The night-walkers of Uganda

retail lifestyle expat booming salary
rare skill average chain experience
1. If you have a ____________, you can do something really well.
2. If you have ____________, you have a lot of knowledge about a job or activity because you have 
done it for a long time.
3. Your ____________ is the way you live your life.
4. Your ____________ is the money you earn for your work.
5. ____________ is the process of selling goods direct to the public.
6. An ____________ is someone who lives and works in another country.
7. If a country is ____________, its economy is very successful.
8. A ____________ of businesses is a group of businesses which belong to the same person or company.
9. If something is ____________, it doesn’t happen very often.
10. If one person earns $10,000, another $20,000 and a third $30,000, their ____________ salary is $20,000.
The new passage to India, business class
Level 1
Elementary
Key words
1
Find the information
2
Look in the text and find this information as quickly as possible.
1. How many stores will Mr Levermore’s company open?
2. What percentage of managers in India are expats?
3. What percentage of pilots in India are foreign?
4. How much can senior managers expect to earn in India?
5. How many students graduate from university each year in India?
6. What is the average salary increase in India each year?
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The new passage to India, 
business class
• Foreign executives pour in as salaries soar 
• Shortage of local talent for booming economy 
Randeep Ramesh in New Delhi 
June 13, 2007
Andrew Levermore is a business manager who 
specializes in retail. Mr Levermore has worked 
in both South Africa and Britain. Three years 
ago someone offered him a job in India. He said 
no. He thought the country was too poor and 
disorganized. Now a powerful Mumbai business 
family has asked him to manage India’s first 
western-style hypermarket. This time he said 
yes.
“I changed my mind when I saw their plans. They 
are very serious people. Yes, I had to change 
my lifestyle a bit but this was a really good 
opportunity for me. Of course the pay is good 
compared with the UK.” His company will soon 
be opening another 28 stores and Mr Levermore, 
44, is inviting two more expats to leave their jobs 
in the west and work with him in India. 
Mr Levermore is part of a new movement of 
business people to India. The Indian economy is 
booming but there are not enough qualified and 
experienced middle managers so more and more 
western expatriates are taking senior positions. 
Some Indian experts say Indian workers are 
asking for so much money that it is often cheaper 
to give jobs to foreigners.
“It’s happening very quickly now,” says Kris 
Lakshmikanth, chief executive of Headhunters 
India. “Expats are filling more than 15% of 
management and skilled positions. Hotel 
management requires a rapid improvement in 
quality and we can only get that from abroad. In 
the airline industry, 50% of pilots are foreign. A 
few years ago only 5% of pilots were foreigners”. 
Salaries for chief executives have doubled in 
the past few years and now chief executives 
can earn from £125,000 to £600,000. Senior 
managers can expect £100,000 a year. The head 
of public relations at an Indian corporation earns 
£40,000. 
Bharti Airtel, the country’s biggest mobile 
operator, says foreign managers used to be rare 
in India but they are now as good value as Indian 
staff. Sunil Bharti Mittal, the company’s founder, 
told reporters last month his company had begun 
to give jobs to “expats who cost less than Indian 
managers”. 
Andrea Stone, head of marketing at Bharti’s 
software company Telesoft, joined on a local 
contract in 2005. She said her salary was “good 
enough to live well in Delhi”. “I brought skills 
they did not have. One was that I had worked 
in Britain, Hong Kong, Japan and Germany 
and knew how to work with clients from other 
countries. The other was motivating teams of 
young dynamic people.” 
Ms Stone says that she only has problems 
when she leaves the office. “You can’t walk 
outside easily. It’s too hot and there are not that 
many parks. Also Delhi does not have a public 
transport system, which is a problem. You can’t 
just go round the corner to Marks and Spencer to 
buy food. But you can live.” 
Living in a country like India might be difficult 
for some expats but they can earn good money 
there. Foreign companies are also bringing their 
best managers to India. Cisco Systems, the US 
technology giant, moved seven top managers to 
its Bangalore office this year. The head of Anglo-
Dutch multinational Unilever in the country is a 
South African. The boss of Goldman Sachs is an 
American. 
3 million Indian students graduate from university 
each year but Indian industry says that only 15% 
are good enough to find work in multinational 
companies. Finding and keeping skilled Indian 
workers is becoming more difficult and more 
expensive than ever. Salaries are increasing 
faster in India than anywhere else in Asia. 
According to a study by human resources 
company Hewitt Associates, the average salary 
increase each year in India is more than 14% a 
year, compared with about 8% in China and a 
little less in South Korea and the Philippines.