Nandita Gurjar, group human resource (HR) head of Infosys, has been quite busy lately. She and her team have interviewed at least 800 project managers, product architects and software testing professionals in 10 locations in the last few weeks. Her target is to get 1,000 technical people on board in the next 12 months. The Infosys team has been trawling through job fairs and advertising in local media for the openings. Hold on. Don’t start rushing off your resumes to her. Indians won’t qualify for these jobs. These openings are for US nationals alone. “The US has a vast talent pool and now is an excellent time to bring some of that talent into Infosys’ global team,” says Gurjar. Not quite what you were expecting, right?
10 Years Of Backlash
1998 – 2000
Worried about the Y2K bug, US government increases H1B visas to 195,000 visas per year. Indian IT companies jump at the opportunity and offshoring industry booms.
2001Dotcom bust. US tech companies start laying off workers and send work offshore to reduce costs.
2003
Worried about job losses in the US, politicians demand that US government cut down on H1B visas from 195,000 to 65,000 each year.
2004
Foreign media coins the term “Bangalored” to capture the phenomenon of software jobs moving offshore to low-cost locations.
2005
Worried that a shortage of skilled technical labour could harm their companies, CEOs like Bill Gates caution the US government against cutting down on H1B visas.
(This story appears in the 11 September, 2009 issue of Forbes India. To visit our Archives, click here.)