a large Indian company and they would make contractual promises about a certain number of trained employees always being on site. Somebody is going to crib about the quality of these employees, but that isn't the point. The point is that it's easier to hire them than it is to hire you.