@Getjimmy - You are partly right, but the industry is burgeoning rapidly. If you visit freelance websites, you will notice that a large portion of the members are Indians. However and then again, the quality falters... Hopefully this area of work will improve before long. By the way, infrastructure is also a big question in this respect. Credits to Jimmy for the accurate comment that most Indians are totally unaware of full-time job prospects online.
I've got a site around 150 pages that ranks page one for around 800 keywords or phrases. It's whether they actually bring traffic that counts. In this case, around 30 bring very heavy traffic, 90 moderate to heavy traffic and probably 250 bring light to moderate traffic. The rest bring under 20 a month, so in the overall scheme of things there's 400 or so rankings that mean almost nothing. Another site i have ranks for just 3 good keywords and brings in more traffic then one that ranks for 800 various terms. That's why mastering keyword analysis is critical to becomming a great SEO.
not agree with u, there are lots of good companies and SEO working full time on offshore projects. and i m one of the part of that, i am working in SEO/SEM since last 1.5 years as a full time employee of reputed firms.