Jun
More US visas for Indian IT companies ?
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(The author is an IIMC alumnus currently working in the US. )
I am not an ardent follower of Indian newspapers but a recent run of comments from the CEOs of top IT firms in India about restrictions on H-1B visa harming the US more than India have been nothing short of amusing.There is no shortage of talent in USA which has more than 2000 Universities with the average quality of education far above the average quality in India.
The top Indian IT companies have been till recently the largest filers of H1B visas so much so that the past 2 years have seen a lottery system being adopted for allocation of H-1B visas.The H-1B visa was created to allow people with superior knowledge/degrees/experience to be able to work in USA on a path which would ultimately lead to permanent residentship. How can a 1 day lottery decide something which can only be decided by scrutinising each application in detail ? What the IT companies have been doing is bodyshop thousands of IT workers – many of whom are not qualified or do not even have basic knowledge to do the job in USA – who are undercutting wages in USA with low quality work.A senior person from Wipro recently commented that visa restrictions were inappropriate since they would only save about 8000 jobs in USA each year in a labour market of more than 10 million hi-tech jobs.He himself could not have been more spot on.The only person who would be affected is he himself and not USA since CEOs like him would not be able to make more money by bodyshopping more people into USA. Same is the case with TCS, Infosys, Satyam (whatever is left of it), etc.
The US economy has become a service oriented economy in the 21st century and its core industry is in great upheaval.So it is understandable that most jobs in USA today would be service oriented jobs and IT is the backbone of most service oriented jobs.Another thing which is an open travesty is the constant use of the word “talent” while referring to body-shopped IT professionals.The Indian education system is deteriorating already and India will not be able to compete with other emerging economies within a few years. The IT firms cannot fool the Americans forever. What the top IT firms in India should focus on is look at other markets than USA and increase domestic consumption of IT services (which of course will not get them dollars).But since the USA also has a finite number of IT jobs that can be outsourced and sooner or later , IT firms in India will either have to downsize or look at other markets.The IT firms would also need to set up training facilities or perhaps their own educational institutes to make sure they have a supply of talent to set themselves apart from competition.All this would need massive investments but the days of high NPV outsourcing projects are a thing of the past for this matured industry.The sooner it stops whining and accepts the facts, the better will it be for the future.
(PS: The author contacted us through the ‘contribute’ page – We have started a new ‘guest-strater’ account for posters who may post with a lower frequency than our regular poster. To avail of this opportunity, write to us here )
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5 Responses to “More US visas for Indian IT companies ?”
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I agree with the author on the fact that most of these body-shopped IT professionals are really not worth it (I myself have seen quite a few of them, with “US exposure” written firmly on their CVs, when all they did there was back end jobs).
However, I do not agree on two counts:
1. The author has jacketed ALL IT companies in one bracket. This is far from the truth – a look at all the IT giants – Yahoo, Google, Microsoft, Adobe, Versata etc – well the proportion of Indians with IIT / NIT / Tier A engineering college degrees far outnumber any other race. This is not a mere armchair statement, one of my IIT KGP colleagues, currently at MSFT HO at RFedmond, has done a study on this. This is because of the simple fact that the best Indian students make it to these top flight companies, and generally are pretty sincere to make it to the top tier.
2. Average quality of education – what exactly? Well, in some courses like CS, EE etc, we Indians have more papers in IEEE etc than our American counterparts, books written by our professors are taught in major US Universities (again, this is not an armchair statement – Professor Partha Pratim Chakrabarty of IIT KGP is a well read author in Stanford and MIT). Well, in ALL fields of study, the average quality may not be right up there, but at least in IT related fields, our top flight institutions impart almost the same quality, if not better, education.
Setting the record straight to dispel the author’s false statements.
False: The program was NOT created to allow people with superior knowledge/degrees/experience to be able to work in USA on a path which would ultimately lead to permanent residents
True: Congress created the H-1B visa program so an employer could hire a foreign guest-worker when a qualified American worker could not be found.
According to Senator Dick Durbin, “the H-1B visa program should complement the U.S. workforce, not replace it. However, the H-1B visa program is plagued with fraud and abuse and is now a vehicle for outsourcing that deprives qualified American workers of their jobs. Our bill will put a stop to the outsourcing of American jobs and discrimination against American workers.”
Pass S887 and end H-1b and L-1 Visa Fraud and Abuse
Posting on behalf of the author of this post:
Response to Kaushik
Just as you can give examples of IIT scholars working at MSFT Redmond,I can also give examples of people originally bodyshopped by TCS into the same MSFT Redmond campus and who are now on the payroll of
MSFT.MSFT is not a company of-for-by geniuses as you think.
Looking at the size of the IT industry and number of H-1 visas filed each year by Indian IT companies, do the math and see if it is possible that all IT professionals can be from “premier Institutes” in India.Hence the use of the term “average”.Can you suggest any other metric to decide the quality for such a large & diverse population ? Anyways, the original post was not about discussing the quality of IIT students or faculty or MSFT for that matter.
Response to pass887
I did not quote the exact reason for creation of H-1B visas from any US constitution policy manual (and neither did I claim that I did so) If you look at the number of green cards awarded each year through sponsorship, it is roughly 130K – twice that of 65K which is the number of H-1B visas available each year.Before 2000, when the number of H-1Bs was a steady 65K per annum, it was an unwritten rule that so long as people stuck with the same company for 4 years, a Green Card was a certainty in the EB2 category.(This period has now increased a lot for the EB-2 category.)..hence my statement….
The point is that smart people from other nationalities and branches in Engineering and Science should also get a chance to work in
USA.They should not be crowded out by Indian IT firms who are well versed with the process of filing visas (and who can always abuse the
L-1 Visa program).
1.The point is that smart people from other nationalities and branches in Engineering and Science should also get a chance to work in
USA
So says the author – well and true. Who is stopping them? BTW, a lot of Indians working in other branches of engineering work in the US too.
2.They should not be crowded out by Indian IT firms who are well versed with the process of filing visas – so says the author
Who is stopping the other IT firms from other countries in being smart enough? I always thought the smartest wins
3. I can also give examples of people originally bodyshopped by TCS into the same MSFT Redmond campus and who are now on the payroll of
MSFT.MSFT is not a company of-for-by geniuses as you think – so says the author.
OK, but do they have the same designations? And yes, there are accountants, software guys etc in top consulting firms and I-banks too. So, do we start saying that GS, DB, McK, BNP are of-for-by top MBA guys as the world thinks?
4. Looking at the size of the IT industry and number of H-1 visas filed each year by Indian IT companies, do the math and see if it is possible that all IT professionals can be from “premier Institutes” in India.
Even that was what I said – but what I didn’t say is that all are products of body shops.
5. With due respect to the author, I suppose he / she being an alum – have taken one of these three routes to US
(a) PhD
(b) Entrepreneurship
(c) Working for some top I-bank / Consultancy
I have nothing to say in case of (b). In (a) and (c), I think he/ she should question his/her position first – why are there so many Indians in the US I-banks working at lower bonuses? Why are there so many Indians running for US PhDs? Don’t kid me that all of them are excellent researchers. I have seen enough of these PhD/ MS students in life running off to tier 2 / 3 /4 US colleges
So, do we start saying that GS, DB, McK, BNP are of-for-by top MBA guys as the world thinks?
there was an error in this statement – it should be
So, do we start saying that GS, DB, McK, BNP are NOT of-for-by top MBA guys as the world thinks?